Faculty, staff and colleagues from around campus came together for workshops following the release of results for the 2022 Employee Engagement Survey. Across three sessions, employees shared their ideas for improving the campus culture and amplifying the employee voice.
Workshops
In response to Universitywide invitations, Western employees gathered in three workshops from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1 to help guide senior leadership in the next steps of the University's Employee Engagement effort. Attendees advanced the work of the Survey Action Team, which distilled the results of the Employee Engagement Survey into three focus areas: appreciation, communication and transparency. After reviewing the survey results and hearing the Survey Action Team鈥檚 presentation, the President鈥檚 Cabinet also added a fourth focus area, value and support, for consideration and exploration.
At the workshops, attendees worked together in teams at individual tables. Teams at each table held lively discussions about the actions and behaviors that could result in improved employee engagement and morale for their focus area. Approximately 200 participants generated more than 300 ideas, which were created through a three-step process:
- Individual idea brainstorming.
- Sorting individual ideas into themes as a team.
- Prioritizing the ideas by voting.
The insight provided by the attendees was invaluable. Thank you to everyone who participated.
All the recommendations for action and behaviors generated by each team at the workshops have been organized into a workbook, organized by the four focus areas. The workbook also contains a link to a photo of each team鈥檚 original work for easy cross-referencing.
Each team鈥檚 work can be found below.
With the assistance of three members of the Survey Action Team, the recommendations for action and behaviors are now being organized into targeted action areas. This is an organization effort, with no ideas being eliminated. The next steps will be:
With all of the input from the workshops organized into action areas, the Cabinet will fully consider the ideas, which will inform potential initiatives.
The potential initiatives will be shared with the campus for feedback and prioritization.
The initiatives will be finalized into committed actions and outcomes and communicated to employees.