As we move through the Spring 2026 semester, here is an update on the status of the ongoing Total Organizational Health (TOH@UTC) initiative here at UTC. As a reminder, this initiative remains a data-driven effort to build a culture that protects and promotes “worker health” (physical, psychological, and social well-being) and “organizational health” (resilience and adaptability) within our university. This involves monitoring multiple streams and sources of data and actively working with stakeholders across campus to improve the extent to which all UTC employees experience: Protection from Harm, Connection and Community, Work-Life Harmony, Mattering at Work, and Opportunities for Growth. By focusing on these elements, we are all working to facilitate our ability to engage fully in the work we do toward our institution’s mission. Please see earlier posts in this blog series if you would like a refresher or reminder about the scope of the TOH@UTC initiative.
In this post, we summarize a very complete set of evaluative data gathered through multiple channels from UTC faculty and staff between February and November 2025. We also offer perspective on where we have been and where this TOH@UTC initiative is headed. This post is an abbreviated summary of a more detailed report that is being provided to campus and system leadership this month regarding the employee experience here at UTC.
Encouraging Trends in Attrition
One of our most promising indicators of organizational health in our university is the continued downward trend in annual attrition or turnover rates. As shown in the following figure, we continued to see a notable decrease in both faculty and staff attrition in 2025, with faculty attrition down to 3.30% and staff attrition at 13.03%.
These are strong statistics in this domain and beginning with our 2025 data, this information also reflects an improvement in our campus-wide ability to track and distinguish between different forms of attrition (e.g., accounting for campus-wide Voluntary Retirement Incentive Programs or initiatives and improving precision around voluntary vs. involuntary reasons for exit). As we continue to monitor these trends, it is encouraging to see that more and more of our talented and committed colleagues are choosing to stay and grow with UTC.
Faculty Satisfaction and TOH: COACHE 2025 Results
The next set of relevant data to report come from the Winter/Spring 2025 COACHE survey results (gathered in February and March 2025 and released to campus in the Fall 2025 semester). Although the COACHE survey is designed to measure faculty employee satisfaction along multiple dimensions, the items of this survey also capture many facets of the core dimensions to our TOH@UTC initiative. The detailed COACHE reports were distributed to all academic department leaders at the beginning of the current semester (if their departments had the requisite number of respondents to generate these reports).
Interestingly, all the COACHE survey items can also be aligned with one of the dimensions of the TOH@UTC initiative. So, to further facilitate campus-wide interpretation and action from these data, we have reconstituted the data from this survey and generated a series of figures to help visualize what the COACHE survey tells us about how faculty are experiencing TOH here at UTC in 2022 versus 2025, and how these experiences compare to a broader higher education benchmark cohort. As shown in the following overall summary figure, our faculty reported higher average scores in 2025 than 2022 and compared to our external benchmark cohort across all TOH@UTC dimensions. These results are particularly meaningful as they were gathered from our faculty during a period of interim campus leadership, new university strategic planning, a search for our new Chancellor, and generally challenging political and economic forces.
Staff Engagement and TOH: Insights from the Fall 2025 McLean Survey
From the staff employee perspective, we summarize next the findings from the Fall 2025 McLean Staff Engagement survey. These data were gathered in October and early November of 2025 and provide a snapshot of our staff’s experience during a challenging fall semester in which UTC staff navigated major leadership changes, political uncertainties, implementation of new DEI legislation, the emotional aftermath of an active shooter incident, and ongoing struggles with a complex information system implementation that impacts many different information workflows across campus. Despite these “headwinds,” these data show that UTC staff are continuing to demonstrate high levels of engagement and resilience. It is important to note that our university staff engagement levels have remained above 70% for the past three cycles of this survey and we are hopeful that this positive engagement can continue to grow. This is not empty optimism here either: Comparing our campus data from 2025 to 2022 (before the TOH@UTC initiative began), we see notable evidence of positive growth on all 14 “drivers” of engagement that the McLean survey measures.
In addition, as with the COACHE survey discussed above, the majority of the McLean survey items also align with the dimensions of our TOH@UTC framework. So, again, to further facilitate campus-wide interpretation and action from these data, we have reconstituted the data from this survey and generated a series of figures to help visualize what the McLean survey tells us about how UTC staff are experiencing TOH in 2022, 2023, and 2025 (note that the 2024 McLean survey are excluded here because it was greatly abbreviated in form and its data are not entirely comparable to what was gathered in the other years that are included). As shown in the following overall summary figure, our staff are generally reporting more positive experiences with all TOH@UTC dimensions since this initiative was implemented (going into 2023). However, there is still room for improvement across all of these dimensions. As with the faculty data reported earlier, it is important to remember that the most recent 2025 data were gathered during a very challenging time for many UTC staff. This being the case, we are optimistic that future rounds of this McLean survey will show continued improvement in these dimensions as long as we can maintain a focus on the core principles of TOH moving through this year.
TOH@UTC Internal Progress Check: November 2025
Finally, our most targeted evaluation data for the TOH@UTC initiative comes from our recurring progress check surveys. The data from our November 2025 round was analyzed and reported out to campus leaders earlier this semester and generally shows stability and some positive growth on most areas that we monitor. The one notable exception was in the safety and security dimension, which is understandable given the active shooter incident early in the fall semester, the ongoing construction across campus, and persistent political and economic uncertainties and challenges. Thus, while this recurring data stream shows that many TOH@UTC dimensions are in good shape, there is still work to do as we continue to strengthen a positive employment experience for all employees and a campus culture that protects and promotes employee health, safety, and well-being.
You can view a full summary of the data from this most recent progress check on our TOH@UTC data dashboard at: https://www.utc.edu/total-organizational-health/toh-data. There you will see a detailed breakdown of all data gathered through this recurring progress check. To highlight one high-level indicator of success from these data, it is encouraging to see continued improvement in the percentage of employees who would recommend their department/area and/or UTC more generally to a friend or family member who may be seeking employment. This is reflected in the following snippet from the data dashboard noted above:
Priorities Moving Forward
So where do we go from here with TOH@UTC? In reviewing and discussing these data with campus leaders and other stakeholders, the following are key priorities or next steps:
- Increase Participation: We want more campus units to consistently participate in TOH@UTC data gathering and action planning. Where we have data, we can develop more localized strategies to help units sustain and improve in these core TOH elements.
- Strengthen Shared Ownership: TOH is most effective when practiced daily by all employees across campus, not just leadership. A major goal is expanding the sense of shared ownership for a positive, healthy, and safe employment experience for all here at UTC.
- Strategic Alignment: The TOH@UTC initiative supports multiple aspects of the new university strategic plan. As such, efforts are underway to better incorporate and formalize TOH principles into the actions that will be taken to achieve this plan.
The recent data summarized here should remind us that it is possible to positively influence our shared work environment with collective and sustained commitment to the core elements of TOH. We encourage you to identify the TOH-related strengths and areas for improvement in your own work units and to consider how you and your colleagues can directly contribute to building and sustaining the most positive work environment possible for our campus community. If you have questions about this data or would like assistance in developing a TOH response plan for your unit or department, please do not hesitate to reach out to Dr. Chris Cunningham, TOH@UTC Facilitator, at [email protected] or 423-425-4264.