Approaching Employee Engagement:

Prepared by the 2018 KU Staff Fellows

a recommendedEMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION

for

Contents

Executive Summary..........................................................................2 Key Findings...................................................................................3 Recommendations.......................................................................5 EVP.....................................................................................................6Research Summary...........................................................................7 Focus Group Findings.................................................................7 Best Practices in.........................................................................10 Industry..................................................................................11 Higher Education...............................................................13 Readings.......................................................................................14 KU Climate Study.......................................................................15Conclusions........................................................................................16Bibliography......................................................................................17

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Executive SummaryThe 2017-2018 Staff Fellows accepted a charge to articulate how the University of Kansas values its staff and to make specific recom-mendations for improving employee engagement. As a tool for fo-cusing KU’s efforts, Staff Fellows have proposed an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that is deliberately aspirational. It celebrates how consistently Staff Fellows heard staff who were proud to identify their role in advancing the university’s mission. The EVP also identi-fies a need: KU must cultivate long-term employee engagement by providing manifest opportunities for staff to grow their individual roles and to take on greater responsibility and leadership opportu-nities throughout their careers.

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In order to propose an EVP for adoption at KU, Staff Fellows sought to understand why staff members are attracted to KU, what they value about working here, why they stay, and why they leave. While reasons for staying and leav-ing are as unique as the individuals who hold them, a few issues arose consistently. Beyond the benefits package, the strongest motivators for staff to stay at KU are a unit’s clear orienta-tion to the university’s mission and a unit’s cul-tivation of a positive atmosphere of respect and fairness. Similarly, the foremost reasons staff leave are poor supervisors, non-competitive sal-aries, and a lack of career advancement oppor-tunities. These findings reflect interviews with key university leaders, focus groups involving more than 100 university employees, a review of KU’s Climate Study data, and a review of out-side literature and best practices.

During interviews and focus groups with cur-rent staff across the university, Staff Fellows heard a wide variety of positive comments about working at KU. A few key features came up frequently, though. Most employees love KU’s benefits package, Lawrence location, and healthy work-life balance. Many also boasted of their contributions to the university’s broader mission to serve society through research and education. In fact, a staff member’s ability to clearly and directly identify their contribution to KU’s mission emerged as one of the stron-gest indicators of their satisfaction with their work and their job. Pessimistic descriptions of KU as a ”least-worst’” employment option cor-related strongly with staff who could not iden-tify KU’s mission and did not know how their responsibilities advanced that mission. Trends also emerged from Staff Fellows’ discussions of why staff consider leaving. All staff respondents expected fair treatment and respect from their supervisors and many ex-pected the university’s administration to hold supervisors accountable if they failed in this regard. In addition, when staff considered leav-ing KU, they most often cited non-competitive salaries and the lack of career advancement opportunities as the reasons for their dissatis-faction. Others said they would take another opportunity if they felt they could have their ideas heard more or would have better bene-fits (tuition assistance for dependents, for ex-ample). The quality of an employee’s supervisor came up again and again as a critical matter of importance. Those who were engaged and ex-cited to come to work usually heaped praise on their supervisors. By contrast, those who were frustrated often felt unsupported at work, ei-ther by their direct supervisor or by the broad-er university administration.

Key Findings

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Staff Fellows and the KU Climate Study both found generally positive at-titudes among KU staff. However, both identified areas of potential im-provement, as well. The Staff Fellows have developed three recommen-dations to address these areas of concern. These recommendations are intentionally left broad to give KU leaders leeway in adapting them into existing and future plans as they see fit. A number of specific policies and measures could help address these recommendations, some of which are described in this report. However, Staff Fellows intentionally avoided getting into the policy weeds. Instead, they recommend that these te-nets be addressed through future strategic planning efforts.

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The Staff Fellows recommend that KU’s senior leadership address the fol-lowing three priorities in the coming months and years:

Staff Fellows Accountability

The Staff Fellows believe in the value of these recommendations and seek to engage with KU leadership in the future on efforts to address these areas. Staff Fellows recommend that KU track its success in addressing these issues by including questions about them in future surveys, exit interviews, and other mechanisms used to track employee satisfaction. The Staff Fellows recognize that much work has been done on these topics and is-sues already. Still, they believe that room remains to improve, particularly if KU is to adopt an EVP that articulates these issues as a kind of promise to future employees.

Staff need expanded opportunities for individual job growth and clearer pathways for career advance-ment within the institution.

