Faculty / Staff Retention Background Avoidable turnover is the most significant measurement of employee retention. It represents the portion of employee turnover that management has opportunity to control. Avoidable terminations could have or may have prevented by management. Avoidable turnover rates are calculated as follows: Avoidable Separations Turnover Rate = Total Separations Less Unavoidable Separations Total umber of Benefit Eligible Employees Since 2012, SDSU has experienced avoidable turnover at various rates by position. The following rates are for benefit-eligible employees only and includes voluntary and involuntary resignations. Faculty, FE, and CSA staff have varying rates during identified fiscal years as follows: 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Faculty 2.66 2.48 1.58 1.46 2.9 1.63 FE 15.22 12.93 9.82 7.39 9.24 8.53 CSA 11.06 11.21 9.47 7.89 11.29 9.59 Represented graphically, one may observe that since 2012, avoidable turnover rates have declined for all three position types. The decline for FE is much more dramatic than for Faculty. CSA turnover rates experienced an overall drop in avoidable turnover, but had a higher spike in 2016 than other positions. 20 Avoidable Turnover Rate By Position 15 10 5 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Faculty FE CSA As a comparison, below is a graph from CUPA-HR (College and University Professional Associate for Human Resources) with 2017 benchmarking data for median employee turnover rates:
A closer examination of the available data regarding SDSU employee turnover, articulates average duration of employment as follows: Female Male Resident Alien on- Resident Alien Alien Substanti al Presence Hispanic / Latino American Indian / Alaskan ative Asian Black or African American Hawaiian / Pacific Islander White CSA CSA Faculty Faculty FE FE 9.5 8.4 3.9 1 A 3 3.2 6.5 3.3 A 9.4 379 253 10 1 0 5 13 11 10 0 596 10 11.6 10.2 A 2.2 8.7 2.8 8.1 4.5 A 11.7 269 290 87 0 35 12 5 88 11 0 443 8.6 9.4 9.1 1 3 5.3 10 6.4 4.3 A 9.2 320 258 15 2 7 9 2 21 8 0 540 A brief review of the data indicates that longevity among employees identifying as White is higher than any other demographic. In circumstances average longevity is within a few years of White employees, the number of employees in the underrepresented demographic is very small, especially in comparison to the same classification of employee (i.e. Hispanic / Latino faculty have average longevity of 8.7 years compared to White faculty at 11.7 years, but there are reportedly 12 Hispanic / Latino faculty and 443 White faculty).
Employees cite many reasons for leaving a job. The following descriptors identify if the termination is considered avoidable or unavoidable. Descriptor Category Descriptor Category Deceased Unavoidable Childcare Unavoidable Early retirement Unavoidable ormal retirement Unavoidable Disability retirement Unavoidable Moving Unavoidable Leaving workforce Unavoidable Unsatisfactory problem Avoidable Involuntary Avoidable performance termination on-renew contract Avoidable Eliminate position Avoidable Unsatisfactory performance Avoidable o reason given Avoidable Personal reasons Avoidable Salary dissatisfaction Avoidable Work schedule Avoidable Benefits Avoidable dissatisfaction o advancement opportunities Avoidable Working Avoidable relationships Management concerns Avoidable Working conditions Avoidable Additionally, the report below compares SDSU s turnover rates to that of peer institutions for 2016-2017 (as reported by the institution via the CUPA report). SDSU Annual Turnover Rates Compared to Peer Group (PG) 2016-2017 (data effective 1 Dec 2016) SDSU PG Median PG PG Faculty: full-time tenure track 0.0800 0.0600 0.0700 7 Faculty: full-time non-tenure track 0.0900 0.0900 0.1370 7 Faculty: all full-time 0.0900 0.1000 0.0860 7 Staff: full-time exempt 0.1400 0.1900 0.1810 7 Staff: part-time exempt 0.3800 0.2600 0.3240 7 Staff: total exempt 0.1500 0.1800 0.1910 7 Staff: full-time non-exempt 0.1800 0.1300 0.1310 7 Staff: part-time non-exempt 0.2300 0.1600 0.1960 7 Staff: total non-exempt 0.1900 0.1100 0.1330 7 Staff: total 0.1700 0.1600 0.1610 7 HR staff only 0.1000 0.2900 4.6010 9 Peer institutions include: Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO), Kansas State University (Manhattan, KS), Montana State University (Bozeman, MT), ew Mexico State University (Las Cruces, M), orth Dakota State University (Fargo, D), Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK), Southern Illinois University Carbondale (Carbondale, IL), University of Idaho (Moscow, ID), University of Montana-Missoula (Missoula, MT), University of orth Dakota (Grand Forks, D), University of South
Dakota (Vermillion, SD), University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY), and Utah State University (Logan, UT). One primary contributor to employee retention is employee job satisfaction. The results from The Chronicle of Higher Education s Great Colleges to Work For survey from 2012 are provided compared to the honor roll as presented on the survey. Data collected by The Chronicle of Higher Education through their Great Colleges to Work For survey for 2012 compares SDSU to the 2012 Honor Roll (>10,000). Additionally, SDSU s data for 2015 is presented as comparison to SDSU s 2012 results as follows: Category SDSU 2012 (%) 2012 Honor Roll (%) 2012 Honor Roll Difference SDSU 2015 (%) Job Satisfaction 63 79-16 68 +5 Teaching Environment 49 75-26 53 +4 Professional Development 66 78-22 67 +1 Compensation, Benefits 55 74-19 61 +6 and Work / Life Balance Facilities 54 80-36 70 +16 Policies, Resources & 49 70-21 54 +5 Efficiency Shared Governance 50 70-20 54 +4 Pride 64 82-18 68 +4 Supervisors / Department 66 77-11 69 +3 Chairs Senior Leadership 50 72-22 58 +8 Faculty, Administration & 51 70-19 57 +6 Staff Relations Communication 49 66-17 52 +3 Collaboration 54 69-15 54 - Fairness 50 69-19 57 +7 Respect & Appreciation 55 71-16 57 +2 Survey 55 73-18 60 +5 SDSU Difference Over the last three years, appreciation for facilities has increased by sixteen percentage points. Other categories increased by single digits, but notably, senior leadership, fairness and compensation, benefits and work / life balance where the top three gains. Lessons Learned. University employees participated in stakeholder engagement sessions supporting the strategic planning process. Over 50 sessions were held and the topic of faculty and staff retention was a topic that occurred frequently enough in the comments to warrant further investigation. This led to theme-based discussions where individuals would
