Andrii Yalanskyi/Shutterstock
As colleges and universities continue to face challenges in attracting and retaining talent, some leaders have embraced strategies aimed at reducing employee churn and stabilizing the workforce.
“It’s gotten more difficult to attract people to work in higher education,” said Robert Gould, vice president for strategic enrollment management at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. “And retention has changed in a way that the work has gotten more complex and demanding.”
Like many sectors in the post-pandemic economy, higher education has struggled with employee turnover in recent years, due to increasing workloads, burnout, downsizing, and competition from higher-paying industries with more flexible work arrangements. However, there are signs the tide could be shifting.
After two years of steep increases, voluntary staff and faculty turnover, excluding retirements, decreased during the 2023-24 school year, according to an annual workforce survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR).
Mostly steady before the pandemic, staff retention took a hit during and after COVID as employees sought new opportunities, more lucrative jobs, and flexible work arrangements, according to the annual workforce surveys. In 2023-24, the overall turnover rate for faculty and staff combined was 14%, down two percentage points from the year prior but still higher than before the pandemic.
For the 2023-24 school year, voluntary turnover decreased for all employee types, with the steepest percentage point declines for staff, more so than faculty.
“Turnover rates have not quite declined to pre-pandemic levels, but they are trending in that direction,” according to the report. “Turnover rates are also not continuing the sharp increases seen in the past two years. This may indicate that retention efforts such as pay increases have helped mitigate the high turnover many institutions have experienced in the past few years.”
Realizing the high cost of turnover and increasing burden on existing staff, some leaders are leaning on more focused strategies to keep staff happy, hoping they will stay put.
Well-being at work is what drives retention, Gould said.
“We focus on capacity and supporting each other’s management of capacity,” he said. “Because you are not going to get everything done. And mentally, we think that we have to get everything done. And in our world today, there are far more things that we could ever get done in any given day. I think managing that helps people prioritize and helps people steer clear of burnout.”
Retaining staff requires an intentional strategy that encompasses a variety of tactics, Gould said, including maintaining a strong internal support network and dedicated strategies to maintain open staff communication. Making sure that staff feel a sense of belonging and that their thoughts and concerns are consistently being heard is also important, he said.
While leaders agree there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to lessening turnover in higher education, Gould said there are some successful tactics he has employed to retain staff.
1. Defining Position Goals and Results
One way that Gould said he supports his staff is by using a results support management (RSM) statement to redefine job expectations and guide task priorities. In this activity, a staff member meets with a supervisor to review the employee’s public job description, go over the results he or she is working toward, and review the support the employee needs to achieve those results.
“I think often there’s a job description and there’s such vagueness between the job description and expectations,” he said. “This helps eliminate that vagueness. For some people it’s a very challenging exercise to do that work. But once you do it and you have your own command over it as the employee, it’s really great ownership of the work you do.”
2. Employee Wellness Check-Ins
About three times a year, Gould said he meets with every team member to focus on holistic employee well-being. Topics of meetings can vary, but a recent one included a focus on managing capacity in the workplace and support structures that have been helpful or are no longer needed in that journey. Other topics have focused on professional development and growth.
“We ask questions like: Where are they with where they sit in the community?” he said. “Where are they with how they feel in their progression in their profession? Where are they with their mindfulness as it relates to work? What are their practices to reduce stress?”
Having open conversations about these topics helps staff members feel heard and encouraged to share what is working well. Gould said he often tries to aggregate tactics in a non-personal way and share them with the division so others can benefit.
3. Adopt a “Hire In and Hire Up” Strategy
Helping employees visualize job and salary growth opportunities within their profession is also essential for keeping them on staff, Gould said.
To do this, Gould adopts a “hire in and hire up” strategy to not only attract qualified candidates but help them see their place in higher education moving forward, including opportunities for job growth and base compensation and supervisory expansion.
For instance, if an employee is in their first year in the job and is attracted to a position outside of higher education that pays a higher salary, Gould talks through with them what growth opportunities they could see in higher education and how that aligns with their professional goals so that they can make informed decisions about their future.
“This sometimes can be the difference between retaining people and not retaining people,” he said.
Facing competition from other industries, higher education must continue to innovate and expand upon strategies to retain staff and maintain the quality of services provided to students. By better understanding the factors driving staff churn and proactively implementing strategies to address them, institutions can create a stable work environment that will benefit students and personnel for years to come.
