Staff recruitment and retention remain pertinent issues affecting residence life and housing departments. The path of employment in this industry remains on shifting ground after coming through unprecedented times of stress and burnout and employers implementing changes within several roles in student housing. And like other industries such as hospitality and healthcare, there was a great loss of student housing staff during the Great Resignation (a period of job shuffling when 47.8 million employees in the United States changed jobs in 2021 and then 50.5 million changed jobs in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey). Recent budget cuts and staff reductions in higher education in the first quarter of 2024 have added more stressful change, and departments are once again trying to figure out how to spread the work out over a fewer number of employees.
These
topics continue to infuse conversations among colleagues across the U.S. as
they lean on their peers for support and share their frustrations over staff
recruitment and retention. Before, there seemed to be few qualified candidates
and multiple resignations, but now many individuals are staying – but not for
the reasons employers think or want.
It has been both frustrating and enlightening to see the shift that has
occurred since the tail end of the pandemic. Many departments have been in
continual cycles of recruitment for the last two years; they have flexed roles,
added or eliminated responsibilities, or created new roles. What is evident is that
the lived experiences and the mindset of professionals coming into the field have
significantly impacted the hiring norms; new professionals ae now focused on
being part of a culture and purpose with which they can identify.
SkyFactor Benchworks (now Benchworks by Elentra) and the
Southern Association for College Student Affairs (SACSA) conducted a survey in the last quarter of 2022 to
learn more about job satisfaction among student affairs professionals across
the United States and Canada. Their research showed that 37% of student affairs
professionals are seeking other job opportunities. Data from a 2023 SEAHO presentation revealed that housing and residence
life directors estimated that, on average, one out of every four team members were
actively searching for other jobs; that is, for a team of 12, one-third were seeking
other employment. Directors and managers are also balancing recruitment efforts
with the heightened expectations from new and seasoned staff. That can be a
difficult balancing act for directors who are wearing multiple hats: not only as
director, but also as HR manager, budget manager, and committee chair, among
others.
Reconfiguring
recruitment and retention practices is central to the process of campuses
trying to slow or stop the never-ending cycle of hiring. Gone are the days of
employees staying with an institution for decades (in many cases, their entire
career) and experiencing both position and salary growth. Today, campuses are looking
at the skill development, benefits, and engaging work culture they can offer staff
soon after hiring them. Campuses have to be direct and must inform new staff
about any professional experiences that will help them in their current
position and will keep them in the job for a longer period.
Flexible work hours, meal plan stipends, and varied professional development opportunities are ways to show staff that they are valued without relying solely on salary increases.
For many
campuses, reshaping recruitment and retention practices has meant going against
traditional campus housing hiring selection processes and hiring staff who are
not directly from the field or who don’t have a master’s in student development
or administration. This kind of reshaping is not negative. Just as directors
teach transferable skills to move staff up in housing, they need to be open to recognizing
transferable skills in those coming from other academic backgrounds,
departments, or industries. The time of being overly selective with finalists
is a thing of the pre-pandemic past.
Andrew
Naylor, senior director of housing and residential experience within academic and
student affairs at Florida International University, sees this shift away
from tradition as a means of supporting present recruitment efforts. He suggests
that directors look for candidates who have a passion for the work, even if
they have only a bachelor’s degree. If that degree is not related to student
development, there is another potential solution: Grow your own. “Growing our
own is another path to finding the right people. Are there current RAs in your
system that, with the right training, could be excellent residential life
coordinators or hall directors?”
Retention
efforts go hand in hand with recruiting efforts and contribute to strategies to
end the non-stop hiring cycle. And, these days, retention in the campus housing
field is as important as retention in campus housing departments. The Skyfactor/SACSA
survey highlighted that of those 37% of student affairs professionals who are
searching for new jobs, 19% are doing so only outside of higher education. Creating
rewarding career paths is essential, and it’s important to emphasize that both
monetary and non-monetary strategies have value – and showing staff that they
are valued goes a long way toward retention.