Staff need skillful leadership, effective supervision, and accountability to be cornerstone values and fundamental components of the KU culture.

Staff need assurance that their financial well-being will improve over time.

Recommendations

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Employee Value Proposition

The University of Kansas is proud to be a place where staff feel in-spired by the institutional mission and find it easy to identify how they contribute directly to that mission. Jayhawks make an impact, serving the state of Kansas and its cit-izens by educating the leaders of tomorrow and confronting our most pressing challenges today.

It is a place that values integrity, respect for others, and disciplined inquiry in the search for knowledge.

KU recognizes that retaining talented and experienced staff is key to the university’s strategic edge and aspires to expand opportu-nities for job growth and to clarify advancement paths for staff.

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Research SummaryFocus Group Findings

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The Staff Fellows conducted five focus groups, inviting staff from across the institution to participate. During these sessions, more than 100 participants actively engaged, providing insight into both their reasons for staying and their complaints about working at KU. In ad-dition, the Staff Fellows collected voluntary feedback from participants by email, after the focus group sessions had concluded. Clear trends emerged from their responses, high-lighting both why KU is a great place to work and where senior leadership must make im-provements in order to retain valuable staff in the long run.

So why do staff stay at KU?

Overall, a few key factors came up often when Staff Fellows asked why focus group partici-pants joined KU and why they stayed.

● KU’s inspiring mission ● The overall benefits package ● Good supervisors and colleagues

Why do staff leave?

By contrast, these factors emerged among staff when asked why they considered leav-ing KU.

● Poor supervision ● Non-competitive salaries ● Lack of advancement opportunities

Staff Fellows also noted the prominence with which staff expressed strong affinity for their immediate supervisors but skepticism or fear of their reporting chain above the supervi-sor. Staff Fellows have termed this concern “skip-level mistrust” and feel it should carry significant weight in shaping future strategic decisions.

Identification with the mission is critical

Staff Fellows feel one key correlation is par-ticularly striking and reinforces the impor-tance of connection with KU’s mission in mo-tivating staff engagement. The most strongly correlated predictor of a staff member’s dis-satisfaction at work turned out to be an in-ability to identify KU’s mission and their own role in advancing it. In some focus groups, members expressed confusion and uncer-tainty about the nature of KU’s mission while, in others, staff easily articulated not only the mission but how they contribute to it person-ally. Since working for KU is, in many ways, more similar to employment in the non-prof-it sector than the corporate one, identifica-tion with the institution’s mission proves a key component of job satisfaction. The focus groups that expressed confusion about the university’s mission also expressed signifi-cantly more pessimism about KU’s overall trajectory, about imbalances between re-sources and expectations, and about their reasons for working here.

Strong benefits package attracts employees

The features that first attracted staff to KU are widely varied, as are the reasons they stay. In general, though, a large majority of participants strongly praised KU for its fringe benefits and for its flexibility in support-ing family demands and work-life balance. Fringe benefits of particular importance for attracting new staff included KU’s location in Lawrence and convenient commute, insur-ance coverage, tuition assistance, employ-ment and earnings stability, retirement plan, paid holidays, and flexibility in scheduling and work-life balance. Other factors arose less frequently as reasons for accepting a po-sition at KU but did attract some staff. These included multi-generational or lifelong af-filiation, often termed “Jayhawk Blood’”, the reputation and prestige KU holds in a specif-ic field or area of employment, and opportu-nities for research and academic scholarship as part of a position.

Benefits, good relationships with colleagues keep employees here

Among their reasons to stay once employed, staff most frequently highlighted the bene-fit package, by far. Participants emphasized vacation time, retirement plans, location and commute, insurance coverage, and tuition assistance in particular. Of similar impor-tance were a good supervisor, a fondness for colleagues, a sense of camaraderie in the workplace, and flexibility with respect to work-life balance. Other positive factors that played into some participants’ decisions to stay included feeling valued for doing im-portant work, a connection with students,

collaboration in the workplace, the KU cul-ture, the Leadership Summit, library access, professional development opportunities, and a sense that KU is better organized and more productive than other places the par-ticipant had worked previously. Unfortunate-ly, some of the more pessimistic participants expressed their decisions to stay in terms of path dependency, saying they had no other options, it was difficult to find comparable benefits, or they were close enough to retire-ment that staying was the lesser of two evils. Staff Fellows also asked participants to share what they tell friends and family when they brag about work. Their responses generally reinforced the findings above but particularly highlighted the motivational importance of pride in their students’ work, in their team’s achievements, and in their direct contribu-tions to KU’s mission; many are happy to work for “the good guys”.

