Frans Möhring: 'We really need to adjust as Fontys'

He was presented by the Supervisory Board in September as a "true connector." Frans Möhring had been working at Fontys as director of P&O since 2019 and had briefly served as interim board member at Fontys in 2022. "That was unexpected for me at the time. I found it exciting and fun. That's why I didn't have to think long to apply when Hans Nederlof left this year.'

'What makes me a connector? I guess because I like to make things simple and ask open-minded questions, perhaps precisely because of my HR background.' Like last week, when he led the conversation as a kind of talk show host at the Fontys Management Event about the development towards talent-oriented education and the vision of internationalisation, both important items on the Fontys agenda and fodder for discussion.

Uniform

"I don't find discussions in which people keep trying to convince each other that they are right really all that interesting. Real concerns, fears and ambitions do not come to the surface then. I am a Rijnlands thinker and that means that together we look at how we can really help Fontys move forward.

As an example, he mentions the movement Fontys is making towards a more uniform set-up of processes. 'If you ask further questions, it turns out that it is not necessarily a matter of central or decentralized, but that sometimes there is a lack of trust that things are handled well centrally. That's not surprising if you're used to managing things in your own "business unit."'

Institutions are sometimes afraid of taking a step back as a result, he notes. 'So it's about gaining confidence that we can get it right centrally and then that applies only to what is really best organized centrally.That's what you want to get to the top.I hope I can play a connecting role in that.'

Shrinkage

It is not an easy time to take a seat in the board, now that Fontys is facing shrinking student numbers: there are already 9 percent fewer students than a few years ago and this demographic decline will continue for some time. In addition, the NPO funds, the "covid aid" from the government, will expire next year. Möhrings predecessor and also chairman of the board Joep Houterman have called attention to this before: it will have consequences for the workforce. That will decrease correspondingly. Operations will also have to become more efficient.

See also the interview in Source: Fontys is on the eve of cutbacks due to shrinkage (in dutch).

'We as a college have just set the budget for 2024. A negative budget. It means that we are cutting into our reserves, although we are still financially healthy .But we really need to make adjustments, otherwise we will have a problem in two or three years. For we know that this is not a temporary dip.' Due to demographic developments, the number of 17- and 18-year-old school leavers in North Brabant and Limburg is declining. And that is Fontys' largest target group.The tipping point from continued growth to contraction will be reached in 2022.

Wage costs

'Wage costs are the largest cost item in education. A recent study by Berenschot (which is not yet public, ed.) also shows that Fontys has a relatively large number of staff in relation to the number of students. More than other universities of applied sciences.This is partly explained by the fact that we have several locations and by our decentralized structure.That's why harmonizing processes is so important.'

The aging workforce is also going to give Fontys a hand. The Board thinks that through natural turnover a large part of the shrinkage can be absorbed. Many employees will be retiring in the coming years. 'Although with that a lot of knowledge also disappears, I think this can help us, added with people going elsewhere. We also have to take into account that colleagues experience a high workload and that our absenteeism is high. For me an indication that we really need to organize some things differently.'

To his mind, Fontys is 'halfway to the seesaw': 'The advantages of the old model still seem quite handy.But they don't work if we want to make the necessary new connections. We just don't have the advantages of the new model right away either.'

Good education

The directors of institutes and services have already been asked to look critically at their 2024 staffing and budget. Will he himself go into the Christmas vacations with peace of mind? 'Yes. At the moment I am thinking - á lá Angela Merkel: 'Wir schaffen das'. For the time being we are not losing any substantial market share, by which I mean: within our own sphere of influence we are apparently doing well enough.Fontys has a solid budget and we offer quality education, which is needed in this region.

'But,' he says, 'we don't know how the shrinkage will continue in the coming years, so that remains exciting. Also how we can then responsibly move our staffing levels with it.'

'In the meantime, we have to stick to our course, which is good. That means expanding our portfolio with college masters, for example, investing in the professional market as part of Lifelong Development. Highlighting our talent-oriented education and preventing dropouts.There is a good vision of our internationalisation policy. Applied research also attracts jobs. Fontys is big, it is logical that it is not going fast. I hope we can make solid steps there in 2024. this region.