Organisation and employees

Employees

At the end of 2017, BI had a total of 851 employees. The total figures include 447 administrative staff and 404 faculty members.

The figures correspond to 775.65 full-time equivalents, an increase of 18.95 full-time equivalents from 2016. The increase is mainly due to an increase in the number of administrative full-time equivalents (13.55). BI’s activity related to the necessary digitalisation of education activities and operations requires a digital competence increase, as well as strengthened capacity within project management and project support. The total number of faculty full-time equivalents was 341.65. The number of professors at BI totals 123, of these, 31 were in positions as Adjunct Professor. The number of faculty members with an international background is stable at around 30 per cent. In addition to BI’s faculty, 393 lecturers were associated with BI in 2017*.

*figures for employees may deviate from the statistics in DBH. This is because the reporting to DBH is current as of 1 October, while the figures in BI’s annual report are current as of 31 December.

Organisation and organisational development

Strengthened interaction across organisational boundaries was an important part of the work on developing organisational capacity and management capacity to realise BI’s strategic ambitions and to ensure efficient operations.

In order to further develop BI’s strategic and operative drive, the President introduced an expanded management meeting where BI’s academic leaders – deans and department heads – as well as the President’s Management Team, would meet every month. The ambition was to strengthen decisions and to ensure joint attention and prioritisations.

Measures to reduce organisational complexity and to increase the organisation’s effectiveness have comprised reorganisation of the Digital unit, as well as the Full-Time Division, and establishing a unit for project management and support.

In order to ensure educational transformation and strengthen interaction with external partners, a new management model was developed, with three Provosts and a new dean for “teaching and learning”, which will be operative from August 2018.

Projects

Many of BI’s ongoing projects aim to increase organisational efficiency and improve multidisciplinary quality. However, several projects have not progressed due to a lack of internal resources. The most critical are project management resources, system development and administrative resources in academic programmes. A new management model for prioritisation of project investments was developed in 2017 and will be implemented in 2018. The model aims to improve the project portfolio through more professional project management and administration.

Highlights in the 2017 project portfolio:

• CRM project: This project was the largest administrative initiative in 2017, and will continue to require a large portion of the internal resources in 2018. The CRM project aims to improve the dialogue with BI’s stakeholders, to optimise activities to attract new students, convert applicants into students, administer and guide students and strengthen the relationships with alumni.
• Business Insights and analytics project: Considerable resources are currently being invested to ensure high-quality reporting to authorities and for necessary data for continuous development and operating decisions.
• Diploma project: This project aims to increase the security, quality and efficiency of production and distribution of BI diplomas, and ensure compliance with national regulations. The project will be completed in 2018 with focus on development of integration with national diploma databases.
• Course development project: Courses are the fundamental building blocks of BI’s study programmes, and course descriptions are an integrated part of course development, revision and quality assurance. Course descriptions describe learning goals and thus define expectations for education and learning. The course development project will establish a joint standard for course descriptions and system support for the entire process, from course design to approval and execution.
• Risk management project: The administration has implemented a project to strengthen the internal control process, including compliance. The first step within this initiative is to establish a framework for risk management that is adapted to BI’s operations, unique features and strategic goals.

Equality, discrimination and accessibility

BI’s plan for diversity and equality ascertains that all employees shall have the same rights, duties and opportunities regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religion or sexual orientation. BI’s equality work has been especially focused on increasing the percentage of women represented among professors, directors, in management and in governing bodies, and on increasing the percentage of men in administrative positions.

At year-end, BI had 26 female professors in full-time positions. BI hired two new female professors in 2017. The percentage of women among professors in full-time positions is just over 28%. The percentage of women in faculty is stable at 31%. Women constituted 33% of the executive management (three out of nine), 50% of the department heads and 50% of the deans were women. Nine of 12 directors at management level 3 are women. The percentage of women in BI’s Board of Trustees is 50%, while it is 40% in the Senate. The percentage of men in administrative positions was just over 32%.

In 2017, 16% of all BI employees were not Norwegian citizens. The percentage was 4% for administrative staff and 30% for all faculty members. Apart from Norway, BI had 45 nationalities represented among its employees in 2017. In order to include everyone with an international background in the working environment, BI aims to make all information available in English, and English is the primary language when the entire organisation is gathered.

Seniors in academic positions work until they reach age 69.5 on average, while administrative seniors work until they reach age 66.3 on average.

BI Norwegian Business School’s buildings are universally designed. Modern buildings and an active focus on facilitation has resulted in no reported deviations caused by a lack of facilitation.

Working environment and HSE

BI shall facilitate an inspiring working environment that promotes individual wellbeing, health, learning and development. The environment shall be characterised by diversity, equality, care and respectful and open communication.