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Non-competitive salaries and lack of advancement

lead to thoughts of leaving KU

When Staff Fellows investigated reasons that focus group participants had consid-ered leaving KU, many expressed that KU’s non-competitive salaries and a lack of clear advancement paths across campus are clear shortcomings in need of attention and res-olution. Participants most frequently stated they could be lured away by an opportunity that offered a clear path for long-term career advancement. Opportunities that would provide a more lucrative overall package of salary and fringe benefits followed in a close second place. Other factors that participants said might attract them included more work variety, feeling more appreciated or more likely to have their opinion counted, a better manager, and tuition assistance benefits for dependents. A few participants indicated that they feel driven out by recent changes in senior leadership, strategic priorities, or KU’s unwillingness to compensate fairly for longer experience or greater expertise.

Staff expect respect, accountability, and compensation for good work

Finally, Staff Fellows inquired about partici-pants’ expectations for recognition by their employer and the extent to which they feel KU succeeds in rewarding performance and

engagement among its staff. Outside of salary and fringe benefits, participants’ expectations unsurprisingly centered around the attitudes and behaviors of their supervisory hierarchy. They expected respect for their work and ideas, fair treatment, support, transparency, good communication, accountability, safety, fair workloads, clear expectations, and the consistent application and interpretation of university policies and processes across all staff. When asked how KU rewards perfor-mance in the participants’ respective units, a disappointing number said, “it doesn’t”. Oth-ers cited things like merit increases, the lead-ership summit, the circulator bus, recognition meals or receptions, branded apparel, and supervisors who provide treats for their staff using personal resources. From these discussions, two more gen-eralized trends emerged as well. First, it be-came clear that the quality of one’s supervi-sion can be almost singularly responsible for a staff member’s decision to stay or leave. To that end, a discouraging number of staff ex-pressed dismay at the lack of training their supervisors have received is discouraging. More significantly, though,many focus group participants expressed a surprising degree of what Staff Fellows have called “skip-level mistrust’”. This phrase describes a situation in which staff are fiercely loyal and trusting of their immediate supervisors and, by contrast, deeply suspicious of their supervisor’s man-agement and reporting hierarchy, especially senior administration. Based on these discus-sions, Staff Fellows concluded that KU should

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focus attention and resources on improving the support and training provided to super-visors and improving the transparency, com-munication, and accountability between all levels of leadership and management. It will

Best Practices

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In order to assess best practices in higher education and corporate industry, the Staff Fellows conducted research into EVPs in use at several peer institutions and companies. Very few of the organizations researched and none of those interviewed had formally ad-opted an EVP. Nevertheless, several had ro-bust and comprehensive packages of infor-mation concerning benefits and an overall company or university culture with respect to employee engagement and development.

Many universities do not have an Employee Value Proposition yet

Most peer universities, however, lacked any statements of this kind, which Staff Fellows find significant. Adoption of EVPs, while in-creasingly common in corporate America, is still rather foreign in the higher education sector. As a result, adoption of an EVP may be perceived as opposed to other core in-stitutional values. How the initiative is com-municated will be important to its long-term success. On the other hand, should KU suc-cessfully implement an EVP which improves employee engagement, our leadership in this arena may position KU for strategic ad-vantage.

be important for staff to see how KU might implement changes that prioritize supervi-sion and accountability as key components of the KU culture.

Interviews with three companies, in particu-lar, showed how large organizations can be deliberate in cultivating employee valuation and engagement even without a formal EVP. Representatives of all three of these compa-nies, Cerner, Pfizer, and CVS, identified two crucial factors to the establishment of a ro-bust employee valuation culture at their or-ganization. Fundamentally, supervisors and managers must “buy in”, regularly soliciting feedback and making accountability a visi-ble cornerstone of their leadership style. Staff Fellows also compared KU’s benefits packag-es with those at these companies. They found the institution generally compares favorably but could get a couple of new ideas, too. The first step is to collect reliable infor-mation about what is going well and where weaknesses exist. All three companies focus earnest, in-depth attention on the question of employee engagement and satisfaction annually. All three companies use extensive surveys once a year. Though the details of these surveys vary slightly between compa-nies, staff evaluation of supervisors is a core component in all cases. All employees are

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asked for honest feedback about the perfor-mance of their immediate supervisors and their senior leadership on a regular basis.

