Human Resources wants to thank everyone who took time to respond to this year’s Survey of Administrative Services (SAS). We wanted to share some of the feedback received. Generally, your responses inform us as we look at our customer service standards and the list of projects and priorities we are compiling. Your feedback is insightful and helpful in both regards.

Regarding the quantitative aspects of the survey, here are some of the core data responses—with items listed by high to low:

Please rate your level of agreement with the following statements:

Field	Mean (out of 5)
HR staff are professional.	4.91 (most agreed)
HR staff are courteous.	4.90
HR staff are knowledgeable.	4.73
HR staff respond to my inquiries in a timely manner.	4.11 (least agreed)

Please rate your level of satisfaction with the following services provided by Human Resources staff.

Field	Mean (out of 5)
Benefits enrollment and open enrollment	4.46 (most satisfied)
Wellness Programs	4.40
Staff Professional Development Programs	4.19
Hiring process (job creation, posting, offer)	4.13
HR Partner Services	4.08
Manager Professional Development Programs	3.70
Performance Evaluations	3.53 (least satisfied)

We earned respectable marks on living Drake’s Core Values—though there is certainly additional work to be done there. Overall, we received a 4.29 on how satisfied responders were with Human Resources. We think we can do better! Interesting data, but the comments are really where the gold can be found. Over forty people took the time to provide feedback. Here’s a graphic to help illustrate what was top of mind:

Some important take-aways from the written responses:

With Gratitude: Campus has shown us tremendous Generosity of Spirit as we have worked through extended vacancies. We are now fully staffed—though three of us are new and very much still learning. We received many comments where people offered constructive feedback but recognized we have been working with less than a full team. We are tremendously thankful for your patience and understanding.

Up Our Customer Service Game: The longer-term members of the HR team all took on more work when we had vacant positions. We know this sometimes resulted in delayed responses when employees and managers sought HR assistance. Additionally, we have not historically had one person who “owned” the main phone line or HR email address. We do now. Improving response time, establishing customer-service expectations, and creating more efficient and effective processes were already top-of-mind for us. Your responses just further illustrate the need to prioritize these topics. We hear you! In fact, we will be sharing with campus an updated customer service model in late November, once we are on the other side of the Open Enrollment rush.

Space for Better Performance Management/Professional Development: It is clear both managers and employees want better processes and tools relating to performance management and professional development. Performance management was something we already identified as an opportunity and a priority. We want to be sure we are training managers, offering paths to staff for professional growth, and facilitating continuous learning and improvement. We will start working on these in early 2022.

Enhance Recruitment/Onboarding Processes: It appears that HireTouch is perhaps the least popular member of our team. It has some quirks, which makes an already lengthy process even clunkier. We will look to see how we can make improvements and provide additional training and resources to trouble-shoot HireTouch quirks. We will definitely spend concentrated time on the entire talent acquisition process.

In fact, HR applied for a True Blue Micro-Internship to have a student help us benchmark onboarding processes with higher education and private industries, as we know this is an area with opportunities for improvement. As luck would have it, our application was accepted and that project starts in early November! Additionally, with our vacant positions now filled, we are shifting Anthony Leto into a role where he can focus on talent acquisition and we’ll be building up a whole new set of tools, resources, trainings, and templates to help us rethink recruitment at Drake.

There were informative comments on several other topics as well, but we wanted to share some of the pronounced themes. Collectively, the SAS results will help us identify top priorities for the rest of the academic year and beyond. Again, we are very thankful for your honesty, ideas, and suggestions. As we further develop a plan of action for HR, we will share and there will also be times when we invite additional feedback to dive deeper into many of these specific topics. We hope you will continue to be willing to help us help you!

— Maureen De Armond, Human Resources