UW News

November 8, 2007

Survey to help POD determine training needs

What abilities do University faculty and staff need to do their jobs well? That’s a question staff at Professional and Organizational Development (POD) set out to answer when they conducted a Universitywide needs assessment survey recently. The department runs such surveys about every two years, said POD Director Beth Warrick, but this survey was different.

“Our earlier surveys weren’t true needs assessments,” she said. “They included questions about a lot of different things. But our goal this year was really very clear. We wanted to know what competencies people needed in their current roles and what competencies they needed to develop in their career.”

To prepare for the all-campus survey, POD conducted research and surveyed administrators in order to identify 21 job competencies that would be valuable in various positions at the University. They then asked survey respondents which of those competencies were most important — for themselves and for their supervisors or employees.

A link to the survey was sent to all faculty and staff via e-mail, and 3,114 UW staff and faculty (or 11 percent of University employees) responded. The competency that rated highest among all groups was communication. Sixty-one percent of supervisors valued it in their employees and 51 percent of nonsupervisors valued it in their supervisors.

Other competencies that supervisors valued highly for their employees were teamwork (53 percent) and functional expertise (46 percent). Other competencies that non-supervisors valued highly in their supervisors were coaching and mentoring (37 percent) and leading others (32 percent).

For growth in their own careers, UW supervisors place high value on developing competency in strategic thinking (48 percent), leading change (34 percent) and communication (33 percent). Nonsupervisors at the UW place high importance on problem solving and decision making (36 percent), communication (33 percent), and strategic thinking (30 percent).

One area where there was disagreement between supervisors and non-supervisors was in the matter of professional development opportunities. Eighty-three percent of supervisors agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “UW provides professional development programs and services that meet my needs,” while 69 percent of nonsupervisors agreed or strongly agreed with it.

More glaring were the differences between supervisor and nonsupervisor views on the question of whether supervisors encouraged their employees to pursue professional development. Ninety-four percent of supervisors across the University agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I encourage my staff to engage in professional activities,” but only 66 percent of non-supervisors agreed or strongly agreed.

Warrick said that, given POD’s mission of advocating for learning and development across the campus, they are concerned about the disconnect. “But I think we also realize that it’s often easier to talk about employee development and providing opportunities than it is to actually do it because the day-to-day work gets in the way,” she said. “It does require some sacrifice, not only on the part of the supervisor but on the rest of the team. And throughout the University, all units are so lean in staffing that there’s a big impact when one person is out attending a training session.”

Indeed, respondents to the survey identified time and money as the greatest barriers to participation in professional development activities.

Warrick also said that an investment in professional development tends to be a long-term thing and harder to justify than investments that pay off right away. She said that was one way in which the survey would be helpful.

“Identifying those work competencies and seeing what people believe they need right now and what they will need in the future is going to help us be able to not just offer a course that somebody, somewhere would like to have, but to offer a course that we can say, ‘This many people from the needs assessment said they needed this skill and here it is, we’re offering it.'”

The survey also asked about SkillSoft E-Learning, a service through which UW employees can take courses online at no cost. Although most respondents were not currently registered, about half of those who weren’t said they were likely or very likely to register in the future. At the close of the survey in August, 2,255 UW employees were registered for the service.

Warrick said the University’s participation rates and completion rates for SkillSoft classes were very high by industry standards. “Those who do use it use it a lot,” she said. “So based on that, our assumption is that it’s proven to be a very valuable resource for those people who get in there and figure out how to make that work for them.”

POD has made some survey results available via a PDF that can be found at www.washington.edu/admin/hr/pod/na2007. In addition, POD is willing to provide departmental reports to leaders of any department that was listed in the survey and had more than 20 people respond to it. POD staffer Ujima Donalson will work with units on using their responses to create a plan to help ensure their organization and employees are prepared to be as effective as possible now and in the future. Contact her at 206-685-4565 or ujima@u.washington.edu.

Warrick said results will also be incorporated into Leadership, Community and Values Initiative efforts, including career development and new employee orientation.