Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Employee Engagement Working Group, I am pleased to share an update about our work.

The Working Group came together this August and meets bi-weekly. The group began by establishing meeting norms and has met four times. We determined our work’s scope, focus, and timeline, reviewed data, and performed a SWOT analysis to examine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to our ability to attract and retain great employees. Finally, we crafted a communication plan to ensure transparency. Those seeking regular updates on the working group’s progress can find meeting minutes on the engagement page of the HR website.

The focus of the group’s work is to identify three potential engagement survey vendors to present to senior staff in December. Senior staff will make the final selection, with plans to launch a survey in February. 

In preparation for identifying survey vendors, the working group assessed insights gathered during the spring listening sessions, examined Bates Educators and Staff Organization (BESO) materials outlining their priorities, and conducted the SWOT exercise. 

Having reviewed the data, the group discussed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to our ability to be where current and potential employees want to come and stay to work. The data was synthesized into a summary of themes, challenges, opportunities, and areas of continued focus. Please see the details here. The working group will use this information to identify surveys with questions that probe these areas and allow employees to express their perspectives.

The group learned about best practices for engagement surveys and discussed different survey vendor types. We will begin reviewing possible survey vendors in our next meeting. 

Please look for our next update in November and direct questions, comments, and suggestions to employeeengagement@bates.edu or a working group member.

Thank you,

Hope and the Engagement Working Group