University of Connecticut leaders said Monday there would be no layoffs as part of a university-commissioned review of operations, although the review's new findings suggest other structural changes may be ahead.

Higher education consulting firm The Segal Group issued its findings during a virtual information session with university leaders on Monday.

The review, launched in August 2025, aims to align university operations with "evolving institutional needs," officials said at the time. UConn has faced a major budget shortfall that put staff positions, department funding and research support under pressure, while fears of further cuts have persisted in recent months.

While there were initial concerns about potential job cuts due to the consultant's work, Segal's recommendations issued Monday focused on addressing low morale, heavy workloads, inefficiencies across departments and other operational issues. The firm did not recommend eliminating positions or reducing the workforce size.

"We are not, because of financial difficulties, laying off people," said UConn President Radenka Maric during the virtual information session on Monday. She said the university is instead examining how it can better serve students and the broader campus community.

Since the organizational assessment launched last August, Segal has been hearing from staff, faculty and leaders through interviews, feedback sessions and campus visits, university officials said during the information session on Monday.

Now, Segal has compiled its findings and recommendations based on those conversations and a review of UConn's organizational charts and strategic plans, and best practices at other universities, said Scott Nostaja, senior vice president and national organizational effectiveness practice leader at Segal.

The consulting firm identified four focus areas.

Segal identified a lack of specialized expertise within roles and departments, with staff juggling multiple duties in all sorts of areas, and departments being too isolated from one another, that contributed to a larger structural issue at UConn. One person often manages a department or unit's HR, finance and payroll processing, administrative support, travel, purchasing, and marketing and communications tasks.

"Layers upon layers of responsibilities got added on to key staff in each area of the university," Nostaja said. The approach had seemed to be "let's do more with less," he said.

Overall, Segal found this led to a higher risk of errors, workflow confusion, prolonged turnaround times, employee burnout, lack of standardization and inefficiencies, and was "unsustainable."

But Nostaja clarified that wasn't commentary on the quality or effort of staff.

"They've been placed in almost an impossible situation to have to deliver so many levels of services, utilizing multiple systems, needing to know multiple processes, and just unable to kind of keep up in an efficient way, trying their hardest, trying their best, knowing that those challenges exist," he said.

Maric also expressed a similar sentiment, and said that she heard that staff felt overwhelmed and overloaded.

Segal recommended UConn undertake an organizational redesign, and create a more specialized system with clearer roles and standardized processes. Specifically, UConn should first focus on HR, centralizing routine HR and payroll tasks in a shared services system. The university will create a team to focus on this in the coming months.

Similarly, Segal recommended that UConn restructure its marketing and communications functions to create a more central unit, with another team in charge of doing this.

The next key finding in Segal's presentation focused on UConn's processes, technology and systems.

The presentation said UConn's operations are often slowed by poor communication, disconnected departments, too many approval steps and complicated, inconsistent processes.

"We see this at other universities, is that most of the systems are not integrated ... and so you're literally logging in and out of multiple systems every day just to get your job done," Nostaja said.

Such process issues led to confusion, delays, heavy workloads and errors, according to Segal.

Instead, the university should eliminate or reduce certain burdensome administrative processes, revise policies, and leverage technology, Nostaja said.

As Segal listened to faculty and staff, one strength prevailed despite the challenges, Nostaja said.

"People love the University of Connecticut, and they're committed to its mission," he said. "So the story isn't all negative or all bad news or all challenges."

At the same time, the consultants found low morale driven by ongoing uncertainty, whether from financial challenges, reductions from the state or federal government and other concerns.

"And so you have this sort of interesting dynamic going on that, on the one hand, people are super proud to be at the University of Connecticut, but a fair amount of fear, fear of uncertainty," Nostaja said.

Overall, UConn must make an intentional effort to improve culture and morale, and work to increase transparency and elevate communication, Nostaja said. Segal recommended UConn initiate a university-wide cultural transformation initiative, and establish regular information sessions and collect input.

Segal's assessment also found a lack of clarity around UConn's strategic direction, questions about how the university is responding to new federal policies and the political climate, and a desire for the university to update how it is responding to the changes and challenges it faces.

"And so the desire here wasn't to reimagine or rethink the strategic plan, but maybe fine tune it. Are we being real with today's current environment, are we being realistic?" Nostaja said. He said Segal recommended taking a look at making minor tweaks to the plan, "just so your strategic plan is honest and genuine and aligned to your needs of the future."

According to the presentation, the plan should address the current state of the budget, respond to evolving federal policies and administrative changes, standardize policies and procedures across regional campuses and strengthen research funding strategies.

The university will be outlining its next steps, according to an April 6 message from university officials.

Renee Boggis, associate vice president of human resources, said during Monday's information session that the findings and recommendations were part of an ongoing process, and did not mark a conclusion.

"There's no immediate changes to goals or day-to-day work because of today's presentation," Boggis said.

She noted that feedback sessions would be occurring over the next several weeks, and that the university would continue to communicate future opportunities for engagement and updates on Segal's work.

This article originally published at Firm recommends changes at UConn to address low faculty morale, overburdened staff, inefficiencies.