Prioritizing Staff Retention to Build an Inclusive Institutional Culture in Higher Ed
As the Great Resignation rebrands to the Great Reshuffling, staff retention at higher education institutions remains as important as ever. EAB Analysis of 2021 CUPA-HR data found that higher education institutions lost about 650,000 workers in 2020, whether to retirement, resignations, or involuntary separations. Between 2020-2021, the rate of staff turnover from resignation came out on top as nearly 10 percent of non-exempt full-time staff and eight percent of exempt full-time staff left higher education.
While many institutions cannot change pay grades nor their location, there are retention best practices which can enhance an inclusive culture on campus. For example, institutions can embed intentional and inclusive staff retention practices by tracking demographic data and collecting feedback, creating flexible work options and transparent career pathways, and integrating training and hiring efforts within the local community. Such retention efforts are proactive, rather than passive, because they encompass the entirety of the employment lifecycle, encourage employee participation, and build relationships and trust.
With holistic retention practices, higher education institutions can create a welcoming work environment for a diverse workforce and enhance their reputations as an employer of choice. As your institution continues to build an inclusive culture, there are three common gaps to address related to retention:
- Collect data to understand baselines and set trackable goals
- Engage staff in establishing new workplace norms
- Hire local to support the regional workforce
Develop data collection methods to set retention goals and monitor progress
The first step in measuring progress is to understand the institution’s status quo. Therefore, start with collecting data from internal and external sources to understand baseline metrics and prioritize areas for improvement. Once the baselines and benchmarks are set, you can measure your institution’s progress towards a truly diverse workforce and inclusive institutional culture.
Use external data to benchmark your institution against regional and national labor market data
Institutions can unpack demographic data and identify industry standards like compensation benefits by analyzing information from peer institutions, other companies in the region, and similar schools across the country. Additionally, understanding national and local turnover rates and labor shortages will pinpoint whether issues are institution-specific or part of a wider labor issue.
Places to collect external data:
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics can help you understand how your institution’s salaries compare to national averages.
- The U.S. Census can help you compare your institution’s demographics against your state’s, and provides several data equity tools to improve your evidence-based DEIJ efforts including the ability to identify underserved areas in your community.
- The National Center for Education Statistics provides demographic data and trends throughout the U.S. including faculty pay by gender and racial/ethnic breakdowns of both staff and faculty.
- The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System is a helpful way to compare your school’s data against other institutions.
Track demographic data throughout the employee lifecycle
Track demographic data to understand who is in your applicant pool and how the pool changes throughout the interview process. Who is ultimately being offered positions and who chooses to accept or deny an offer? This information also helps pinpoint gaps like areas that are struggling to attract a diverse pipeline of candidates or places where talent continues to depart after one to two years.
You can also use this information to analyze progress towards institution-wide DEIJ recruitment and retention goals. Update this data to track trends as employees accept promotions, earn raises, or eventually leave. See examples from two partner institutions below.
- Interactive dashboards at the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Office of Institutional Research allow internal and external stakeholders to view racial and gender breakdowns for employees, including data by college, tenure, and new hires. The dashboards also provide simple line graphs to illustrate the data’s historical trends.
- The University of Washington began publishing an annual staff demographic report in 2020 to aid their Diversity Blueprint goal of attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. In addition to looking at all staff and new hires, they also provide information on the year’s terminations and applicants. Their report moves beyond gender and race/ethnicity to address veterans and staff with disabilities as well. Rather than simply report numbers and percentages, the university goes one step further to provide analysis and observations.
Create a listening strategy with frequent opportunities for feedback
Beyond campus-wide climate surveys, many opportunities to collect feedback throughout the year already exist on campus. Pulse check surveys, town halls, and performance reviews are helpful ways to gather real-time data on current issues and questions from employees. Platforms like Blackboard, Qualtrics, Microsoft, and Google Forms all provide ways to create and send surveys with straightforward results. Gathering more continuous feedback helps gauge progress on current university initiatives.
University of Alberta created a landing page to share various ways employees can provide ongoing feedback. The page includes a link to a digital feedback form, dates for community town halls, open university meetings, and results from monthly pulse check surveys.
Deploy exit surveys to better understand who leaves and why
Engaging employees on their way out is your final opportunity to collect honest, constructive feedback that can be used to target areas for improvement. Institutions can connect employee feedback with demographic data such as gender, length of employment, and pay to understand whether shared trends exist amongst departing employees.
The University of California, Berkeley engages departing employees in both exit interviews and surveys to track the school’s attrition rates, better understand their “competitive positioning in the marketplace,” and to collect recommendations for improving retention. The university uses real-time dashboards to track exit data that can be segmented by demographics and time.
Use other school’s exit surveys to help guide the development or improvement of your own:
This resource requires EAB partnership access to view.
Access the research report
Learn how you can get access to this resource as well as hands-on support from our experts through Strategic Advisory Services.
Learn More