On Becoming an Employer of Choice: Gauging Employee Satisfaction Through ClimateQUAL®

In 2007, Cornell University Library (CUL) established a strategic goal of becoming an employer of choice. This aspiration is firmly rooted in the belief that the employees’ satisfaction has a direct, positive impact on user satisfaction. This article presents a case study of Cornell University Library’s use of ClimateQUAL® survey instrument in 2008 to measure CUL employees’ perceptions of the library’s workplace climate. It illustrates the use of action research methodology for engaging the library community in organizational development, provides examples of actions CUL has taken, and offers general reflections on implications of adapting ClimateQUAL as an assessment instrument in libraries. Cornell University Library‘s ClimateQUAL results appear to support the hypothesis that a healthy workplace climate as perceived by the employees is positively linked to the satisfaction of the organization’s customers. Introduction The Internet has necessitated reexamination of library service models. Technological advances have led to organizational overhaul and changing requirements of job knowledge and skills in today’s libraries of all types. Technological and organizational change, combined with an aging workforce and the recent financial instability, create what Bolman and Deal (2008) describe as the key characteristics of today’s organizations: “complex, surprising, deceptive and ambiguous” (p. 33). In this disruptive environment, the foundational library mindset, as succinctly summarized by Stephens and Russell (2004), remains, “Libraries exist to serve users in a fluid environment of evolving expectations, 257 li & bryan/on becoming an employer of choice technological influences, and institutional imperatives. As organizations, libraries have always understood their unique role in society and in their parent institutions, always with the mission to serve regardless of the environment” (p. 248). However, deciding what really matters in such an organization is difficult to decipher; implementing interventions are even harder. Consequently, organizations run the risk of taking actions that make sense from a short-term perspective, but create long-term opportunity costs down the line. “Unless one can step back, see how the system dynamics create patterns, you muddle along blindly, unaware of better options” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 35). In 2007, Cornell University Library (CUL) established a strategic goal of becoming an employer of choice (Cornell University Library, 2007). This goal carries new urgency as the library faces unprecedented cuts in materials and workforce budgets. To attract, retain, and optimize the use of top talent for a longer tenure and to plan for succession all require a strong and positive workplace environment conducive to productivity, customer service, and innovation. To create and sustain such a workplace calls for a deeper understanding of the elements contributing to the workplace climate. The Concept of the Healthy Organization Literature provides insight into aspects of workplace climate that are highly valued by employees and positively influence productivity and customer satisfaction. Such insight led Cornell to explore the concept of the healthy organization. Hanges, Aiken, and Chen (2008) describe a healthy organization as follows: [T]he healthy organization has policies, practices, and procedures that create climates that send two simultaneous messages to their employees. First, organizations need to send a strong “concerned for employees” message to their employees. This message is sent when organizational policies suggest that things like teamwork, diversity, and justice are valued. Second, organizations also need to send a strong “concerned for customers” message to their employees. This message is sent when organizational policies reinforce a climate for customer service (Schneider & Bowen, 1989). Organizations value their customers when they do such things as restructure the work environment to improve customer service and/or offer training and other resources to improve employee customer related skills and knowledge. When organizations have succeeded in developing a climate profile that sends these two messages, resultant employee behavior will be focused on maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with the organization’s customers. (p. 7) The healthy organization concept is very much in agreement with Cornell University Library’s concern for both employees and customers. 258 library trends/summer & fall 2010 Research Questions LibQUAL is “a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users’ opinions of service quality” that is offered by the Association of Research Libraries (see details at http://libqual.org/ home). Over the past ten years, Cornell University Library has received very high user satisfaction ratings in four rounds of LibQUAL+ and other local user surveys. Does this imply that CUL has a healthy workplace climate in the eyes of the employees? Where are the areas CUL needs to improve? This is an important question for any organization that desires to continuously improve its services. Identifying influencing factors will help the organization aim its actions with informed targets. Community Engagement and the Action Research Process Cornell University Library used an action research approach to gain better understanding of employees’ perception of the library and to plan for improvement actions. French and Bell (1999) note that “action research is a cornerstone of organizational development, underlying both the theory and practice of the field” (p. 130). The action research process consists of “a sequence of events and activities designed for organizational improvement interventions (data collection, feedback, and taking action based on the data); and it is a cycle of iterations of these activities, sometimes treating the same problem several times and then moving to different problems” (p. 131). Cornell University Library is a large and complex organization with more than four hundred employees distributed in twenty subject libraries. In addition, CUL has a team-based culture, where many ad hoc groups and committees work on policies and service