In his October 26, 2018 email, Interim President Kevin Hyde announced the upcoming dissemination of a Collegewide Employee Engagement Survey. For the second year in a row, the Office of Human Resources partnered with North Carolina State University’s National Initiative for Leadership and Institutional Effectiveness (NILIE). Measuring employee engagement provides an opportunity to understand faculty and staff perspectives while continuing a comprehensive view towards student success. The FSCJ Employee Engagement Survey was available for completion from October 30 through November 21. Following the launch of the survey on October 30, Chief Human Resource Officer, Mark Lacey, provided additional details and further encouraged participation in his email on November 16.
NILIE utilizes the Personal Assessment of the College Environment (PACE) online survey tool. In order to conduct the survey, NILIE states that PACE is “…an innovative online survey instrument that allows institutions to easily assess their progress and highlight areas for growth, define areas needing change or improvement, and set the stage for more in-depth strategic planning.”
The PACE survey is designed to promote open and constructive communication. The survey helps establish priorities for organizational change by obtaining the satisfaction estimate of employees concerning the college climate. For this survey, “climate” refers to the prevailing condition that affects satisfaction (e.g., morale and feelings) and productivity (e.g., task completion or goal attainment) at a particular point in time.
Using a five-point scale, the PACE survey asks respondents to evaluate the College on four climate factors: institutional structure, supervisory relationships, teamwork and student focus.
- The Institutional Structure climate factor focuses on the mission, leadership, spirit of cooperation, structural organization, decision-making and communication within the institution.
- Supervisory Relationships provides insight into the relationship between an employee and a supervisor and an employee’s ability to be creative and express ideas related to the employee’s work.
- Teamwork explores the spirit of cooperation within work teams and effective coordination within teams.
- The Student Focus climate factor considers the centrality of students to the actions of the institution as well as the extent to which students are prepared for post-institution endeavors.
Together, the unique focus of each factor provides a comprehensive picture of the climate at an institution.
The results from the PACE survey are useful in many ways, including:
- As a guide to institutional climate before, during or after a structural change in institutional organization or leadership.
- As a means to better understand issues.
- To develop a strategic plan or evaluate the effectiveness of strategic plan implementation.
- To assess the effectiveness of a new institutional initiative, project or practice.
- To measure growth or change in institutional climate and effectiveness over a multi-year period.