Employee Satisfaction Survey Newsletter

 

Road to Engagement

Soliciting input from employees when making decisions is critical to building high employee engagement. What do we mean by “employee engagement”? Engaged employees are motivated, committed to the organization, supportive of their coworkers, oriented to providing good customer service and have a strong sense of loyalty. That's what we think Physical Facilities employees can be.

According to the Employee Satisfaction Survey, 12 percent of Physical Facilities employees are actively engaged, while 64 percent are ambivalent (neither engaged nor disengaged), and 24 percent are disengaged. As you can see, we have room for improvement in this area.

So how do we create a roadmap to employee engagement?

Step 1

We need to communicate openly and frequently with you, our employees. Senior Directors Martha May and Carol Shelby along with Managing Director Meghan Leiseberg are chairing a Physical Facilities Communication Committee. The mission of the Committee is to examine current and new communication strategies, and to make recommendations for change. Representatives from each area of Physical Facilities have been invited to join the Committee. Members include:

Rich Gallatin, Materials Distribution – Building and Grounds

Sue Benner, Building Services – Buildings and Grounds

Eric Chin, Purdue Police – Environmental Health and Public Safety

Ken Jacobs, Project Management – Project Management & Construction

Brooke Colella, Landscape Architects – Office of the University Architect

Cindy Huff, Heat and Power – Utilities and Sustainability

Brigette Samuelson, Fiscal Affairs and Deanna Shafer-Rater, Computing Services – Fiscal Affairs

Tammy Johnson, Human Resources, and Gail Riese and Stephanie Boland, Communications – Human Resources

 

Step 2

We actively and continually ask for feedback from you. Your role is:

• to work collaboratively with your team members to create solution-focused action plans;
• to participate in the graphic visioning project; and
• to contribute to Physical Facilities' new strategic plan by suggesting specific ways that each of us can help achieve its goals.

Each of these opportunities is an effort to engage employees as we strive for continuous improvement.

Senior Directors will be communicating departmental progress and successes to all employees at every step of the process. Hopefully you will clearly recognize the value of your participation in the action planning process. The following are just a couple examples of some quick wins that have already been implemented.

Buildings and Grounds - Grounds

• Identified an area to put up a copy of blue prints for the projects going on in and around campus for all to view. Also put up a board to post things like summer project summary and upcoming landscape projects.
  

Building and Grounds - Building Services

• Added computer training to Custodial Educational Development Program (CEDP), as well as installed computers in all crew chief offices
• Created a Staff Uniform Committee to develop uniform bid

Environmental Health and Public Safety - Parking Services

• Initiated weekly meetings per the request of employees

 

All areas in Physical Facilities have been busy developing action plans over the last couple of months. At press time, there are 120 action plans in Action Pro. Examples of well thought-out action plans are highlighted below. Additonal action plans will be featured in upcoming newsletters.

Lastly, we want to thank you for developing “out-of-the box” solutions, for encouraging diverse ideas, and for being willing to be an “owner” of an action plan.

We ask you to recognize that changes do not happen overnight. We are listening to you. Your ideas, suggestions, and concerns are clearly being heard and are being acted upon.

 

Buildings and Grounds

O&M Building Operations & Energy Management – Wayne Morris

Outcome Statement – Provide orientation of new employees

Recommendations

1. Zone Leader introduces the new employee to co-workers.
2. Crew Chief conducts tour of the buildings and introduces him/her to Building Deputies and key customers.
3. Designated IAQTs conduct equipment room tours with the new employee.
4. Zone Leader provides an overview of the performance appraisal system and attendance guidelines to the new employee.
5. Zone Leader welcomes new employee, reviews the Physical Facilities organizational chart and shows how the Zone fits into the operation.
6. A designated co-worker will review benefits that are unique to Zone with new employee.
7. A mentor will be assigned to the new employee by the Zone Leader.
8. After the first week, a meeting will be held with new employee, mentor, Crew Chief, and Zone Leader to address any questions or concerns.
9. Zone DTI conducts Right to Know (RTK) training for the new employee.
   
   

Environmental Health and Public Safety

REM – Kevin Thedans

Outcome Statement – Provide adequate training for the safe operations of man lifts/scissor lifts and other material handling equipment as the need arises.

Recommendations

1. Establish meetings with employees where the group can give feedback on new training initiatives effectiveness.
2. Put in place a mechanism to ensure employees receive all training components prior to working by themselves (checklist).
3. Solicit employees' feedback on the effectiveness of new training initiatives and make adjustments according.
4. Create a designated trainer position in each department, responsible for developing job-specific training programs for their department.
5. Training programs should be conducted on an ongoing basis, in installments.

 

Fiscal Affairs and Computing Services

Fiscal Affairs – Jane Ashby

Outcome Statement – Learn, create, and maintain a reference library of educational and training topics, dates, times, costs, and certifications to review for consideration.

Recommendations

1. Identify and enroll in list-serves.
2. Create training information folder(s) on shared drive and communicate information to all PFFA staff.
3. Determine responsible person(s) and frequency of updates for the training folder information.
4. Identify resources such as PF Training, Business Office Training coordinators, etc.
5. Identify scope of allowable training during work hours and what Purdue will pay for.
6. Identify training topics and needs.
7. Search web for training resources (such as Pryor) and sign up for catalogs.

 

Physical Facilities Human Resources

PF Training – Bob Beck

Outcome Statement – Create a plan for phased in technological improvements for the following benefits:

-Increased learning and development opportunities

-Maximum flexibility in performing remote business operations such as webinars, regional campus collaboration, A&E discussions, external vendor presentations and training.

Recommendations

1. Annually invest capital funding as available to purchase and install the prioritized training infrastructure needs.
   (Equipment and projected costs follows.)

Office of the University Architect

Maps and Records – Angela Slocum

Outcome Statement – Develop and implement targeted information strategies so our client base can gain a better understanding of Maps and Records' available services.

Recommendations

1. Develop and implement a survey for the client base to determine user's perception of available services, personal skill level, and perception and timing of training needs.
2. Develop types of information strategies to educate the identified user base. This may include user groups, training sessions, web information, publications, forums, etc.
3. Work with the Training department to identify workstation resource needs.
4. Define services we do not regularly provide and identify the most appropriate Subject Matter Expert (SME) as that resource.
5. Define services we regularly provide (available services).
6. Develop and implement tools or methods to measure the success of the implemented information strategies.
7. Develop “core competencies” or prerequisite lists of what knowledge, skills, and abilities users need prior to developing a training strategy.
8. Identify a client base to develop an information strategy for.

 

Project Management and Construction

Construction – Terry Maldonado

Outcome Statement – Better understand the roles and responsibilities of staff in departments that we work with on a daily basis.

Recommendations

1. Create a who's who book of departments and staff that we interact with on a daily basis. This will include name, title, department, brief description of what each person does, email and phone number.
2. Information will be stored electronically on the G: drive for easy access.
3. Hard copies will be provided to the reception areas in Freehafer Hall.

 

Utilities and Sustainability

High Voltage/Utilities Distribution/Water Works – Jay Schwartz

Outcome Statement – Have employees gain a better understanding of existing and/or changing policies and procedures.

Recommendations

1. Communicate policy changes to all staff via company newsletter, mass voicemail, email, or public posting. Explain, whenever possible, the reasons for changes.
2. Identify which policies that are unclear and obtain the necessary information or invite the appropriate Human Resources representative to provide further education.
3. Ensure all staff fully understands the organization's policies.