development. Engaging such a complex community in gathering data, validating findings, and planning future actions would not be an easy task. The action research framework seemed to fit CUL’s operating environment well; in particular, the framework would tie the many seemingly chaotic actions together, so that with the ever expanding engagement of employees, units, and ad hoc groups, the focus on improvement actions would not be lost. See figure 1 for an overview of CUL’s action research engagement cycle. In addition, using an action research framework to explore how library employees perceive their workplace climate provided three other distinct benefits: first, the action research process “increases the likelihood of carrying out the actions once decided upon, and keeps the recommended actions feasible” (French & Bell, 1999, p. 137). Secondly, given the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009, this approach helped focus the library community’s attention on a positive future during a time when economic uncertainty, cost-cutting and downsizing made daily headlines. Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, and Callan (2004) notes employee “participation in decision-making can short-circuit the damaging effects of uncertainty 259 li & bryan/on becoming an employer of choice by allowing employees to have a say in change related organizational affairs, thereby instilling a sense of control over their circumstances” (p. 507). Thirdly, an action research approach encourages “organizational responsiveness [which] comes from giving individuals and groups the freedom to behave in ad hoc ways to respond to unforeseen circumstances” (Haeckel, 1999, p. 142). Selecting and Implementing ClimateQUAL Cornell University Library chose the ClimateQUAL®: Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment instrument (“ClimateQUAL” hereafter) as the data collection tool. The tool “is an assessment of library staff perceptions concerning (a) their library’s commitment to the principles of diversity, (b) organizational policies and procedures, and (c) staff attitudes. It is an online survey with questions designed to understand the impact Figure 1. CUL ClimateQUAL Action Research Engagement Process Step 1 Gather Data Using ClimateQUAL Step 4 Evaluation Results of Actions Step 2 Share Findings with CUL Community Step 3 Take Actions Based on Findings CUL Action Research Engagement Process 260 library trends/summer & fall 2010 perceptions have on service quality in a library setting” (http://www .climatequal.org). The instrument was initially developed by the University of Maryland Libraries in partnership with the University of Maryland Industrial and Organizational Psychology Program. After having received promising results from the initial use of the tool in Maryland Libraries, improvements were made to the instrument. The University of Maryland Libraries and the Organizational Psychology Program partnered with the Association of Research Libraries to test the implementation of ClimateQUAL across multiple ARL libraries. Several other libraries were brought in to pilot Phase I of a project to test the scalability of ClimateQUAL. The fact that the ClimateQUAL assessment instrument was originally designed for a library setting (the Maryland University Libraries), and the findings by Phase I participants, in particular, had a major influence on CUL’s decision to participate in Phase II of the ClimateQUAL Project. Phase II of the ClimateQUAL Project came at the right time. In 2008, CUL had major turnover on the top management level: four executive positions were vacant, including the university librarian position. Undoubtedly, major organizational changes were looming on the horizon. Having diagnostics of employees’ perceptions of CUL’s organizational climate at hand would be invaluable for the anticipated changes. In fact, it was a great opportunity for CUL to build in improvements as it took on an organizational overhaul. Significant preparatory work was done in the months leading up to the survey. CUL was a beneficiary of past participants: a great deal of practical information was provided in the ClimateQUAL manual. We also learned about best practices directly from several library directors whose libraries were Phase I participants. When we implemented ClimateQUAL at CUL, we communicated with our employees via a variety of venues: the interim university librarian announced CUL’s decision to all employees, articulated the goals and objectives CUL would like to achieve, and expressed the library’s commitment to sharing the results with transparency, taking actions where actions are due, and most importantly, repeating the ClimateQUAL assessment in the future so that library’s improvement progress could be measured. We created a wiki site (see fig. 2) to keep the employees informed of all activities related to Cornell Library’s participation in ClimateQUAL. We invited Dr. Charles Lowry, the dean of University of Maryland Libraries, to present the overall project in which ten libraries including Cornell are participating and Maryland Libraries’ experience with it to CUL employees. In addition, we held several question and answer sessions in different library groups to provide face-to-face discussion opportunities within a smaller group setting. During the survey period, laptops were available for employees who might wish to take the survey away from their desktop to provide additional flexibility and psychological safety. CUL 261 li & bryan/on becoming an employer of choice employees’ participation in ClimateQUAL was completely voluntary, and their anonymity was protected by the design of ClimateQUAL. After CUL’s survey period ended, the authors held two open employee sessions to gather feedback about the survey instrument and the implementation process, and to celebrate our milestone. Understanding and Sharing Findings The second phase of CUL’s action research process involved sharing the ClimateQual findings with library employees. Through various community dialogues, senior leaders signaled their sustained support for a positive workplace climate. The presentations, group discussions, and individual conversations in this phase set the stage for the pragmatic actions to be planned and implemented in later phases of the action research