Staff Reductions Coming To ADs

[AppStFan1]

I am posting this here because this has been brought up before and I fully expect App will have to do this as well. We don't need to reduce salaries but there is some bloat in positions. We could merge some positions and give certain people say a 15-20k raise to do both and then still save money on merging positions. A lot of bloat in ADs these days.

https://www.wholehogsports.com/news/202 ... e-sharing/

[AppSt94]

Trimming the fat would imply that one has fat to trim.

[AppStFan1]

Trimming the fat would imply that one has fat to trim.

All the power programs do and even we could cut some positions. We did just fine before 2015 and did not have near the amount of jobs as we do now. Our problem is we have a bloated department in terms of numbers and because of that we don't pay enough. I am sure we could cut enough positions to give everyone remaining a little bit of a raise and still save 500k or so in the athletic department.

[BambooRdApp]

Trimming the fat would imply that one has fat to trim.

All the power programs do and even we could cut some positions. We did just fine before 2015 and did not have near the amount of jobs as we do now. Our problem is we have a bloated department in terms of numbers and because of that we don't pay enough. I am sure we could cut enough positions to give everyone remaining a little bit of a raise and still save 500k or so in the athletic department.

So, what positions should be cut and what other position should take on the added responsibility?
We are not in 2015 anymore and we do not need to go back to 2015.

[AppStFan1]

Trimming the fat would imply that one has fat to trim.

All the power programs do and even we could cut some positions. We did just fine before 2015 and did not have near the amount of jobs as we do now. Our problem is we have a bloated department in terms of numbers and because of that we don't pay enough. I am sure we could cut enough positions to give everyone remaining a little bit of a raise and still save 500k or so in the athletic department.

So, what positions should be cut and what other position should take on the added responsibility?
We are not in 2015 anymore and we do not need to go back to 2015.

I would rather pay one person 150k that might be asked to do a few more duties but get a better quality and more well rounded employee than pay 60k to 4-5 people right now. We lose out on a lot of good people because we pay awful. I don't want to go back to 2015 but there is some bloat.

Our SID has 6 people and we could work with 4. SEC teams have departments bigger than us but they are wasting money. Do we really need 5 assistant coaches in basketball? I think we could work with 3-4. Women's basketball does not need 6 total coaches. 3-4 would be fine. Football is bloated a little bit. We don't need an assistant secondary coach. We have multiple assistant directors in areas when we just need one.

I would love to see a complete list of all the duties of everyone on our staff directory page. I'm sure if we did an audit we could see that we could cut 10-15 positions in the athletics department and I am sure we have bloat in academics as well.

[AppSt94]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

[BambooRdApp]

Trimming the fat would imply that one has fat to trim.

All the power programs do and even we could cut some positions. We did just fine before 2015 and did not have near the amount of jobs as we do now. Our problem is we have a bloated department in terms of numbers and because of that we don't pay enough. I am sure we could cut enough positions to give everyone remaining a little bit of a raise and still save 500k or so in the athletic department.

So, what positions should be cut and what other position should take on the added responsibility?
We are not in 2015 anymore and we do not need to go back to 2015.

I would rather pay one person 150k that might be asked to do a few more duties but get a better quality and more well rounded employee than pay 60k to 4-5 people right now. We lose out on a lot of good people because we pay awful. I don't want to go back to 2015 but there is some bloat.

Our SID has 6 people and we could work with 4. SEC teams have departments bigger than us but they are wasting money. Do we really need 5 assistant coaches in basketball? I think we could work with 3-4. Women's basketball does not need 6 total coaches. 3-4 would be fine. Football is bloated a little bit. We don't need an assistant secondary coach. We have multiple assistant directors in areas when we just need one.

I would love to see a complete list of all the duties of everyone on our staff directory page. I'm sure if we did an audit we could see that we could cut 10-15 positions in the athletics department and I am sure we have bloat in academics as well.

So, what analysis have you completed to come to a conclusion that we do not need 5 or 6 assistant coaches in basketball?

[ASUTodd]

I came from a police department that asked certain folks to do everything. It burned them out. I took a paycut to go to a sheriff's office where I did one specific thing for less money. My life is SOOOOOOO much better now and the Sheriff's office knows that the job Im doing will be done right because I can focus on it. I get what people say about bloat but some positions have to be focused on what they do and when you lump other jobs on them, it cuts the quality down.

[AtlAppMan]

I don’t know the details of what we have vs what is expected but I bet you most App staff have to do more with less.

That being said how many times does the management say “we must double down our efforts”? You will not get double down results after the third or fourth round. There is nothing left. Burnt out as another said above.

The best approach is to hire and retain top quality talent. You will get the best results but you do have to pay at least competitive compensation.

[311neers]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

[AppStFan1]

I don’t know the details of what we have vs what is expected but I bet you most App staff have to do more with less.

That being said how many times does the management say “we must double down our efforts”? You will not get double down results after the third or fourth round. There is nothing left. Burnt out as another said above.

