10 · Survey Results: Executive Summary
continuing appointments, and at 7 (17%) librarians
have time-specific appointments. Other professional
staff have faculty status at one of the 14 responding
libraries (7%), and have parallel status at the other 13
(93%). In addition, 12% of the responding libraries (3
of 26) grant tenure, 69% (18 responses) have continu-
ing appointments, and 19% (5 responses) have time-
specific appointments for other professional staff.
Talent Strategy
According to Edward Gubman, “connecting people to
strategy to serve customers will build extraordinary
results and long term value” (1998, p. 8). This section
of the survey focused on assessing the talent strategy
each responding library uses by determining which
talent management activities are being undertaken,
if these activities are aligned with a strategic plan
or vision for the library, which talent management
challenges the libraries are facing, and the staffing
in place to support talent management strategy and
programming. The survey responses indicate that
most libraries are undertaking the traditional strate-
gies to develop and manage their workforce. In fact,
all 53 libraries reported offering professional devel-
opment opportunities to their employees and 96%
(51 responses) also conduct employee performance
assessment of their workforce. However, among these
libraries there is much lower use of either activities
or programming to retain top talent (31 responses, or
58%), use of competencies for recruiting, managing,
or developing employees (31 responses, or 58%), or
compensation analysis (36 responses, or 68%).
Analysis of the data also indicates that talent man-
agement activities are not represented in the respond-
ing libraries’ organizational strategy. The percentages
of libraries reflecting talent management strategies in
their strategic plan ranged from a high of 43% (23 of
53 responses) for professional development oppor-
tunities to a low of 6% (3 responses) for job analysis/
classification management and compensation analysis
(also 3 responses). This lack of strategic focus on talent
management activities may prove to be problematic
for research libraries as they continue to evolve, re-
quire different skill sets, and see their work forces
change as a large number of librarian retire in the
near future.
When the respondents were asked to indicate the
talent management-related challenges they are cur-
rently facing or will face in the next three years, 60%
(31 of 52 responses) indicated that they were currently
facing budget cuts that were affecting fiscal resources,
although the percentage indicating they would still be
facing budget restrictions in three years was consider-
ably lower at 27% (14 responses). Another challenge
facing these libraries is the current retirement of a
large number of staff (23 responses, or 44%), with an
even larger percentage reporting that they would be
facing that problem in three years (36 responses, or
69%). These data are not surprising and seem to be
supported by literature that indicates that the major-
ity of librarians over the age of 60 will be retiring
between 2015 and 2025 (Davis 2009). The answers
to this question also foretold other themes that are
seen throughout the other responses to the survey.
Approximately 53% of the responding libraries (28
of 52) indicated that internal salary inequities are a
current challenge, although somewhat surprisingly
a much lower percentage of libraries (7 responses,
or 13%) thought they would still be facing this chal-
lenge in three years. Another interesting theme that
appeared was that 48% of the responding libraries
(25 responses) felt that their current workforce was
not able to be re-trained or re-skilled in order to meet
the current organizational needs in addition, a third
of responding libraries (17 responses) also indicated
that they were not finding job candidates that had
the skills they needed. There were also numerous
qualitative comments that underscore the challenge
of recruiting IT positions, in particular.
Although almost all of the 50 responding librar-
ies have a human resources professional employed
by the library (44 responses, or 88%), fewer libraries
reported having a training professional dedicated to
employee professional development and training (15
responses, or 30%), an organizational development
professional (14 responses, or 28%), or a strategic co-
ordinator dedicated to managing the strategic plan
(12 responses, or 24%).
Recruitment and Hiring
“There is no doubt that recruiting the right em-
ployees can be challenging, but the rewards of a
Previous Page Next Page