President's Message Announcing the 2018 University Feedback Survey

02/09/2018

Dear Colleagues,

During the last 200 years, the heart and soul of Saint Louis University has focused on our people and the work that we do, including the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and the promotion of healthcare through research and caring for patients.

In our strategic plan, Initiative Five calls us to “foster a culture of excellence, effectiveness, and efficiency deeply rooted in our institutional mission and Catholic, Jesuit values.” Part of that strategy includes open and participative decision-making, with special attention paid to shared governance and to strengthening communication with faculty and staff. As such, we will launch our third biennial University Feedback Survey on Monday, February 12.

Our pursuit of distinctiveness, growth, and success depends upon our ability to attract a high preforming and diverse group of faculty, clinicians, and staff; to support, retain, and competitively compensate the outstanding people already working at SLU; and to continue fostering a dynamic, mission-focused environment. 

What specifically does this culture look like? As I have heard from many of you, it is a culture that is unafraid of failure in the pursuit of innovation and growth. It is a culture that empowers us to have the courage to ask for help or bring to light issues preventing us from being fully engaged with our colleagues and achieving the highest quality in our work. And it is a culture that strives to make giving and receiving honest feedback commonplace. This culture values you for who you are as a person — one where the only barriers between each other are the miles between our campuses.

The University Feedback Survey is a critical part of making this culture a reality. You will receive a link to the survey from Willis Towers Watson, an independent firm that is a global leader in management consulting. Your identity and participation in the survey will remain completely confidential.

This year’s feedback survey is similar to the 2014 and 2016 surveys that were designed collaboratively with faculty and staff. It will explore employee engagement, communication, empowerment, and inclusiveness.

University leadership and the Board of Trustees remain committed to acting upon your input. Results from 2014 were used to create the Cura program, and findings from the 2016 survey resulted in leadership development workshops that have already been attended by over 100 faculty and staff supervisors at SLU.

We have also taken your input to improve the survey process in the following ways:

• The survey is being conducted in February to ensure that overall university-level results can be shared with the University community before the end of the spring semester.
• Human Resources will be working with all vice presidents and deans to schedule presentations to share their units’ results with their teams.
• Each college, school, and division will collaborate to create a plan to address their results, and all action plans will be submitted to me by the end of August 2018.

Your feedback truly matters. High levels of participation in the survey are key, so I ask that you please take 15 minutes to complete this year’s assessment when you receive the link.

Thank you for all that you have done — and will continue to do — for Saint Louis University.

Best wishes,

Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D.

President