The Great Retention Strategy for Student Affairs

Authors: Dr. Kelli Smith + Joseph A. Testani

Higher education and student affairs must be bold as we tackle the opportunities and challenges that the pandemic has created. We must prioritize strategy, planning and empathy when it comes to our teams and people. Too much is riding on our work, our students’ success, and the future of higher education. In this article, we outline key themes to consider, ideas for new ways of working and leading with strategy, and ask readers for additional thoughts. We have an opportunity to reinvent our approach and how we support the incredible professionals who enable the missions of the colleges and universities to transform students’ lives.?

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The Great Resignation. The Great Reassessment. The Great Reset. The Great Reimagination. The Great Upgrade. Whatever the term du jour, the numbers behind waves of people quitting their jobs over the past couple years are striking. A 2021 survey from LinkedIn revealed women experienced nearly 10% more career changes than men. A past Gallup analysis found that 48% of the United States’ working population is actively job searching or watching for opportunities. In 2022, the trend is continuing, and signs indicate the search for a new job won’t slow down. A record 4.5 million workers left their jobs last November, and the trend was not significantly changed with 4.3 quitting in May according to the most recent Labor Department Job Openings and Labor Turnover report.?These studies and many other reports reveal a burned-out workforce at the end of its rope, already frayed before COVID-19. Various reasons stand out. Pre-pandemic, a top reason regularly cited for people leaving their jobs is not feeling appreciated. And not wanting to put up with a toxic work environment or feeling overworked and underpaid are not new frustrations. Gallup contends the more recent shift with many leaving the workforce is not an industry, role, or pay issue, but rather a workplace issue.

Higher education is experiencing this same pain.?Insider Higher Education recently reported on the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources survey where “57.2?percent of respondents were somewhat likely (22.3?percent), likely (12.5?percent) or very likely (22.4?percent) to seek work elsewhere within the next year.” With more than half of higher education professionals planning to leave, we are at a critical juncture with an opportunity to address challenges that have already existed and have now worsened with the pandemic. The investments we make in our people will have an impact on the education enterprises we lead and the students we serve. Leaders should respond to these current challenges not because we need to “get the work done” but because an investment in our people is what universities and colleges should do to model what we stand for and because it is just smart business.

The start of the pandemic sparked hope as to whether this might portend the Golden Age of Student Affairs; students and families demanded the full “college experience” and our universities worked day and night, seven days a week, to plan for the first fall of Covid-19 to offer some measure of an in-person experience for students the best we creatively could. This was particularly important for residential colleges that know the college experience beyond the classroom develops the whole student and is of crucial importance to enrollment, persistence, retention, and completion goals.?Yet the dream of the Golden Age of Student Affairs began to drift as the value and recognition of this work - or lack thereof - for non-faculty was reflected in college and university actions across the country. Couple this with external workforce factors that have become increasingly impossible to ignore such as rising competition for our best talent with promises of flexible work options, higher salaries, and healthier work cultures that emphasize recognition and true wellness.

Additionally, there are many associated and important workforce factors to consider. For example, the pandemic had a clear disproportionate impact on women in the workforce, and this should especially be considered within the field of student affairs since pre-pandemic data revealed approximately 71% of positions within student affairs are held by individuals who identify as women. Yet, as noted, many front-line staff in student affairs were the ones that were asked to take on additional Covid-related duties, deepening the chasm felt by many female, non-faculty staff. Additionally, while student affairs divisions and leadership tend to represent the most diverse sectors of education, we can do much better. For example, only a mere 8% of student affairs officials are Hispanic, while approximately 17% of college students are, poignant considering that the number of Hispanic students enrolled in colleges and universities is expected to increase. In many cases, we asked these professionals to be at the front line of our responses to the pandemic and, quite often, to also lead efforts for our communities to respond to the inequities and safety on our campuses post-George Floyd. But what will be our long-term solution for recognizing, compensating, and supporting these staff members in the future? All this has led to a deep reckoning (or, what should be) of internal workforce issues within our industry that need to be acknowledged.

Taking Action: retention, future-proofing, and talent attraction

Higher education leaders must begin to address the challenges and capitalize on the opportunities but not as a “moment in time” response to our current state. It must become part of an ongoing, proactive, and multifaceted strategy that needs to be integrated into our budgets and future planning. A Chronicle opinion piece wisely pointed out suggestions for needed change, and we hope to build upon that list for leaders at colleges and universities who lead, support, and influence change. Many leaders are doing several the action items below but weaving them together to form a strategy will be critical moving forward to create change, consistency and sustainability.?