The best approach is to hire and retain top quality talent. You will get the best results but you do have to pay at least competitive compensation.

What you guys are saying is ideal if you got tons of money and pay very well but we don’t. We don’t pay competitive money overall.

Do you know how much we pay player personnel for example? Our GM, football ops director, portal scout, and personnel director are all underpaid. If you guys don’t want to downsize then give enough so we can pay them all well over 150k. We get people like Guerry and others from past because we didn’t have the money to pay what we should. Ideally I would say 200k but we need to get them all up to 150k first.

[AppStFan1]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

Quality is more important than quantity. Hiring more people does not always helps. Sometimes you can have too many cooks in the kitchen.

[AppSt94]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

Quality is more important than quantity. Hiring more people does not always helps. Sometimes you can have too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yes. But that isn’t the case at App.

[BambooRdApp]

The chef is the front desk hostess and the waiter/waitress all at the same time....let's add dishwasher responsibilities... they got time to do it.

[AppStFan1]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

Quality is more important than quantity. Hiring more people does not always helps. Sometimes you can have too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yes. But that isn’t the case at App.

Well then we should be paying more to increase quality in some of these roles. Coaches use to do that stuff as well and we paid them way less but they did a better job at finding under radar players than we have lately. Hope this new staff will do great but if they do then we will have to increase pay big time to keep them.

[AppSt94]

I don’t think that you fully grasp how grossly understaffed we are already. A person only has so much bandwidth to get their job done, adding more pay to offset the added responsibilities isn’t the answer.

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

Quality is more important than quantity. Hiring more people does not always helps. Sometimes you can have too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yes. But that isn’t the case at App.

Well then we should be paying more to increase quality in some of these roles. Coaches use to do that stuff as well and we paid them way less but they did a better job at finding under radar players than we have lately. Hope this new staff will do great but if they do then we will have to increase pay big time to keep them.

Yes. You are right. We should dust off the box that’s holding the combination to the war chest of cash that we have stashed away in the basement of the Ricks Center. GTFOH with this “we need to pay better” when you clearly have no clue what it means to work within a budget.

[AppStFan1]

Agreed. We need the quantity to recruit, retain and mentor/coach...especially in this new transfer portal era. This is nothing like 2015. It used to be a 40 hour week, now it's 60 hours. You need numbers and volume.

Quality is more important than quantity. Hiring more people does not always helps. Sometimes you can have too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yes. But that isn’t the case at App.

Well then we should be paying more to increase quality in some of these roles. Coaches use to do that stuff as well and we paid them way less but they did a better job at finding under radar players than we have lately. Hope this new staff will do great but if they do then we will have to increase pay big time to keep them.

Yes. You are right. We should dust off the box that’s holding the combination to the war chest of cash that we have stashed away in the basement of the Ricks Center. GTFOH with this we need to pay better when you clearly have no clue what it means to work within a budget.

I know what it means to work within a budget and have had to oversee a very tight budget before. I also thought outside of the box to find ways to still get results that you would expect with a bigger budget.

You and some others keep pounding the table about this problem. How many times do we have to hear it? We all know about it. Do you have ideas on how to raise more money or do you have the money to give? If you don't then we just sound like babies complaining on a message board. It is a dead horse that some people keep wanting to beat.

What do you suggest we do to improve results? One of mine is that if we focus more money from some departments that are not as critical and push to get better evaluators and broaden our search that it could help us find more sleepers by trimming any position that is not critical and downsize some positions in order to pay better to attract better candidates.

[AppState222]

I would love to see a complete list of all the duties of everyone on our staff directory page. I'm sure if we did an audit we could see that we could cut 10-15 positions in the athletics department and I am sure we have bloat in academics as well.

Let's have everyone email Gillian 5 bullet points of what they do every week and DOGE anyone that doesnt do something that provides value according to AppStFan1

[AppStFan1]

I would love to see a complete list of all the duties of everyone on our staff directory page. I'm sure if we did an audit we could see that we could cut 10-15 positions in the athletics department and I am sure we have bloat in academics as well.

Let's have everyone email Gillian 5 bullet points of what they do every week and DOGE anyone that doesnt do something that provides value according to AppStFan1

Seriously, have you not wondered what some of the duties for certain job titles include? It’s not as bad at App as it is in the SEC but there are jobs that sound like they could be merged with another. Why would one director role have two assistant directors?

If our AD wants us to give more money and depends on our funding don’t you think our boosters have a right to know how it’s being spent? I don’t see schools who draw less money than us in the SBC complain like some of our fans do.

[Bootsy]

Caution should be taken here not to paint with a broad brush. The financial realities, staffing levels and staff efficacy at each institution vary widely and due to any number of factors.

Outside of the top/bottom of the college sports food chain, I’m not sure it’s fair to make arbitrary judgements based on the size of a school’s current athletic staffing/budget.