Senior Leadership is extremely grateful for the exceptional engagement from Faculty and Staff across the University related to the Employee Experience survey. This year marks an important milestone as the first time we used a single, unified tool across the entire institution to understand the employee experience across schools, departments, and units. Over 18,700 employees completed the survey—a 71 percent response rate, which is above peer benchmarks. Based on the survey our overall employee engagement rate was at the peer benchmarks and responses showed strong intent to stay with the University. Your participation gave us a meaningful, University-wide view of how employees are experiencing their work, their teams, and the institution overall.

Across the University as a whole, we saw clear strengths in:

• Respectful, trusting relationships with managers and team
• Clarity of expectations and access to training to perform effectively in the workplace
• Access to wellness initiatives and benefits that promote well-being
• A strong sense of purpose: commitment to students, patients, and our community

The survey also pointed to areas where we can improve. Faculty and staff told us they want to see improvements in:

• Balancing workloads and accountability
• Leadership alignment and clearer communication at all levels
• Greater transparency during periods of change
• More clarity on pay practices and how compensation is set
• Improvements related to area specific operational practices and policies

• Leadership, Strategy & Communication: strengthen trust and alignment around our mission, vision, and goals.
• Manager Tools, Support and Education: better equip managers to lead and communicate with confidence, consistency and transparency.
• Culture of Safety: Better understand area specific safety concerns and identify ways to best support employee safety.
• Collaboration, Feedback & Belonging: foster belonging and stronger connections through cross-team collaboration and open feedback opportunities.
• Action in response to the survey: Ensure meaningful follow-up will occur as a result of the survey.

Beginning in February, we will share more details about the results and the steps we will take to address them:

• Transparent Communication: We’ll share overall results and dashboards beginning in February of 2026.
• Manager Training: Over 60 sessions have been scheduled from December through February to help leaders interpret results, collaborate with their teams, and create action plans in response to your feedback.
• Action Planning: This will occur at the organizational, school, and unit level. In the schools, each Dean will work with leaders within their school to create a framework for their school for reviewing results and action planning with both faculty and staff. In Central Administration, the Medical Center and in other units such as the Library, Admissions, MAG, and LLE, to name a few, unit and department leaders will collaborate with their leadership teams to deliver results and action plan to make improvements specific to employee feedback in their areas.

At the organizational level, we will begin working to address opportunities that span the entire University or that impact larger groups of employees across units, departments and schools.  We will gather feedback on proposed action plans by topic through various forums and employee meetings from February – April, followed by formal plans communicated to the University community, which includes our schools, central administration, LLE, MAG, and URMC.

Your feedback is important to us. It helps us understand where we are strong and where we need to improve to support a more welcoming, connected, and positive employee experience. This will take all of our collective efforts. We must collaborate to develop and implement the plans we need to affect progress. We are committed to the process and hope we can also count on your participation and support.