1/Lead with Empathy: For anyone who has read about or studied design thinking or human-centered approach to problem-solving and product design, you learned that you must start with empathy for your end-user. It may sound trite, and leaders must always balance prioritization of both tasks and people but consider all that has happened in recent years and what teams and individuals have endured while continuing to support students on their campuses, their families, along with very real trauma many have experienced. Empathy for the experiences of others is critical to address the needs of all staff but especially the various identity groups represented within our teams. We must create an adaptable infrastructure to address these needs but also respond more quickly when new challenges arise. We have to prioritize our people more than ever or else we will not only lose more, but we will also not be able to attract the next wave of leaders to advance colleges and universities and our students’ success.

2/ Performance: Performance and leading with compassion do not need to be mutually exclusive. In fact, leaders must learn how to be empathetic while holding their people accountable. This helps with transparency, communication, managing expectations but also transitions. Leaders should begin to look at staffing through the lens of career education and development where we recognize that people will grow and want more for their careers outside of our offices and units. Effective performance management and planning can help individuals build skills, understand gaps in competencies, and aid in succession planning. We must find the right balance between empathy and accountability.?

3/ Investing in Wellness + Mental Health: Our students graduating last year rated mental health support and wellness as a critical component for evaluating an employer. But we have also seen firsthand the many ways our colleagues have struggled to balance their lives and work and have witnessed the disproportionate impact on women and people of color. If we are to take care of our teams who we expect to care for our students, we must genuinely invest in their well-being. We can work together to substitute toxic positivity with critical hope. If we are to attract a new pipeline of talent, there should be a demonstration that their wellness is part of the work experience. Student affairs needs to model the culture of care that is foundational to student support and represents the values and identity that has been part of student affairs training. But intent has to match action. We regularly focus on student wellness, but what investments and innovations have we made in assessing and improving employee wellness? This could take a variety of forms, including robust employee assistance programs, coaching, wellness resources, and support for flexible work schedules such as what Rutgers did recently for their employees.

4/ Rethink Roles: There is also an opportunity to rethink roles across our organizations. We learned a great deal about our work over the past two years - what is necessary and what is not, ways to be more efficient, how technology can aid our program and service delivery, and, maybe most importantly, what is critical for students and their college experiences. Dedicating time to role reviews, organizational restructuring, new skill development, reallocation of resources, and creating better feedback loops from our stakeholders will be an essential step. And this can and should be done in a creative way that allows for staff to have agency and ownership in the redesign.?

We should pay for skills, education level, and value, in addition to offering meaningful recognition for excellent work, and deal with staff who are not performing. It is crucial we do a better job of supporting and developing leaders from within, using a strengths-based model for our teams, and taking the time to support this. But this requires courage. This is not a “do more with less” post. This is about being impact-focused and assessing your talent based on the impact they make on the outcomes you want as an organization. This connects to understanding how work gets done in your organization allowing you to maximize your people or rethink what the roles really need to be.?

5/ Proactive Retention: Retaining staff will be more critical than ever over the next several years (and likely beyond). Too often we are reactive in our efforts to keep staff but what if we created more proactive efforts to retain our talent? What does it look like to have a model that not only recognizes staff but provides a roadmap for growth? As we have observed in other industry sectors including ones that are adjacent to higher education (consulting firms, edtech, foundations, non-profits, and government agencies). There are some specific retention strategies where we can do better:?

• Conduct semester pulse checks. Regularly gather insights from your people. We have to be aware of the health of the team to create a plan of action.
• Compensation transparency and advocacy. A key aspect of retention is compensation transparency. Many institutions already have some forms of this but we can strive for more transparency about compensation as well as career path opportunities in and outside of higher education. Not doing so perpetuates inequality. This will be especially valuable (and challenging) as industry wages continue to change in response to worker shortages and inflation. While we absolutely must work to keep college costs low, letting low performers go and advocating for high performers can strike a fiduciary balance. Additionally, advocating for additional duty compensation matters to staff, whether due to temporary, permanent, or restructuring changes, and it is the fair thing to do when staff are given additional responsibility. Forbes recently noted the importance of pay considerations for higher education professionals considering the current state of attrition and morale.
• Leader and manager training. Invest in or enhance existing leader and management training and hold leaders accountable for the outcomes outlined. A lack of leadership in middle management can undo even the most progressive systems and structures.?

