12 · Survey Results: Executive Summary
Connell 2003). This section of the survey investigated
the impact of strategies or local circumstances on re-
tention, the top three reasons employees leave the re-
sponding libraries, which positions are most difficult
to retain, and whether the responding libraries track
their voluntary turnover rates, and if so, what those
rates are.
The responses to a question about which strategies
or local circumstances impacted (either negatively or
positively) their retention efforts very much mirrored
the 50 respondents’ answers to the parallel question
in the previous recruitment and hiring section of the
survey. Again, almost all circumstances have a dis-
proportionately positive influence on retention (de-
termined by either a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1
being negative impact, 3 being neutral, and 5 being a
positive impact). These include position responsibili-
ties (38 responses, or 76%), employee engagement (37
of 49 responses, or 76%), support for professional de-
velopment (37 responses, or 74%), work environment
(37 responses, or 74%), benefits package (36 responses,
or 72%), reputation of the institution (34 of 49 respons-
es, or 69%), flexible work scheduling (32 responses,
or 64%), eligibility for tenure/permanent status (26
responses, or 52%), local cost of living (22 responses, or
44%), potential for promotion (20 responses, or 40%),
faculty status for librarians (20 responses, or 40%), and
sabbatical/professional/research leave (20 responses,
or 40%). Only salary range (negative: 17 responses, or
34% positive: 18 responses, or 36%) had an equal bal-
ance of being seen as a positive or a negative.
The top three reasons employees leave their posi-
tions are retirement (35 of 50 responses, or 70%), other
library employment opportunities (33 responses, or
66%), and other employment opportunities outside of
libraries (21 responses, or 42%). The third statistic is
interesting since it seems to indicate that there may be
a high number of library employees leaving the field
of academic librarianship.
When the survey asked respondents to identify the
most difficult positions to retain within their organi-
zation, 63% (26 of 41 responses) indicated information
technology positions the next closest type of position
was librarian at 27% (11 responses).
Since a lack of retention can be expensive and
create a host of organizational and managerial
challenges, it is important to know the rate of employ-
ee turnover in an organization. Approximately half
of the responding libraries track voluntary turnover
rate (28 of 51 responses, or 55%) while about half did
not (23 responses, or 45%). The turnover percentages
reported ranged from 0% to 30%, but the majority
of the responses indicated a turnover rate of 10% or
below. According to the Society for Human Resources
Management (2014), the industry wide average volun-
tary turnover rate is 13%.
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is defined as “the extent to
which employees commit to something or someone
in their organization, how hard employees work, and
how long they stay as a result of that commitment”
(Corporate Leadership Council 2004, p. 4). Research
has shown that higher employee engagement is related
to better performance and better employee retention
(Corporate Leadership Council 2004). This section of
the survey explored the responding libraries’ assess-
ment of employee engagement, the level of engage-
ment within these libraries, and the levels of satisfac-
tion with a variety of workplace issues.
The results indicate that 76% of the responding li-
braries (38 of 50 responses) have undertaken, or been a
part of an assessment of employee engagement within
the last five years. Twenty-eight of those libraries (74%)
have been part of a campus wide survey and 14 (37%)
have administered a library-focused assessment.
When asked to assess the level of engagement of
their employees, 72% of the 47 responding libraries (34
responses) concluded that their staff were engaged or
very engaged, with only 28% (13 responses) describing
their staff as somewhat engaged or not at all engaged.
Employee engagement may or may not be aligned
with employee satisfaction, so it is important to look
at both (Society for Human Resource Management
2014). The survey asked respondents to report the
level of employee satisfaction with a variety of work-
place issues. The workplace issues that employees are
most satisfied with (determined by a larger number
of responses with either a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 5,
with 1 being very dissatisfied, 3 being satisfied, and
5 being very satisfied) are: support for professional
development (25 of 45 responses, or 56%), flexible work
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