Supervisory accountability is key

More importantly, according to all of the in-terviewed representatives, supervisory ac-countability is the key to success. The inter-viewees emphasized that responsiveness is imperative: people will only provide genuine feedback once or twice if they do not see anything come of it. In order for such pro-grams to be successful, leadership must be invested in establishing a culture which emphasizes accountability and genuine resolution of concerns in a meaningfully short time frame. To help with establishing such a culture, one company has revised all of its managerial position descriptions to al-locate at least 20% of effort toward employee engagement. Another obligates supervisors to implement resolutions for any negative feedback within a specified time frame. Res-olution delivery is measured as part of super-visors’ performance metrics.

Industry

KU benefits compare favorably

Through the interviews, Staff Fellows also investigated employment benefits that staff at these companies enjoy, in the interest of comparing KU’s benefits package. This com-parison confirmed their expectations. With the exception of salary, KU’s benefits gener-ally compare favorably with those offered by corporations, especially in the greater Lawrence and Kansas City area. General-ly speaking, KU’s vacation and retirement benefits are notably more generous than even “gold standard” corporate benefits packages. Moreover, KU offers equivalent levels of many other components of such a gold-standard package. For example, KU provides staff with access to on-site phar-macy, medical clinic, and massage services; access to exercise facilities, classes, and trainers; access to on-site child care at costs comparable with other child care in the area,

1Staff Fellows recognize some shortcomings in these areas, such as the fact that there is greater demand for child care than the on-campus facilities can meet. In addition, while some of these services are free at Kansas City companies, KU employees must pay either a nominal fee (as for access to the recreational center) or fair market pricing (as for the medical clinic).2The staff sabbatical program requires seven consecutive years of work, after which staff may apply for four weeks of sabbatical. One of those weeks must have a demonstrated educational component such as a training course.

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local-area discounts, and regular networking events on site.1 On the other hand, Staff Fellows discov-ered that some of these companies also offer one or more benefits that KU does not, cur-rently. Staff Fellows suggest that KU’s senior leadership should consider offering some of these benefits as incentives for meritorious performance. This approach, distinct from across-the-board benefits for all staff, may help to address a feeling of stagnation that disin-centivizes effective staff from seeking further excellence because they feel their efforts can-not be rewarded under the current structure. These benefits include one paid day per year to engage in volunteer service, mental health resources on site, access to on-site cooking classes and other intramural activities (e.g., staff meet-up groups and wikis for hobby dis-cussion, classified ads, etc.), and a competitive staff sabbatical program.2

Higher Education

3Surveyed institutions include: Indiana University, Michigan State University, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Univer-sity of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Florida, Iowa State University, the University System of New Hampshire, Tulane Univer-sity, the University of Virginia, the University of Oregon, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of Missouri at Columbia, and the University of Iowa.4 “ISU Wellbeing”, Iowa State University, https://www.wellbeing.iastate.edu/, accessed 14 April 2018. “University System of New Hampshire Total Rewards Objectives”, University System of New Hampshire, (February 17, 2011), 5https://www.usnh.edu/sites/www.usnh.edu/files/media/olpm/docs/bot/Total-Rewards-Objectives_2011-02-17.pdf, Accessed 1 April 2018,.6 “Tulane Employee Welcome Presentation”, Tulane University, http://hrtraining.tulane.edu/employment/2015WelcomePresenta-tion.pdf, accessed 14 April 2018.

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The Staff Fellows also reviewed published materi-als from 13 peer institutions to evaluate the extent to which any had implemented an EVP.3 Among these, only three had adopted a formal statement that aligns with this group’s concept of an EVPs Tulane, the University System of New Hampshire, and Iowa State University. This lack of EVPs at peer institutions is, in itself, significant. Few uni-versities have chosen to take this route toward im-proving employee engagement and valuation on their campuses. Should KU’s senior leaders deter-mine that adopting an EVP would bring positive change, KU may take on a national leadership role and serve as a model for other institutions seek-ing to do the same. Iowa State’s program, ISU WellBeing, is more narrowly focused than the EVP that Staff Fellows propose for KU.4 It focuses on cultivating a “thriv-ing culture of well-being” at Iowa State, targeting physical, financial, and other forms of fitness. The model adopted by the University System of New Hampshire in 2011 more closely parallels the pro-posal for KU, above:

