Sent on behalf of Chancellor Steve Angle:

MOCS Team-

During the State of the University, one of the areas of focus I shared was a committement to "Creating the MOCS Experience." We want to ensure that our students thrive and that our faculty and staff are positioned for success. As you hopefully have heard or seen by this point, there is a movement across campus to improve our focus within UTC on Total Organizational Health. As has been described by Dr. Chris Cunningham, who is leading this initiative, this means directing more attention to employee health, safety, and well-being, while also focusing on what we need to do to keep our university adaptable and resilient.

A critical element to this work is an ongoing process of gathering, interpreting, and responding to feedback from our employees. In the past, this process has not always been as fast and consistent as we would have liked, and we are working hard to improve this as a way of demonstrating from our highest levels of leadership a very real commitment to action and change that supports this institution's Total Organizational Health. Much of the data available to guide these efforts come from recurring surveys, and one of these surveys was the Great Places to Work survey distributed across the UT system last month. We have seen some progress, but still have work to do.

Below is some more context on the survey as well as a summary of our recent results from Dr. Cunningham:


First, we saw a notable increase of 62.5%(!) in participation rates for this year's Great Places to Work survey compared to last year's survey (130 responses in 2023 vs. 81 responses in 2022). This may not seem like a big deal, but increasing response rates among our employees to these types of surveys is an essential part to our efforts to ensure everyone has a voice and opportunities to share their perspectives and identify ways in which our university is doing well or needs to be doing better. For those of you who did respond to this survey recently, thank you for taking the time to do so.



Second, the overall UT system was identified from this survey as a "great place to work," and this designation includes UTC. UTC does have the lowest score on this general metric (holding steady at around 60 on a scale of 0 to 100 for 2022 and 2023), but this was anticipated as it will take some time to see the full benefits of the TOH work that has begun. The Chattanooga region, economy, and market are different from those in which all other UT system campuses exist. That said, we also cannot dismiss these data, and we definitely do need to keep working to improve the extent to which all UTC employees truly believe UTC is a great place to work for them.


Third, and very interestingly, although our overall designation and ranking did not improve relative to other UT system campuses between 2022 and 2023, the data from this survey do indicate a number of notable improvements in critical areas that are very strongly linked to our ongoing Total Organizational Health initiative, as illustrated in the following graphics:
Top Performing Dimensions
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This positive pattern was also observed for many of our lower-scoring dimensions, as illustrated below:

Bottom Performing Dimensions

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So what does this all mean for our campus? First, being an employee of UTC and the UT system means being a part of a truly great place to work. We do still have work to do, but there are already indications that progress is being made, even within the first 10 months of our Total Organizational Health initiative. For instance, last week Forbes named us one of the four top places to work in Chattanooga. As these efforts continue, you will see a shift into actions designed to address multiple needs for our staff and faculty. You can help these efforts to be successful by continuing to respond to future surveys such as the McLean survey for non-faculty staff (running into October) and the COACHE survey for faculty (in February). You can also help by doing your part to positively contribute to a culture in which everyone's health, safety, and well-being is prioritized on our campus. Through our collective efforts, UTC can absolutely become an employer of choice within our region. Thank you for helping to make this happen.

If you have questions, concerns or want to contribute more directly to these ongoing Total Organizational Health efforts, please speak with your supervisor(s) or reach out to Dr. Chris Cunningham directly at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.

Thank you,
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Steve Angle
Chancellor



Teresa F. McKinney, CPS
Assistant to the Chancellor
Office of the Chancellor
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga | 615 McCallie Avenue | Dept. 5605
Chattanooga, TN  37403-2598
Office Location:  101 Founders Hall
tel: (423) 425-4141     fax: (423) 756-5559
utc.edu/chancellor

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