Last Thursday, AU provided aggregate results for the 2020 employee engagement survey. The concept of engagement is a bit fuzzy but, according to the consultants hired by AU, engagement is a proxy for the propensity of staff to exert discretionary effort (i.e., effort beyond the minimum). Overall, staff were slightly more engaged this year than last year, with engagement rising from 65% in 2019 to 69% (but still below the PSE benchmark of 73%).
Participation was 68% (n=767), notably up from 55% in 2019. This is an impressive increase and participation level. That said, it is important to recall that there is still significant self-selection going on. It is possible (and I'd say likely) that the 32% who chose not to respond are less engaged than respondents (since filling out the survey is a form of discretionary effort). For this reason, we should be cautious about generalizing the results.
Of note that was that there were apparently 800 pages (!) of qualitative comments made by respondents. This is a large number of comments that likely provide important context. Only President Fassina and the director of HR will have access to these comments.
According to the consultants, the three most important dimensions of engagement at AU were organizational vision (slightly above benchmark) and professional growth and senior leadership (both below benchmark).
Organizational Vision
Overall, AU is slightly above the benchmarks in organizational vision. The strongest results are around AU’s long-term direction and purpose. I suspect this reflects the long-standing commitment of staff to serving students who otherwise would not be able to go to university, more so than the recent and vague Imagine strategy.
A notable number of staff identified concerns around understanding what needs to be done to succeed, how they contribute to achieving AU’s vision, and there being a shared and compelling vision. This more likely reflects on the behaviours of the current executive.
Professional Growth
AU is below benchmarks on staff responses around professional growth opportunities, although there were marginal improvements. Particularly weak were responses around opportunities to learn and grow professionally and achieve career aspirations at AU.
Senior Leadership
Staff trust in senior leadership has improved, but still remains an issue. While there has been an improvement, a quarter of staff don't agree that senior leaders communicate their goals, act consistently, or can be trusted to achieve their goals.
These “disagree” results are essentially the same as last year, with the improvements coming from a reduction in “neutral” answers. While there have been improvements, AU remains well below benchmarks on all of these dimensions despite (presumably) a year of AU’s exec trying to be improve their performance.
From a different slide, we see that 53% of staff trust senior leadership to adhere to AU’s i-CARE values (up from 47% in 2019), while 23% in both years disagreed.
Analysis
A number of AUFA members have told me that they were surprised by the overall improvement in AU’s engagement score and found that the results did not resonate with their expectations (this was my reaction as well). There are a number of possible explanations for that.
The aggregate nature of the data presentation likely masks differences in responses by bargaining unit membership. AUFA’s polling of its members (using random selection) finds a much higher level of distrust (47.6%) of the executive among AUFA members than did the AU survey.
AUFA, AUPE and CUPE have asked for the results segregated by bargaining unit. I suspect AUFA results will be lower than the aggregate results, likely because of AU’s ongoing efforts to bust the union.
There is likely also a bit of a “crisis bump” going on. Staff may be more engaged because they are working harder to help students (which is psychologically rewarding). The sense of pulling together may explain the movement of neutrals to positive responses in organizational vision and senior leadership.
There has also been a large turnover of staff this year. AUFA’s polling consistently shows new staff have more positive impressions of AU’s executive than do longer-serving staff.
Finally, it is worth re-iterating that this is a survey of engagement (i.e., propensity to exert discretionary effort), not a measure of morale or enthusiasm. Those questions that touch on issues of morale (such as executive trust) are still low and well below benchmarks.
-- Bob Barnetson, Membership Engagement Committee