Dear Colleagues,
Your feedback on your experience working at UMD is very important to me and our leadership team. The University will conduct its fourth employee engagement survey this fall and we will begin a new cycle of discussing the results and taking action based on our survey results. This year's survey will allow people who work in groups where five or more faculty or staff complete the survey to see their results, so more people will see survey results that reflect the environment within smaller departments.
Since the 2015 survey, our campus has made a number of changes to how we operate based on your feedback and responses. Individual units have implemented changes based on their specific responses. As a campus, our actions based on the survey results include:
Your feedback on your experience working at UMD is very important to me and our leadership team. The University will conduct its fourth employee engagement survey this fall and we will begin a new cycle of discussing the results and taking action based on our survey results. This year's survey will allow people who work in groups where five or more faculty or staff complete the survey to see their results, so more people will see survey results that reflect the environment within smaller departments.
Since the 2015 survey, our campus has made a number of changes to how we operate based on your feedback and responses. Individual units have implemented changes based on their specific responses. As a campus, our actions based on the survey results include:
- Shared our employee engagement results more broadly
- Implemented a new staff orientation
- Hosted informal gatherings to bring faculty and staff together in order to foster better relationships within the campus and to enhance collaboration
- Created a recognition program to acknowledge years of service and employee awards
- Implemented unit level awards to recognize the hard work done by employees across campus
As we look around, there are many other efforts that support engagement every day that your direct manager or supervisor may share with you over the next few weeks.
When you take the survey, you'll find two open-ended questions at the end which are very helpful to me as a leader who may not be aware of your day-to-day work experiences. Open-ended responses are redacted by Korn Ferry Hay Group so no personally identifiable information is shared with me, but your responses provide important ideas for improvement within UMD. The questions are, "What is one thing that has been done to help you succeed within your department?" and "What one thing, if changed, would enable you to be more successful in your work?" If you prefer, you may pick a more general response from the drop-down menu which will still provide me with important information.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me, one of the Vice Chancellors or Karna Kurtz in HR/EOAA.
Sincerely,
Lendley Black
Chancellor