“The University System of New Hampshire (USNH) Total Rewards program includes total compensa-tion, benefits, work environment and learning and development opportunity. In order to support the mission, vision, and values of USNH and its component institutions, Total Rewards objectives are as follows....”5

From there, the two-page statement enu-merates specific goals in five categories: Talent At-traction and Retention, Competitive Positioning, Performance Orientation, Fiscal Responsibility,

and Administration and Communication. Tu-lane’s statement is similarly strong, highlighting four areas of attention.6

Engagement: Our employees are motivated by the difference they make at Tulane and in the greater communities of which the university is part. We will encourage you and support you to maximize your contribution to both. Community: You aren’t just a Tulane employee; you are a member of the Tulane community. You belong to an organization that understands that loyalty and commitment are two-way streets. A Sense of Place and Tradition: An environ-ment of intellectual curiosity, learning and re-search, infused with the energy of campus life, will inspire you with endless opportunities to stimulate your life and mind. Challenge and Growth: The breadth of activi-ty performed at Tulane University provides you with a wide range of opportunities to contrib-ute. You have the opportunity to grow your job and to pursue new directions as you grown, in a dynamic organization that goes beyond tradi-tional limitations.

The Staff Fellows put these two examples forward as best practices in field of higher education at this time. Should KU adopt an EVP and seek to implement a program that supports it, these two should be guiding models.

ReadingsThe Staff Fellows consulted outside experts and the academic literature for additional perspectives on this topic. In general, those perspectives largely aligned with Staff Fel-lows’ findings, highlighting the importance of staff identification with organizational mission in motivating engagement. Some authors suggested financial rewards for em-ployees who learn new skills. EVP can articulate organizational goals and benefits beyond base pay, and spark intrinsic motivation. Research shows that many successful firms solicit current in-formation from their employees in order to craft their EVP. Companies like American Ex-press regularly survey their workers, asking them to identify key factors that make the company a top place to work. Then, these companies use this information to articu-late the benefits, beyond compensation, of working there. In American Express’ case, the result was a number of videos that have “a clear message: American Express is looking for creative leaders focused on meeting the company’s mission, ‘to serve people and in-

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spire extraordinary lives.’” These companies have found that a strong alignment between their employees and their organizational goals can substantially increase employees’ intrinsic motivation and engagement. Em-ployees who are intrinsically motivated work with an absence of external constraints and contingencies. This is a desired effort that promotes “self-motivation and effective reg-ulatory functioning through internalization of organizationally valued goals.”

Career development, compensation can help build engagement

Gerald E. Ledford, of Ledford Consulting Net-work, noted that compensation is still key, however. More and more companies who are embracing statements like an Employ-ee Value Proposition to help boost engage-ment, also place particular focus on com-pensation and benefits.“Compensation and benefits play a powerful role in determining the level of involvement and engagement,” he said. Ledford also suggested that com-panies should consider paying more for employees who gain a better appreciation

of how their job fits in the bigger picture, perhaps through efforts like “cross-skilling”. Cross-skilling describes when workers learn new skills and their employer pays for each new skill mastered. However, Ledford also cautioned that, if poorly designed, such plans can “can un-dermine other approaches”. For example, cross-skilling can disadvantage those near retirement who find little other benefit to learning new skills. Legal problems can arise if there is a misunderstanding about an em-ployer’s promises, making rewards difficult to claim. In keeping with other research cited above, Ledford also noted that work-life bal-ance benefits can reduce withdrawal behav-ior among employees.

KU Climate StudyRankin and Associates, in their final summa-ry analysis of staff responses to the 2016 Cli-mate Study, determined that “most Faculty and Staff/Research Scientist/Engineer/Senior Administrator without Faculty Rank respon-dents generally hold positive attitudes about The University of Kansas - Lawrence and Ed-wards Campus policies and processes.” The statistical data provided in the Climate Study Full Report indicate that, in general, most of these staff either “agree” or “strongly agree” with positive survey statements about their employment while a minority subscribes to the negative statements. At the same time, the data do show internal variability among this subset of university staff when respond-ing to the survey questions. For example, senior administrators were much more like-ly than hourly or salaried staff to agree that they were included as much as others in sim-ilar positions when opportunities became available that would help their careers.

