Higher ed leaders across the U.S. are increasingly under pressure to address burnout among faculty. According to a 2024 Healthy Minds Network survey, more than half of faculty and staff said their job negatively affected their mental or emotional health, with nearly six in 10 reporting feeling burnt out because of work.
For faculty, higher ed procurement teams can more effectively alleviate pressures from their jobs by minimizing their daily tasks. Since instruction is a critical role, it’s essential to reduce administrative burdens where possible, allowing them to focus on delivering high-quality education.
As a B2B provider, Amazon Business can help ease faculty purchasing. Many colleges and universities require faculty to purchase supplies essential for instruction. By optimizing this process, institutions can help faculty save time, reduce frustration, and feel more empowered in their roles. Here are five strategies to enhance efficiency in faculty purchasing.
1. Streamline the purchasing experience with fewer websites
Faculty often navigate multiple vendor websites before logging into their institution’s e-procurement system to complete a purchase. Tools like Integrated Search helps avoid this time-consuming and inefficient process by installing a search functionality into an institution’s current e-procurement system, such as Jaggaer, which allows faculty to filter by category, brand, and specific product needs.
This reduces clicks and makes searching and purchasing from their current buying solution easier. By centralizing searches within one location, institutions can improve ease of use and ensure vendor compliance.
2. Simplify access to Amazon Business via procurement systems
Rather than Amazon Business integrating a search engine into an institution’s e-procurement system, faculty can leverage Punchout, a purchasing system integration that enables direct access to Amazon Business within their institution’s e-procurement system.
This feature empowers faculty to browse, select, and transfer items seamlessly into their purchasing workflow for approval. Additionally, Punchout helps ensure purchases follow their buying policies while maintaining a user-friendly experience.
Once the selection is complete, the cart can transfer back to the e-procurement system for approval and order processing, ensuring all purchases follow protocol and providing a simplified purchasing experience.
3. Enhance organization with pre-set product lists
Faculty often rely on bookmarks or open multiple browser tabs when searching for frequently needed supplies, like classroom and office supplies, or tech and presentation equipment if they fall within budget limits. This often leads to disorganization and inefficiencies.
Business Lists offer a more structured approach. Faculty can create and manage lists of regularly purchased items, allowing for quick reorders and easy sharing among colleagues. This not only reduces time spent searching for products but also improves collaboration across departments.
4. Reduce administrative email traffic
When administrators don’t have oversight over purchases, it creates churn when it comes time to reconcile and finalize purchases. Without clear oversight, faculty and administrators may engage in lengthy email exchanges to track and reconcile purchases. Faculty, who already manage high volumes of student and departmental communication, can find this additional burden distracting.
Approval Workflows and Amazon Business Analytics provide real-time oversight, reducing the need for back-and-forth emails between administrators and faculty. Administrators can review and approve purchase requests quickly, while the analytics-driven dashboards offer immediate insights on ways to optimize spending and make better purchasing decisions.
5. Maintain policy-compliant purchasing while preserving faculty autonomy
Discussions about non-compliant purchases can be stressful for both faculty and administrators. Guided Buying helps mitigate these challenges by displaying policy notifications on relevant product pages and search results. Faculty receive clear guidance on preferred vendors and purchasing policies, steering buyers to the right products and empowering administrators to set limits.
At Emory University, a campus that utilizes Amazon Business, Procurement System Administrator Christopher Stokes highlights the flexibility of Guided Buying: “It doesn’t stop them from actually creating that cart and sending it to the system, which is great.” This approach strikes a balance between adherence to procurement policies and faculty autonomy.
While optimizing the purchasing process is just one aspect of addressing faculty burnout, it represents a meaningful step toward reducing stress, while reducing the time and effort they spend on navigating complex purchasing processes.
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