UCSF Financial and Administrative Services (FAS)

June 2022

Your voice matters. Here's what we heard.

Dear Financial and Administrative Services (FAS) Community,

 

I am writing to share the results of 2022 Staff Engagement Survey and outline our next steps.

 

Amidst a challenging time for workplaces, FAS has relative stability in our staff engagement and belonging results. Staff were eager to share their voice, with staff engagement participation holding at 83% and more than half (54%) also taking the time to write comments. Our engagement items held stable, with engagement and belonging trending slightly lower, though not meaningfully lower. Gallup’s national data also shows workplace engagement falling, after trending upward at the early stages of the pandemic.

 

This year, new questions were added about burnout and what influences employees to stay or leave. I’m so proud of the 89 teams across eight FAS departments who created more than 227 action plans (goals set by FAS teams to make improvements on what is most important to staff, based on survey results). I was also glad to hear that FAS leads all other UCSF entities in advocacy for the workplace, a point of pride showcasing our loyalty to UCSF. The data also clearly shows areas we need more focus and dedicated efforts. See highlights and next steps below and view all details in the PDF report. 

FAS results held fairly stable on all focus areas amidst a challenging business climate. 31% of FAS employees feel burned out
Download the full report (PDF)

Below are a few highlights and next steps.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

  • All Engagement items held stable. (slide 14)
  • Action planning works – employees who agree their team is making progress on action plans are among the most engaged at UCSF and in all workplaces, the top quartile. (slide 30)
  • Recognition was the item most related to a team’s improvement or decline. (slide 15)
  • 82% of FAS staff said they intended to stay at UCSF, “so special” according to our Gallup representative. (slide 25)
  • We have made improvements in talking about progress with employees and employees feeling like someone cares about them, and the categories of Progress and Mission/Purpose are in the top quartile. (slide 12)
  • Engaged managers build more engaged teams. (slide 26)
  • Focusing on clearly defined career paths and recognition could help increase our employees’ sense of belonging. (slide 17)
  • Burnout, a new survey question, is slightly above average for FAS at 31%, signaling a weary workplace. (slide 23). Gallup national research on burnout in the workplace shows the most common reasons for burnout are: 1) Unfair treatment at work 2) unmanageable workload 3) unclear communication from managers 4) Lack of manager support and 5) unreasonable time pressure.

 

NEXT STEPS

 

It's in our DNA to care about our people. FAS is committed to making our work environment work for everyone. Leaders will leverage what we learned in the staff engagement survey to help inform Action Planning. Additionally, we are looking forward to receiving the 2021 UCSF Climate Survey data, expected this September, and finalizing this year’s DEIA-AR (diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and antiracism) strategy to understand how racism is operating within FAS.

 

Thank you for your role in this important work and especially to the Engagement Ambassadors, FAS Action Plan Leads and the many other staff involved in implementing this year’s survey. It makes a difference.

Erin S. Gore

Senior Vice Chancellor

Finance and Administration