The Final Report determined that five themes emerged from the comments con-cerning overall satisfaction. These five themes are: overwhelming workload, evaluation pro-cess, inequity issues, quality of supervisor, and family-related issues. All five of these themes were also reflected in the feedback the Staff Fellows received during their focus groups. In particular, negative feedback Staff Fellows re-ceived focused on the quality of supervisors and the ways that supervisors get evaluated. They expressed feelings of “us-versus-them” division among staff ranks or between staff and faculty or administrators. Positive feed-back also focused on supervisors, as the staff who reported the greatest engagement at-tributed it to fantastic supervisors. On the other hand, while family con-cerns were a theme in both the Climate Study and the Staff Fellows’ focus group sessions, the spin on it appears to have been very different. In the focus groups, staff expressed the deep importance of KU’s flexibility and benefits that make it easier to manage family issues, citing this as a key reason they either started at KU or stayed despite other opportunities elsewhere. The Climate Study respondents, however, took a much more negative view, indicating KU needs to do more to accommodate family concerns and events when they arise. The Climate Study report was consis-tent with Staff Fellows’ findings, also, that staff feelings about their supervisors are strong on both ends of the spectrum but seem to have very few in an indifferent middle ground. Peo-ple who participated in the focus groups artic-ulated either extreme respect, appreciation, and gratitude for a great supervisor or round-ly criticized poor supervision as a key factor leading them to consider leaving a position. Many also articulated a sort of skip-level mis-trust wherein they think very highly of their immediate supervisor and very negatively or

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distrustfully of the supervisor’s supervisory hierarchy. Many expressed feelings that the supervisor went out of their way personally to show staff value because they knew the institution was failing to do so. This percep-tion seems to reinforce an us-vs-them per-spective. The Final Report found five key themes emerged from staff responses to questions about benefits and compensation:

CompensationJob security

Flex time and leave policiesProfessional development

Advancement opportunities

Staff Fellows’ own findings mirror these themes with the exception of job insecurity, which was less of a concern for focus group participants than those participating in the Climate Study. Exacerbating feelings that starting salaries at KU are not competitive and salary raises too infrequent, staff noted that continuing rises in the cost of benefits, particularly parking and health insurance, amount to an effective pay cut. For staff who prioritized good benefits over other oppor-tunities offering higher salaries, that trade-off no longer makes sense and they are in-centivised to leave KU. Opinions vary about whether KU offers sufficiently flexible and competitive leave but two family-oriented things received consistent criticism in the Climate Study: child-care availability and pa-rental leave availability. Finally, climate study data and the surveyors’ analysis indicate that the top two strongest reasons motivating staff to serious-ly consider leaving KU were non-competitive pay (61%) and a lack of opportunity for career advancement (43%). These data demonstrate that, in their daily work lives, most employees

are satisfied with their work, their colleagues, and their contribution to an important mis-sion but that they view their work in terms of a job today rather than a career for tomor-row. Written comments supporting the data indicate greatest dissatisfaction in the ar-eas of salary, supervisory effectiveness, and a negative workplace climate. In particular, comments concerning leadership and work-place climate focused on a general mistrust of senior leadership and more local concerns about bullying or toleration of bullying by immediate supervisors. Taken together, the data and written comments further reinforce that KU must recognize and reward loyal and effective employees, must demonstrate the real benefit in a choice to make a long-term career at KU, and must find ways to demon-strate to staff that supervisory accountability is a key component of the KU culture.

ConclusionsThe Staff Fellows believe that an effective Employee Value Proposition will benefit KU as the university continues to focus on im-proving the overall experience for its staff. Taken with the recommendations to find meaningful ways for staff to advance their careers and to focus on cultivating effective supervisors, an EVP should help to articulate the value of working at KU for all who may be interested in pursuing a career here. While maintaining financial well-being and stabili-ty is a must for employees, these other areas represent what KU employees say they ap-preciate most about working at the univer-sity. The Staff Fellows believe the university would do well to listen to this feedback, and use it to position KU for even greater success in the decades to come.

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2018 Staff Fellows

Amber Roberts Graham

Graduate Studies

Amy CarlsonShared Services

Center

Andy HylandPublic Affairs

Erin WolframUniversity

Career Center

Jessica WebbHuman Resources

Julian SilvermanChemical

Engineering

Julie FugettInformation Technlogy

Kevin FullertonSchool of Pharmacy

Patti AndersonShared Services

Center

Robert WallerBudget Office

Scot BrownriggKansas Law Enforce-ment Training Center

Tanya HackathornCampus Operations

Under the supervision of:Jami Jones, Kathleen Ames-Stratton, and Mike Rounds