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Goal 3: Develop a comprehensive “people strategy” focused on capturing current activities and potential opportunities in the areas of professional development, compensation/benefits, work-life balance, respect and appreciation, and workplace environment. Evidence of success would be honor roll status in “Great Colleges to Work For” survey. (Target: 2020)
The Gonzaga “People Strategy” consists of a number of programs and initiatives designed to recruit, retain and develop our talented staff and faculty within a respectful work environment that promotes mission integration and inclusive excellence.
Professional and Organizational Development
Within HR, Organizational Development (OD) has created the comprehensive infrastructure needed for on-going services and programming. They have launched the Learning@GU site and have developed an annual comprehensive training calendar. The team is expanding to include a Senior Training Specialist to implement the University-wide training program for managerial and employee development. Additionally, OD launched a campus-wide Education Working Group with representatives from academic and administrative units. The group collaborates with the HR professionals to assess best practice programs; adopt learning frameworks for staff and faculty professional and leadership development: and develop a campus-wide professional development strategic plan.
Organizational Development has worked with Mission and Ministry to develop material and programming to update Management Through Mission (MTM) offerings. The 4-hour core MTM course was redeveloped into two new 4-hour courses, entitled Leading in a Jesuit University and Essentials of Supervision.
Organizational Development also partnered with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Office to leverage efforts for training in DEI for all staff and faculty. Gonzaga University offers a number of professional development programs managed by Human Resources.
The development of Institutional "Work Values" is underway, guided by a university-wide working group consisting of faculty and staff.
Compensation
The Staff Total Compensation Project is a multi-phase project intended to ensure that all staff members are paid fairly and consistent with market equity. The project was initiated in 2016 with the appointment of a broad-based working group, established to assist in discerning the shared values that will contribute to a successful project and ensure participation from the University community. In Phase 1 of the project, the University developed a Staff Compensation Philosophy built on four fundamental commitments: Internal Comparability, Reward, External Competitiveness, and Transparency. This philosophy helped guide the selection of a comparative peer group consisting of 27 colleges and universities, which were used to gain a better understanding of institutional pay relative to the market. A competitive assessment was conducted and adjustments were made to ensure that all staff positions are now within or above market range, with the range midpoint equaling the market survey midpoint. In 2020 - 2021, Phase 2 of the project was completed which included updating over 800 staff job descriptions to create additional consistency and review for equity.
Benefits
Gonzaga University provides full-time employees with a comprehensive benefits program and has consistently made investments in such to minimize the financial impact on employees. Eligible employees can choose from a broad range of benefits beyond dental, health care and tuition remission options, including a robust employee assistance program, healthcare advocacy, cancer support programming, diabetes management programming, wellness coaching, and physician services available by phone and text. Gonzaga has also significantly expanded employee assistance resources in the area of work-life balance and stress related programming. One example is the Zagfit program which incentivizes employees to make healthy choices, supports physical fitness, mental, spiritual and financial wellness as well as volunteerism. The University is working with Catholic Charities to create a portal to assist employees to connect with local service experiences to volunteer with colleagues from their own departments and across the University.
Workplace Environment
The Great Colleges to Work For survey is administered by the Chronicle of Higher Education as an instrument that provides senior-level administrators and academic leaders with insights into the quality of the workplace experience and the competitiveness of institutional benefits. Although Gonzaga was not named a "Great College to Work For" when surveyed in 2020, the survey will be administered again in fall 2022.