Joliet Junior College
PA-10: Assessing Employee Satisfaction

The college has utilized the Personal Assessment of the College Environment (PACE). This assessment was done in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. Employees completed a 46-item PACE instrument organized into four climate factors as follows: Institutional Structure, Supervisory Relationships, Teamwork and Student Focus. They also completed a customized section designed specifically for Joliet Junior College. Respondents were asked to rate the four factors on a five point Likert-type scale. The instrument is specifically designed to compare the existing climate at JJC to a range of systems found to exist in community colleges across North America. The information generated from the instrument has been developed into a research report and is used for planning and decision-making in order to improve the college climate. Also, the college's Human Resources Department has conducted departmental climate surveys as needed. All full time employees are invited to participate in a formal one-on-one exit interview process with an HR manager. Part time employees are encouraged to complete an exit interview and are given the opportunity for an in person meeting. The college president has hosted "breakfast with the President" as a method to collect feedback from employees about college operations and work environment. The President has engaged the entire college community on a series of work groups to define "world class organization" for JJC. There is an opportunity for everyone (community, industry, students and staff) to participate in current strategic planning.

Ongoing communication and collaboration with employees is important to identifying strengths and weaknesses of current processes and systems associated with valuing people. JJC uses PACE results to lead the institution to develop responsive action plans. The PACE survey is used for Critical Issue Analysis which is essentially a form of “internal scanning” and identifies critical issues and examines JJC’s culture, organizational structure, relevant data, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The goals of critical issue analysis are: 1) to identify critical internal issues and 2) present responses to critical issues and the implications of varied responses to JJC leaders. Additionally, the college is accredited through the Higher Learning Commission AQIP, and one of the recent quality action projects was "valuing people." In order to meet the objective for the accreditation process, the college analyzed and focused on the results of the PACE survey.