Employee Involvement

Involving staff in planning in meaningful ways was a primary objective of all of the deliberations and resulting actions. In-service and workshop days involved all staff in common activities. Employees also participated within existing committees, by responding to surveys, and as volunteers in response to specific project needs. Although initial efforts were administratively driven, great efforts were made to obtain broad input from SVCC staff and to avoid another administratively designed system. A number of efforts were taken to obtain employee input :

• November/December 2003, an environmental scan examined student trends, departmental needs and organizational effectiveness in two parts. All staff were encouraged to attend one of several meetings to discuss these issues. Each meeting was facilitated by a different individual or pair of staff members. Employees were also asked to complete a written survey on the same topics.
• October 2004, an internal scan survey was conducted by the Internal Review Team as a part of the SWOT Analysis, which asked staff to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their respective departments and of the College. Departments were asked to respond to their respective weaknesses. The survey identified a number of College strengths and weaknesses and resulted in a communications survey that was administered in November.
• November 2004, a communications survey was administered to all staff by the Internal Review Team, to probe the communication weaknesses identified in the prior survey. The results were considered by the Internal Review Team as a part of the SWOT Analysis.
• August 2005, a staff survey was conducted as a follow-up to the fall 2004 surveys to determine if the strengths and weaknesses identified during the previous year had improved or deteriorated.