6/ Skills + Work-integrated Learning: A key part of retention is investing in the skill development of teams. When it comes to work-integrated learning, we know that this is critical for our students, so why not apply this to our teams? As we think about hiring people from other industries, we need to be clearer on skills applicable to higher education. And while retention of current staff should certainly be a focus, leaders should not be scared to discuss the marketable skills they have that could help retain them within the overall institution or community. People want to work at organizations that care about their growth. Allow staff to complete degrees and stackable micro-credentials that can be transferable within - and outside of - higher ed. We can continue the investment in skill and professional development but go beyond the traditional skills we think of in higher ed and student affairs. Skills such as change management, data analysis and application, adaptability, critical thinking, cultural competency, facilitation, and relationship management could be made central to training and development plans.

7/ Pipeline Future-Proofing: Invest in making transitions easier, more efficient, and faster and consider how to proactively develop talent pipelines. Higher education, and in particular student affairs, must learn to better anticipate and respond to external factors, rather than lag behind industry. A pipeline strategy would include:

• Diverse talent sourcing resources, identifying the skill and challenges you are solving and finding where those people may exist (industry, geographically).
• Revisit your relationship with graduate student populations from a variety of programs.
• Revisit your degree requirements (and maybe challenge your institution’s requirements).
• Look outside of higher education for talent - but be prepared to help these people transition into the higher education culture. This may require adapting salary structures.
• Consider tapping into more experienced workers that are looking for a second – or third – career, or those that decided to “retire early” but are still looking for meaningful work.

8/ The Hybrid and Remote Workplace: This will be in a state of flux over the next few years but it will be important to dedicate time to evaluate what can be done remotely or in a hybrid offering. Student needs and interests will evolve and change but we do know and have seen an interest among students for many services to be offered remotely or at least flexibly. Push to evaluate and adapt university spaces to support flexible work arrangements. Let’s be bold in this area and rethink how we deliver our experiences and education to students. This can then lead to a rethinking of our physical spaces that will only add to the community building for students that is at the core of much of what we do. It will require significant systemic changes to rethink student affairs. But now is the time.?

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As we enter this new phase of higher education, let’s be bold. As leaders in higher education, we must begin to prioritize this kind of planning and thoughtfulness when it comes to our teams and people. Build in time to prototype new ways of working, leading with strategy, change management, transparency, and empathic leadership. This can be an opportunity to reinvent how we approach our work and how we support the incredible professionals who enable the missions of the colleges and universities that aim to transform students’ lives every day.?

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Continuing the conversation: Readers, what tips to share about how we can better support our people in student affairs? Create and lead sustainable change for the field? Please share and help us continue the conversation!?

Both of the authors are veteran higher education and student affairs practitioners who have paid close attention to industry and workplace trends due to their long-time experience in career services.

Kelli K. Smith serves as the AVP for Student Success within the Division of Student Affairs at Binghamton University, following the role as the founding Director of the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development. In addition to leading some divisional and campus-wide initiatives in collaboration with academic affairs, her portfolio includes oversight of the Fleishman Center, Center for Civic Engagement, and Student Transition and Success which she created with existing resources to better serve Binghamton students. She remains involved internationally in the field of career services, most recently joining the NACE Board of Directors, has conducted numerous presentations and published in the field, including serving as editor for two Wiley New Directions books related to career services. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member in both the School of Management and the Student Affairs master's program. She holds a master’s degree from Indiana University-Bloomington and a Ph.D. in leadership studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Connections welcome on LinkedIn.

Joe Testani currently serves as the Deputy to the President at the University of Rochester where he will lead and coordinate University-wide strategic projects that address institutional priorities and planning. Most recently he served as Associate Vice Provost for Career Education Initiatives and the Executive Director for the Greene Center for Career Education at the University of Rochester. With over 20 years of career education, student engagement, and change management experience in diverse institutional settings, Joe has been recognized for his leadership and strategic planning at the departmental, institutional, and national level. He led the re-envisioning effort at the University of Rochester to create a career ecosystem spanning six schools and 12,000 students to prepare students for the future of work. He holds degrees from Nassau Community College, Binghamton University, and Indiana University – Bloomington and was awarded the Fulbright International Education Administrators Program in Germany in 2014. Connections welcome on LinkedIn.