Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.69
Liaison Lisa Kilgore
Submission Date March 8, 2013
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

Cornell University
PAE-12: Employee Satisfaction Evaluation

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Lynette Chappell-Williams
Associate VP
Workforce Diversity & Inclusion
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution evaluate employee satisfaction in a way that meets the criteria for this credit?:
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s methodology for evaluating employee satisfaction:

Cornell continuously employs unit or campus–wide surveys to drive improvements to the campus climate to foster a productive work environment for faculty, students and staff, including mature workers. Cornell administers a satisfaction survey for all faculty on a 5 year cycle - the most recent of which was administered in fall, 2010. The university conducted a survey for all staff in the fall of 2011. The student PULSE survey is conducted on a bi-annual basis.

From the faculty survey a number of areas have been addressed. One area was the academic Calendar. Since the survey was conducted a few changes have been made. 1) Labor day has been listed as a non-instructional day of remembrance. Originally, classes were held on labor day while non-academic employees had the day off as a paid holiday. 2) Beginning in 2014, Martin Luther King day will be observed for all university employees. 3) fall break has been extended by 2 days to alleviate stress students have expressed in the past.

In November 2011, Cornell conducted an Employee Survey to understand staff engagement with the help of the Employee Assembly and Institutional research and Planning. The Survey asked staff about their job, career development, respect and fairness, leadership and direction and life outside of Cornell. Approximately 70% of staff chose to complete the survey and more than 1700 comments were submitted and reviewed. Analysis of the survey and comments helped us focus on the issues that were most prevalent and had the most impact on staff satisfaction.

There are four main areas with university-wide impact:

1. Workload Imbalance: Seek out more information in each college/unit about workload imbalances and ways to address these. HR will work with staff who feel that their positions have changed significantly to review their classifications/titles.

2. Career Growth: Identify measures that will support our staff career growth.

3. Recognition: Identify more opportunities to recognize staff for excellent work. It is important that we acknowledge the dedication and excellent work of our staff.

4. Supervisor Feedback: Develop and implement supervisory feedback.

A group of human resources leaders and members of the Employee Assembly established a committee to address these four university-wide issues. The committee has already engaged volunteers comprised of staff in different positions and colleges/units across the university. Project plans to address each issue will be vetted and implemented in FY13. Colleges and units are also working to respond to the individual needs of their organizations that fall outside of the university-wide effort.


The year the employee satisfaction evaluation was last administered:
2,012

The website URL where information about the institution’s employee satisfaction evaluation process is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.