As the Total Organizational Health (TOH@UTC) initiative continues for our campus, sometimes we hear stories and review data that show improvements, and other times this information highlights continued pain points and challenges affecting our campus. In this blog post, we are pleased to share some positive and encouraging TOH-related news from the recently completed UT system survey of staff engagement. This annual survey run by the McLean organization was last administered to all UT system staff in late September and early October of 2024. The data from this recurring survey provide insights into how staff employees are feeling about their engagement and general work experiences within UTC and the broader UT system. Although focused on employee engagement, the items in the McLean survey align very closely with the dimensions of the framework that guides the TOH@UTC initiative (shown in the TOH@UTC graphic included at the top of this blog post). As a result, this recurring McLean survey provides an additional perspective and source of data regarding whether and to what extent our ongoing campus TOH efforts are having the intended positive effect.
The overall story to report here is that for the second year in a row, UTC has demonstrated consistent and remarkable improvements and stability with respect to nearly every item included in the McLean survey. What is most exciting, is that these data show that the staff employee experience continues to improve at UTC even while it is decreasing for the general, broader population of educational staff that McLean uses to set its external comparison benchmarks for each year’s survey.
Here is some more specific information from a presentation we recently shared with system leaders who visited campus to review our progress in working to support employee engagement and well-being through our TOH@UTC initiative:
1) UTC staff responded in force to the Fall 2024 McLean survey. For the second year in a row, our campus response rate exceeded the overall UT system rate (which was not the norm prior to 2023). In 2024, this means that 457 out of 897 UTC staff members responded to this survey (a response rate of approximately 51%). Strong response rates like this help to ensure that we learn what typical UTC staff are experiencing in their work. This type of strong response rate also indicates a strong sense among staff employees that their input is being considered and used to improve employment experiences throughout UTC. We sincerely appreciate your trust in this ongoing TOH@UTC initiative and hope that you will continue to stay engaged as this work moves forward.
2) UTC staff perceived (much more strongly than the McLean comparison benchmarks) that their departments and UTC/UT system were taking real actions to improve employee engagement. This indicates an increasing sense of awareness of and trust in the efforts of campus and system leadership to respond to employee needs.
3) UTC staff responses were more positive than the McLean benchmark for all staff engagement driver dimensions and multiple specific indicators of engagement, including (UTC vs. McLean benchmark): personal pride in work (89% vs. 88%); perceived importance of personal contributions to department success (87% vs. 84%); perceived team membership and a shared goal (77% vs. 71%); and willingness to share positive comments and feelings about their job with family and friends (66% vs. 62%)
4) For the second year in a row, the McLean “employee experience” metric improved substantially. This metric is an indicator of the extent to which UTC staff would be likely to recommend UT as an employer to a qualified friend or family member. In 2022 when the TOH@UTC initiative was just starting, our UTC score on this metric was -0.3 (vs. a McLean benchmark of 11.3). In 2023, we jumped to a score of 10.1 (vs. a benchmark of 3.2). In 2024, our employee experience score rose again, to 13.4 (vs. the benchmark, which slide further to -1.0). The take-away here is that more and more staff find UTC (and the UT system) to be an employer that they would recommend to others. It is a really important goal for our campus to become an employer of choice in Chattanooga and the broader region. The progress we are seeing to-date is fantastic and your help with sustaining this positive momentum is sincerely appreciated.
5) We also saw continued gains when it comes to overall staff engagement. Since 2022, staff engagement scores at UTC have increased to a point that exceeds the McLean comparison benchmark and aligns our campus with the UT system overall (from 65.7% of staff reporting high engagement in 2022 to 78% in 2024). This is a major achievement and something again for our campus to celebrate.
6) Going further, although the McLean survey is not directly aligned with everything that we are targeting in our ongoing TOH@UTC initiative, we are able to reorganize and align the items from the McLean survey to serve as indicators of the key dimensions in our TOH framework. We can use the data from the past three years of this McLean survey to help illustrate how our campus is doing with respect to these TOH dimensions. As summarized in the following figure, which shows the percentages of UTC staff endorsing “top box” (most positive) ratings for the McLean survey items, even using data gathered through an external survey provider (in this case, McLean), the evidence is clear that our efforts to improve TOH across campus are working:
7) Last but not least, the TOH@UTC initiative is not just focused on how employees feel about their work; there is also a real emphasis on trying to improve the overall health and functioning of UTC as an institution. With the help of UTC’s Human Resources team, one of the metrics that we have been able to monitor over the past few years as an indicator of the organizational health of our campus is employee turnover or attrition patterns. Although this blog post is focused on staff employee data from the recent McLean survey, the following figure provides a more complete snapshot of how our campus is doing when it comes to this important and related metric. It is telling to highlight (as shown in the following figure) that we have seen a steady decrease in attrition over the past couple of years. Changes like these do not happen by chance; they reflect a collaborative effort involving many individuals and units across campus, working together to address the factors that help us retain qualified staff and faculty employees who can keep UTC running strong.
So, what is the main point in sharing all this information with you? Simply this: When we (the TOH@UTC team and your campus leaders) ask you to respond to surveys, we want you to know that we respect your time and sincerely value your input. We take this responsibility that we have to listen and respond to your inputs about TOH-related matters very seriously. With your participation, UTC is becoming a better place to work. These recent data from our staff employees are encouraging and exciting to see. Our faculty have their chance to provide similarly rich data about their satisfaction and engagement in work through the COACHE survey that will be administered to faculty from the end of this month (February) through later this spring semester. We sincerely hope we can achieve a similarly high response rate from this group of UTC employees; we look forward to reporting back to campus the findings from this survey as soon as they are available (likely in the Fall 2025 semester). All UTC employees will also have an opportunity to provide quick feedback regarding TOH in the April 2025 progress check survey (more details will be shared closer to that time).
Although these current staff employee survey data tell a very positive story, this does not mean that we can stop emphasizing, promoting, and applying the TOH@UTC principles. It is not yet the case that every UTC staff member has positive employment experiences on a day-to-day basis. Thank you for remembering this and continuing to do what you can to protect and promote the health, safety, and well-being of all employees on our campus. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything related to this initiative, please reach out to toh@utc.edu.