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Improving work environment at local level
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“Each department or area on campus has a unique work culture, so each employee’s experience is different, depending on where they work.”
UB is a great place to work.
While nearly 90 percent of employees surveyed as part of the university’s Great Place to Work initiative agree with that statement, fewer felt that way about their own department or unit.
That revelation has led to the second phase of the initiative: a pilot project aimed at trying to improve the work lives of faculty and staff specifically at the departmental level.
University Communications and the University Libraries are participating in the pilot, which University Human Resources eventually plans to expand to other units of the university.
The Great Place to Work (GPTW) effort, launched two years ago by HR and a campus-wide Steering Committee as part of UB 2020, spawned a number of university-wide programs and services, including a comprehensive training and development unit, an expanded Employee Assistance Program, a new work/life balance unit and the UB CORE employee volunteer program.
But discussions with more than 2,500 people across the three campuses as part of that first phase of GPTW revealed that “each department or area on campus has a unique work culture, so each employee’s experience is different, depending on where they work,” says Jennifer Bowen, assistant vice president for human resources. “So we knew that as the next phase in the effort, the most effective thing to do would be to target at the local level and work one-on-one with departments to be able to make a direct impact on the work culture.”
University Communications and the Libraries were approached about being the first participants because the units aren’t too large, but have a diverse makeup of types of employees—faculty, professional and classified staff, Bowen says. HR also wanted to choose units that it thought would embrace and support the concept, and were “already doing some good things and that we could identify some best practices to be able to share with the rest of campus as part of the experience,” she adds.
The Libraries are participating in the initiative because while many employees already think the Libraries are a great place to work, “naturally there is always room for improvement,” says Cherie Williams, HR associate for the Libraries. “We are eager to be involved with the program because we like the message: great places to work foster trust, pride and camaraderie in the workplace.
“It's so much more than just the paycheck,” Williams adds. “We all spend a great deal of time here. Shouldn't we look forward to coming to work each day?”
University Communications agrees. “We are committed to the principles behind being a great place to work,” says Joseph Brennan, associate vice president. “We have great people in our office, and they deserve to have a great work experience. By building trust, creating flexibility and enhancing pride, we’re creating an environment where people can achieve their full potential.”
The first step in the process is to administer to employees a climate survey that features questions based on the main tenets of a great place to work, “which generally fall into trust, pride and camaraderie,” says Kathie Frier, director of the Wellness and Work/Life Balance unit in HR, noting that the questions, which are individualized for each unit, try to gauge where the unit is on those three criteria.
Frier notes that the climate survey initially will identify “areas where the groups are doing very well—that could be identified as best practices—and areas we should focus on when trying to effect some change.”
Bowen called the climate survey the “starting point” in the process. “We also anticipate looking for additional ways to get employee input and feedback,” such as focus groups or feedback groups, “to get more complete picture of what’s going on in department.”
“Once we have a good sense of what the main areas of focus will be, we will finish developing a customized program to work one-on-one with the department to be able to implement a program that directly addresses those areas,” she says.
Once a program is implemented, units at some point will be surveyed again and “hopefully see where we’ve made an impact,” Bowen says.
Frier points out that trust is an important factor for HR to develop in the unit, and also for the unit to develop with HR. “After the survey is completed and we’ve done some analysis, one of the first things we want to do is share the results with the employees before we even do a program customization and get some feedback from them as to how they can provide appropriate input and feedback,” she says, noting that this process differs from some previous efforts where feedback has not been shared. “It’s supposed to be a transparent process throughout.”
“The approach is a positive one,” Bowen adds. “We’re not coming in to identify their negative issues—the focus of the program is positive and looks for ways to make the work culture even better.”
In these difficult times, she says, “it’s more important than ever to focus on keeping your work culture in check and keeping morale high.”
Bowen says HR eventually intends to expand the initiative to other units. Those interested in participating should contact Bowen at jld2@buffalo.edu or Frier at frier@buffalo.edu.
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