M-G CAFE UK@Work

Office of Faculty Resources, Planning and Assessment

Brian Lee, PhD
Associate Dean for Faculty Resources, Planning and Assessment
blee@uky.edu
859-257-7249

Misty Howard, PHR, SHRM-CP
Assistant Director of Faculty Resources
cafe-frpa@uky.edu
859-257-7249

Tricia Coakley, MPA
Assistant Director of Planning and Assessment
tricia.coakley@uky.edu
859-257-7041

N3 Agriculture Science Center North
1100 South Limestone Street
Lexington, KY 40546-0091

A Message from the Dean

nancy cox headshot

One of the things UK has done in recent years to enhance employee engagement and improve overall management and leadership is to gather faculty and staff feedback through the UK@Work Survey. It turns out that these surveys, which began in 2015, meshed well with some college initiatives also undertaken in 2015 through our strategic plan, “Building Our Future on the Land-grant Legacy.”

The UK@Work survey, which was conducted again in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023, gives useful information on many measures of job satisfaction and employee engagement across the units, including Extension and other off-campus employees. These surveys are important to our college and university as staff and faculty job satisfaction is critical to our success.

In March 2021, we provided an additional college opportunity for faculty and staff feedback concerning themes of work effectiveness and well-being as compared to the end of 2019, and to identify ideas for helping people.

The UK@Work survey focuses on sustainable engagement; empowerment; communication; working relationships; stress, balance and workload; leadership; working environment and university culture. Data from each year is evaluated and compared to past survey results. Unit-level reports are provided to M-G CAFE chairs and unit directors with at least 10 respondents.

The September 2023 survey results show improvements in key areas, clarify some of the challenges experienced by faculty and staff since the prior UK@Work survey in 2021, and mirror much of what was expressed in the internal college well-being survey of March 2021.

The college results showed that the majority of respondents have a sense of accomplishment from their jobs, feel they are treated with respect, understand how work performance is evaluated and believe they are evaluated fairly, feel a sense of community at UK, and believe in the the university's mission.

As always, there are opportunities for improvement, and we have some areas to work on. In 2022 and 2023, we focused on helping people in our college community to find productive and healthy ways to reduce stress, and we met with department chairs and unit directors to learn from them about the specific sources of success and challenges faced within the units related to employee engagement. While many of our results are favorable compared to the university overall, we still have more to do.

Several resources are available for faculty and staff, and we will be working to provide additional resources going forward.

Current resources include:

Approximately 57% of Martin-Gatton CAFE faculty and staff responded to the 2023 survey. Thank you to those who participated.

Martin-Gatton CAFE 2023 UK@Work Survey Results

Martin-Gatton CAFE 2021 Faculty and Staff Well-being Survey