After the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions, like many other organizations, faced significant challenges that required a restructuring of their strategic planning processes to improve retention rates and attract new students. In this context, roadmaps became essential tools for guiding organizational recovery and growth. According to Kim & Gonzales-Black (2018), organizations become more responsive and successful when they focus on building roadmaps and logic models rather than merely dictating specific actions. Consequently, many educational institutions strengthened their marketing strategies, readjusted instructional methodologies, redesigned surveys to obtain more meaningful feedback and identify opportunities for improvement, expanded professional development opportunities for faculty, and implemented more personalized student support and monitoring systems. However, the most critical challenge was ensuring that everyone shared the same vision of the optimal future state needed to achieve the institution’s strategic objectives.
A subsequent challenge emerged once these plans proved successful. Following extensive layoffs, many institutions were operating with the smallest workforce possible. As enrollment growth strategies produced positive results, institutions that experienced rapid increases in student enrollment and high retention rates soon found themselves lacking the personnel necessary to meet the growing demand. Consequently, they faced an urgent need to expand their workforce while maintaining the quality of services provided to students.
According to Albizu & Rodríguez (2013), strategy is the essential element of an organization. Managers must achieve a competitive advantage through value creation or differentiation, which requires efficient planning and execution. Organizational success largely depends on attracting, developing, and retaining talented employees who work collaboratively and generate trust within the institution. As educational institutions managed a growing student population, workloads increased considerably. However, because the future state envisioned in their roadmaps had become a reality, insufficient attention was paid to the impact of this growth on employees. As a result, many institutions experienced staff turnover, increased training costs associated with hiring new personnel, and periods during which students received less personalized attention.
The missing component in many institutions’ strategic planning efforts was a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) perspective. According to Slaper (2011), the TBL is an accounting framework that incorporates three dimensions of performance: social, environmental, and financial. Unlike traditional reporting frameworks, the TBL includes ecological and social measures that are often more difficult to quantify. These dimensions are commonly referred to as the three Ps: people, planet, and profit.
Within educational institutions, greater attention must be devoted to the people dimension. In many cases, significant efforts were made to support the external customer (the student) while insufficient attention was given to the internal customer (the employees), who constitute the foundation of institutional operations. From a financial perspective, student enrollment continued to increase, and from an environmental perspective, many institutions transitioned to online or hybrid learning models, which reduced the use of physical resources and contributed to greater sustainability. However, the social dimension, particularly employee well-being and retention, often received less consideration.
Kim & Gonzales-Black (2018) also argues that planning is frequently confused with control. He provides the example of learning management systems being used to monitor faculty logins rather than to evaluate meaningful outcomes. A similar situation can be observed among administrative staff in educational institutions. Because a large proportion of employees now work remotely, some organizations continue to question whether employees are actually sitting in front of their computers throughout the workday. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that this perspective is increasingly outdated. The number of hours spent in front of a computer should not be the primary measure of performance; instead, organizations should focus on outcomes and results. If strategic planning has led the institution to achieve its goals, then both faculty and staff have demonstrated that they are working effectively toward the desired objectives.
The post-pandemic experience demonstrated that strategic planning can successfully increase enrollment, improve retention, and promote more sustainable educational models. Nevertheless, long-term institutional success requires balancing all dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line. Educational institutions that focus primarily on financial performance and student satisfaction while neglecting employee well-being risk creating operational challenges that may ultimately undermine their achievements. Sustainable growth can only be achieved when students, employees, and institutional goals advance together.
References
Albizu, E. y Rodríguez, L. (2013) Dirección estratégica de los recursos humanos: teoría y práctica, 2nd ed. Pyramid Editions.
Kim, A. & Gonzales-Black, A. (2018) The new school rules: 6 vital practices for thriving and responsive schools, 1st ed. Corwin.
Slaper, T. (2011) The Triple Bottom Line: What is it and how does it work? https://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr/2011/spring/article2.html#ftn1