engage the topic. The information below provided by Human Resources aligns very closely to the information provided through the stakeholder engagement sessions. For the purpose of this review, SDSU s Human Resources provided aggregate information obtained during the exit interview process that could not be attributed to any individual. In short, no one learned about any individual s responses to the exit interview. Overall, these are the predominant reasons people leave SDSU: 1. Promotion in title, compensation, or other advancement 2. Family or personal reasons 3. Retirement 4. Imbalance between workload and compensation and balancing work and life responsibilities 5. Management, poor communication, no advancement (when the opportunity exists), no appreciation In total the data collected from SDSU current and former employees indicates efforts to increase job satisfaction would likely lead to increased faculty and staff retention. Further examination of retention by demographic is required. All employees not identifying as White have substantially lower longevity than their White counterparts. ational Trends & External Picture These categories are likely a result of extensive research on employment satisfaction. The following excerpt is used with permission from the published work of a member of this task force: Herzberg supplies the perspective of job satisfaction that involves two categories; motivation and hygiene. Five factors stand out as strong determiners of job satisfaction - achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, and advancement the last three being of greater importance for lasting change of attitudes (Herzberg, 1966, 92). Herzberg offers insight that is not intuitive. The factors that attribute to satisfaction do not necessarily contribute to dissatisfaction (Herzberg, 1966) and the reverse is also true. [T]he dissatisfiers (company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relations, working conditions, and salary) contribute very little to job satisfaction (Herzberg, 1966, p. 96). There is also the reported finding that the relief from job dissatisfaction by hygiene factors has only a temporary effect and, therefore, adds to the necessity for more frequent attention to the job environment (Herzberg, 1966, p. 100). Considering broad perspectives, if an employee felt a need to avoid unpleasant job environments (Herzberg, 1966, p. 98), this led to job dissatisfaction. In terms of satisfaction, if the employee had the opportunity and was able to fulfill a need for self-actualization, they experienced job satisfaction (Herzberg, 1966). If
an employee seeks self-actualization, or other factors of motivation, the motivating elements must be challenging and frequent per the ability of the employee (Herzberg, 1966). Therefore, the data provided regarding SDSU turnover rates and reason for turnover, aligns with the national research. It seems clear that the factors SDSU could carefully review which can be reasonably controlled by SDSU include previously stated imbalance between workload and compensation, balancing work and life responsibilities, management, poor communication, no advancement (when the opportunity exists), and no appreciation. Strategic Themes Avoidable turnover should be avoided. Observe the following themes relating to retention and satisfaction: Options Happier employees are more productive Hiring and training new employees is expensive Avoidable turnover bears expense such as recruiting, interviewing, and training new employees Workload: avoid significantly increasing job responsibilities with no additional compensation Perform root/cause analysis high turnover positions Recognize loss of mid-career staff who have institutional knowledge and a network of contacts Communication People in management/supervisor positions need to be skilled at managing Recognition programs The options include the following: 1. Accept retention rates as they are and expend no further energy on the topic. 2. Fully examine retention rates to determine types of positions with higher turnover than expected. 3. Fully examine retention rates of individuals citing their many identities to determine the types of education, support, and training provided to the University community as needed to retain qualified individuals. Projected Costs Training costs Compensation for additional job responsibilities Time and effort from mentor
Short- and Long-Term Plans Supervisor Training focusing on the needs of those supervised including attention to new employees, experienced employees, and employees who are underrepresented. Continue communication between groups by role on campus. Continue various training sessions for all employees for professional development, safety and security, diversity and inclusion, quality improvement, and similar. Make the University more of a community atmosphere where everyone understands their contribution to the mission of SDSU. ew employee mentoring including engaging in the Brookings community. Ensure employee resources and information are easily accessible understanding that different personality types and backgrounds vary what is understood by easily accessible.