What a week in Orlando at NIRSA. I had a great time seeing our supporters and vendor partners, and learning alongside them. As such, I wanted to share some insights I gathered.
First off, the top overall trends I noticed at NIRSA were:
- Data is king, from staffing to well-being.
- Funding has a big question mark around it, and everyone is proceeding with caution.
- Well-being is still a hot topic.
- Turnover is hitting everyone hard.
Secondly, I heard a lot of nuggets of wisdom.
Data in Staffing
For instance, provide your data to your upper administration daily/constantly. If it’s not in front of them continuously, they don’t see it. Also, translating that data to student engagement is highly important when showing it to the higher-ups.
Data is also key in fighting for your people — i.e. collect how many times a position turned over, what are others paying, etc. Then use this to fight for your people’s salaries and flexibility. For example, at Virginia Tech they found that 57.1% of those who left high-turnover position in a three-year period were paid below the market level salary. That data then led to a $1.2 million increase in budget, with 21 staff receiving salary increases totaling approximately $760,000.
Leadership and Culture
Deb Johnson , the executive director of Recreation and Well-being at the University of California Davis, talked about creating a culture of psychological safety and empowerment. Several pieces of advice from her are:
- Use a coach approach, ask a lot of questions and ask what people need.
- Use the tool FAIL: First Attempt In Learning.
- Culture is not a program, it’s a practice.
- Invest in relationships, not just results.
- Create space for voice, grace for mistakes and opportunities for growth.
- Your team’s success is rooted in the environment you build every day.
AVP Perspective
There was also a panel of associate vice presidents. Alexis Mootoo, the associate vice president of Employee Experience at the University of South Florida, shared on succession planning. She noted once a staff member makes a decision to leave for any amount of dollars, you’ve already lost them. As such, you need to cultivate employees before they even come to you.
This looks like understanding what motivated someone to take the job in the first place. Use that information to set them up for success, and then apply data to keep track of where someone is on their career path.
“Higher ed is supposed to be a place of the best and the brightest, so let’s treat them that way,” said Mootoo. “Happy employees are infectious.”
Well-being and Data
Well-being also was highly discussed at the conference, with one key aspect being gathering data to know how to engage students. During a panel on well-being, Chris Suriano, the director of Wellness & Health Promotion at the University of North Dakota, said they’ve had to get smarter and more strategic in the data they are collecting as students are facing survey fatigue.
In fact, all of the panelists agreed incentivizing surveys is key. Some offered gift cards, others outdoor recreation passes or even a year-long meal plan. They also suggested working with academic departments to get students extra credit for completing the survey or even time in class to do so.
Overall, the industry is still aiming to engage students in this time of uncertainty. As usual, every director I talked to despite facing big funding questions remained positive. They know their purpose, most have been through something like this before and they are going to keep doing what they do best — serving students.