Sick leave

BI’s primary occupational health risk is factors related to stress and interaction, as well as musculoskeletal ailments. A psychosocial counselling service for all employees has contributed to preventing sick leave and conflicts, improved conflict management and increased stress management. The psychosocial counselling, combined with good cooperation with the occupational health service, has contributed to employees returning to work more quickly after illness. The total sick leave at BI rose from 2.15 in 2016 to 2.87 in 2017.

National security and emergency preparedness

A key part of the HSE work involves protecting human life and health. BI has a general emergency preparedness plan that defines responsibilities and risk factors, prevents serious incidents and ensures correct handling if they do occur. A risk and vulnerability analysis (ROS) was conducted in 2017 and risk-reducing measures have been assessed. In 2017, BI carried out a fire drill in student housing. The drill was evaluated and improvement measures are being followed up.

BI has good fire protection routines, with systematic training measures and drills at every campus. An audit by the authorities in 2017 did not result in any required additional measures.

BI’s information security work was reviewed with the Board in 2017. A project was established to ensure compliance with new privacy regulations and a data protection delegate has been appointed.

Framework conditions and compliance

In recent years, Norwegian authorities have placed increased focus on quality and compliance in the university and university college sector in general, and for private higher education institutions in particular. BI Norwegian Business School has been subject to increased audit activities and increased documentation requirements in 2017. The principle that the tuition paid by the students shall benefit the students is important to both the authorities and to BI.

In 2017, a decision was made to phase out the national Network for private higher education (NPH). BI wants to contribute to a good development throughout the entire higher education sector, and has taken on a more central role in the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions in 2017 after the phase-out of NPH.

BI Norwegian Business School has routines for how to handle transactions with close associates to ensure no one receives preferential treatment in the form of terms that are not commercial. The Board hereby declares that transactions with close associates are stipulated according to commercial terms.

The environment and sustainability

BI’s largest environmental footprint is business travel and commuting to and from our campuses. We are working actively to reduce our footprint. For example, BI made significant investments in Skype facilities in 2017, and is working actively to switch over to using digital meetings, which will reduce travel. We are also working to increase digital education services, which will reduce the amount of travelling by our students.

BI purchases voluntary EU emission credits to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions linked to our flights. Furthermore, climate accounts are recorded every two years. In 2017, BI switched partner from myClimate to Cemasys for the climate accounts.

BI carries out systematic environmental and climate work through the Eco-Lighthouse scheme (miljofyrtarn.no). Work is ongoing to revise the goals for sustainable development, including environmental and climate goals. BI reports every second year on the progress within ethics, social responsibility and sustainability to the UN’s “Principles for Responsible Management Education”.  BI’s PRME report is available here http://www.unprme.org/

BI’s four campuses in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim are working on implementation of adopted sustainability goals. The campuses also have specific goals and activities. Construction of BI’s new campus at Brattørkaia in Trondheim started in 2017. This is a Breeam Nor Excellent-certified building which will use energy from solar cells and seawater. Supplied energy is expected to be approx. 27 kwh/square metre/year, which makes the building at Brattørkaia one of the most environmentally friendly school buildings currently being constructed. The building will be ready for the start of studies in 2018. BI also entered into a 15-year lease for a new campus at Byfjordparken in Stavanger from the start of studies in 2019. This building is also Breeam Nor Excellent-certified and will also use solar cells and seawater as energy sources. In Stavanger they expect to only have to supply 10 kwh/square metre energy per square metre/year. In Bergen, the building is classified as an energy class B building and will also use cooling and heating from seawater. BI’s campus in Oslo is connected to the Nydalen Power Plant (geothermal) for addition of heating/cooling and is energy classified as light green C. Continuous work is being carried out on measures to reduce energy consumption in Oslo.

BI conducted a complete waste analysis for campus Nydalen in the autumn of 2017. The waste analysis has led to many new measures and BI’s management has decided that BI’s goal within waste management shall be 65% material recycling by the end of 2022. This is an ambitious goal which will require a conscious focus through procurements, use and disposal. BI tightened up its environmental requirements for purchases in 2017, and this will continue in the future.

BI focuses on reducing food waste and has cooperated with our food and beverage suppliers in 2017 to implement measures to reduce food waste. Several of BI’s suppliers have entered into agreements with “TooGoodToGo” to prevent food waste.

Awards and distinctions

One of BI’s keys to success is our ability to interact well; both internally in centres and the department, but not least interaction across the organisation. The quality of BI’s operations depends on good interaction between academic staff and between academic and administrative staff. BI’s interaction award is given to individuals, projects, groups, centres or departments that have contributed through good interaction to further developing BI’s operations. At the 2017 annual party, the interaction award was given to the project group behind digitalisation of the course “Bedriften”. Atle Ilebekk received an honourable mention in this connection for his social involvement.