VCU news

By Brian McNeill

A new survey conducted by Virginia Commonwealth University Human Resources found that VCU staff are more satisfied with their jobs across every measure, including pay, leave, benefits, a sense of belonging, work/life balance, respect in the workplace and much more. 

“Strategically, we want to focus on areas that we know matter to our staff,” said Bobbi Gouffon, director of Organizational Effectiveness. “The survey lets us know what staff most value about their employment experience at VCU, so we can focus our efforts on providing programs and services that meet their needs.” 

The survey, which was conducted from July 24 to Aug. 4, received responses from 1,859 VCU staff members, who were asked to rate their satisfaction with 15 different aspects of employment at VCU. All 15 aspects were positively rated, and satisfaction increased in all areas over the previous year’s survey.

Notably, the survey found significant year-over-year improvement in VCU staff members’ satisfaction with “relationship with my manager” and “sense of belonging with my team.” 

“I am particularly pleased with the improvement in scores in the areas of relationship with manager, sense of belonging and meaningful work, reflecting a shared commitment to the culture of care and appreciation outlined in Quest 2028,” said Alison Miller, interim assistant vice president of Human Resources. “The improvement in universitywide scores on this survey has been accompanied by a drop in total staff turnover, which allows for more focus on strategic priorities, and less time spent on hiring and training new colleagues.” 

VCU Human Resources launched the annual staff survey in 2022 to gather input on what is most important to VCU employees. Both this year and last year, VCU’s benefits, work/life balance and merit-based salary and wages were identified as the three most important factors in staff members’ decision to remain employed with VCU. 

Putting the survey results into action, HR professionals across the university will begin facilitating conversations within the units they support to ensure the survey results lead to actionable steps that meet VCU employees’ needs and support the university’s goals for employee engagement and retention.

“Workplace culture is hard to measure,” Gouffon said. “When staff complete surveys like this one and our Two-Minute Survey that we do twice per year, it lets us know whether our efforts are having an impact. I am very excited to see that our universitywide results and year-over-year reduction in turnover show that the needle is moving in the right direction.” 

To read the full survey’s results, visit hr.vcu.edu/media/hr/EmployeeSurveyUniversity-WideResults2023.pdf.