Survey of Organizational Excellence

The initial administration of the Survey of Organizational Excellence at The University of Texas at Austin occurred during the 1997-1998 academic year.  The survey results were returned to all participating units beginning in mid-July – two weeks after the close of data collection.  Five units within the University participated in the survey process.  The units were the Performing Arts Center, General Libraries, Charles A. Dana Center for Education Innovation, College of Engineering, Office of Human Resources and Dean of Students.  The Texas statewide response rate was 34%.  State agencies averaged a response rate of 58%.  The University’s overall response rate was 36% with an average unit response rate of 45%.

The University scored higher than the state average on all questions except for fair pay (the lowest scoring question for the University) and benefits (49 points below the state average).  Fair pay is the lowest scoring question for all participating units with the exception of PAC, which scored supervisory effectiveness as the lowest.  The clustering of low scoring questions suggests that fair pay, supervisory effectiveness, fairness, empowerment, internal communication, and job satisfaction are areas of concern across the University.  Furthermore, the organizational strengths are clustered around strategic orientation, external communication, quality, time and stress management, and satisfaction with the adequacy of physical environment.

The clustering of items indicates that many attitudes are shared across the organization.  The strong items include: an organization with a strong orientation towards customer service, employees feeling comfortable in speaking with their supervisor, a climate where sexual harassment is not tolerated, and that employees exhibit honesty, accuracy, ethical behavior, and quality in their workplace.  The low scoring items suggest that the University’s bureaucracy impedes employees from getting their work completed.  Moreover, feelings of burnout and stress, low perceptions of salary, level of benefits, and rewards for performance are areas of concern and are perceived as getting worse over time.

The participating university units were asked to provide a brief description of how they were planning to utilize the survey data in their organizations.

The University units that participated in the Survey indicate that each possesses considerable internal strength to both acknowledge achievements and start the process of addressing issues that employees see as weaknesses.  With the exception of the PAC, high participation rates support the observation of highly committed and spirited employees that provide a base upon which to secure individual efforts and responsible conduct.  For all groups  (and especially the General Libraries, and the Office of Human Resources), pay is a pressing concern that unit and campus leadership cannot solve immediately.  However, leadership can acknowledge this concern and emphasize to employees what efforts are being made to address these concerns.  More directly amenable to remedy are problems that deal with high levels of bureaucracy, supervisor inadequacies, and failure to recognize exceptional individual effort.  For example, focus groups composed of employees can do much to lessen bureaucratic barriers and supervisor training must be a continuing effort.

Examining the scores as compared to the statewide benchmarks, some distinctions for the University community were evident.  One is that benefits are clearly viewed as less adequate by University employees as compared to statewide benchmarks.  A second is that with the exception of the PAC, University employees are less negative in their assessment of bureaucratic features than is the statewide comparison.  Looking at issues of perceptions of quality, fairness relative to discrimination, ethical conduct, and openness, the University groups rate these areas much more highly than does the average from across the state.  Noteworthy among the University units are the several dimensions wherein the Performing Arts Center has much greater negative concerns.  Employee participation in the Survey for the PAC was comparatively very low and while pay and benefits are campus-wide concerns, issues of fairness, quality of supervision and burnout are viewed by the PAC group as even more negative than pay adequacy.

Employees at the College of Communications and the Measurement and Evaluation Center were recently surveyed.  The results are being analyzed now; employees in other University colleges or schools, as well as other offices and facilities, are scheduled to be surveyed in similar fashion in the future.

The issue of staff salaries was addressed by President Faulkner and resulted in a significant pay raise in the 1999-2000 fiscal year.  The administration continues to address the issue for the 2000-2001 fiscal year.  Also the administration addressed the issues at the Office of Human Resources by commissioning a consultants study, which was recently received and the conclusions of which the administration has indicated it accepts and will implement.

President Faulkner has made it known, following receipt of the consultants’ report, that there will be “similar efforts, all aimed at improving administrative support units so each area ‘operates like a well-run business’ to enable UT Austin to continue toward its goal of being one of the world’s pre-eminent universities.”

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