“Once we have them in the role, we need to have clear expectations and
reward them well for meeting those expectations,” says Naylor. “This includes
figuring out how to give them performance increases if they are doing excellent
or outstanding work or nominating them for awards and other recognition
opportunities available. Feeling valued as a contributing part of the
organization is paramount to their longevity.”
Stephanie Carter-Atkins, interim dean for residence life and housing and president
of the Staff Advisory Council at Wake Forest University, shares how their new flex
work schedule, begun in 2022 as a pilot project, has increased staff retention.
Staff were asked to meet with their supervisor to decide on their work hours and
what their location would be. The leadership team established core hours for
their department when all staff needed to be available. Once the department
head approved their flex hours, staff were able to build their schedules along
with the core hours, and the plan became a win-win for leadership and staff. The
division of campus life assessed the plan in 2022, and staff reported that it
increased both morale and retention efforts. The plan was then formalized in
2023. “I have absolutely loved the flex work program,” Carter-Atkins says. “In
a day and age where we often can't budge on salaries in the way we all wish we
could, having the ability to offer staff flexibility has been amazing.”
She
goes on to explain how their efforts to create professional development
opportunities have also led to increased retention. Their Professional
Development Center has partnered with their Office of Diversity and Inclusion to
develop an Inclusive Leadership Development Program that is open to administrators
in leadership positions at the director level or above. While this program is
limited to certain staff, it’s a great example of how these offices came
together to offer a professional development opportunity for inclusive
leadership that doesn’t require funds for registration or travel. She adds that
while this has been a success, the university still “pushes hard” for all staff
to have opportunities to present at conferences at the state, regional,
national, or international level.
Just as directors teach transferable skills to move staff up in housing, they need to be open to recognizing transferable skills in those coming from other academic backgrounds, departments, or industries.
Burnout
leading to staff attrition is not a new issue for directors to handle; however,
it’s now more prevalent in campus housing than ever before. The demands and
expectations during COVID protocols significantly changed the scope of work for
staff in the industry, and many acknowledge that they do not feel recognized or
appropriately recognized for their contributions to the safety, security, and
well-being of students on campus. Knowing that staff feel this way, directors
can help them feel seen and valued by better protecting the time and energy
campus housing staff put into their work and letting other departments know
that their staff have limits. “Setting boundaries for other campus partners is
critical,” says Naylor. "For far too long, housing and
residential life have been seen as the doers on campus. The pandemic
highlighted this for many of us when we went from running housing operations to
running health facilities providing care for students with COVID. Helping
others understand what our bandwidth is for additional work duties or
collaborative projects begins to set realistic expectations of what we can and
cannot do.”
Naylor
also notes the importance of directors having conversations with the
department’s human resources staff. Directors need to tell them about the
complexities of student housing work and explain why it matters. “The average
person working in central HR doesn’t necessarily know that staff respond to
crises late at night, and that taxes the employee. For that matter, having conversations
with your university executive team to help them understand the roles can be
fruitful.”
While
thinking creatively to recruit and retain new professionals is vital in this
critical time of shaping employment within campus housing, directors cannot
ignore seasoned staff. All the information about supporting staff development and
making staff feel valued applies to them too. Flexible work hours, meal plan
stipends, and varied professional development opportunities are ways to show staff
that they are valued without relying solely on salary increases. More impactful
are face-to-face connections with administrators. When feeling overlooked and underappreciated,
the impact of feeling heard, acknowledged, and valued is unmatched, and the
extra attention shows them that directors are engaged in creating a path
forward for them too.
Change
is inevitable. But with less institutional knowledge being retained in actual
human resources (i.e., staff), it’s harder and harder to adapt to change while
maintaining consistency for the student experience. In order to retain students
and continue to provide an exceptional residential experience, it’s imperative
that leadership adapt and continue to think creatively to recruit and retain
staff.
Edwin Darrell is the director of residential education at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Cate Morrison is president of eRezLife Software, Inc.