Each year the Great Colleges to Work For survey, along with our company’s consulting work for individual colleges, reveals emerging trends in the campus workplace. Among the more compelling trends is the increasing effort by colleges to help faculty and staff members understand their institution’s business operations.
The more intentional a college is about helping employees understand administrative processes, the more likely it is to avoid issues regarding a lack of confidence in senior leadership or in shared-governance procedures. More than simply heading off problems, though, efforts to broadly educate employees about the business model can significantly contribute to a greater sense of alignment and community.
Job consultants, a misfire on gauging productivity, how to handle career milestones, and our Great Colleges to Work For report.
A common issue we see is that faculty and staff members are unfamiliar with the actual composition of the senior leadership. At one institution we worked with this spring, we found that outside the ranks of senior administrators, many staff members were unaware of who, beyond the president, made up the leadership team. Additionally, many staff members had little understanding of the role of the cabinet or even of the board of trustees. If faculty and staff members aren’t familiar with the composition, roles, and responsibilities of their institution’s leadership, they are unlikely to perceive its members as a team in which they have great confidence.
This lack of understanding often even extends to a basic knowledge of the institution’s funding model and budgeting processes. During a Q&A session at a recent campus meeting that drew a diverse mix of staff members, we found that many people did not know what an endowment was or how it affected the institution’s budget and financial model.
Yet another source of potential confusion is a lack of understanding of how a college’s shared-governance model works. There is no one “right” or “textbook” way to practice shared governance if faculty and staff members don’t understand how that model works. How are decisions made? Who participates? How is feedback collected? Without an understanding of those issues, it is impossible to ascertain whether decision-making processes have been appropriately transparent, collaborative, or informed. A failure to effectively communicate the structures, processes, and roles of the institution’s shared-governance model is a frequent cause of miscommunication.
Often there is some level of faculty resistance to professional-development activities that are not directly related to professors’ scholarly fields. Increasingly, in the Great Colleges survey submissions we receive, we see concerted efforts to provide supervisory and managerial training, and even business-management training, to faculty members in leadership roles. Not surprisingly, we see the impact of these kinds of trainings in survey results. At colleges that provide such training, faculty members are more likely to respond positively to survey statements regarding the supervisory competencies of department chairs and other academic leaders.
One compelling example of the benefits of such management training can be found at Florida International University, which earned a place on the survey’s Honor Roll this year. During the university’s Leadership Education Advancement Program, participants, who must be nominated by their supervisor, spend five days building a management skill set. They are guided by experienced facilitators who provide insight into institutional culture and solutions to common campus problems. The program, designed for supervisors and managers, divides participants into teams to develop a capstone presentation that offers new proposals to increase revenue, save money, or meet financial objectives spelled out by the university’s governing board. Many of these capstone proposals have led to policy changes.
Florida International has also initiated the President’s Leadership Program, designed to provide emerging leaders with an executive perspective. Over the course of the academic year, participants attend sessions that focus on key higher-education issues and challenges facing the university. In addition to facilitating connections across the campus, the program helps to develop the next generation of FIU leaders.
A common tool used to connect faculty and staff members to senior leaders, improve communication, and model collaboration and partnership is the “town hall” meeting. Often held just before or after board meetings, these can be effective forums to provide updates on strategic plans, board actions, and major initiatives. The most effective town-hall meetings are more than just information downloads, however: They are structured in such a way that interactions are not all one-way but provide opportunities for Q&A, dialogue, and, in some cases, activities to strengthen relationships and a sense of community.
Smaller-scale and less time-intensive efforts can also be effective. At McPherson College, a monthly “huddle” replicates the town-hall meeting, and a publication called the “Campus Communicator” provides weekly updates on issues such as enrollment, financial goals, and fund raising. At Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, an intranet makes institutional documentation and information available to staff members at any time.
The ideal scenario — in which faculty and staff members feel heard, informed, and empowered, and administrators feel they have the flexibility, trust, and partnerships to manage and lead in times of rapid change — is neither a fantasy nor even unrealistic. It does, however, require effort from the community as a whole. It requires a willingness to challenge convention, dedication to continuous improvement, and a genuine commitment to model partnership rather than a zero-sum mentality.
Richard K. Boyer is a founding partner of ModernThink LLC, a management-consulting firm specializing in organization culture, workplace quality, and employee engagement. ModernThink administers the Great Colleges survey for The Chronicle.
