Sustainable Administration Hub: Human Resources

Ohio University Sustaianbility an Climate Action Plan 2021-2026 Progress toward 

• Benchmark 8: Improve sustainability literacy of students, faculty and staff. Target met and strategies in progress.​

  Benchmark 19: Increase use of green cleaning products. Target met, procedure active.​

  Benchmark 22: Implement recruitment strategies targeting sustainability-minded students, faculty, and staff. Target met and strategies in progress.

Human Resources Graphics

Moving Forward: 2021-2026 Sustainability & Climate Action Plan Goal #1

Goal 1: Ensure sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion are factors in employee hiring, professional development, retention, and assessments, by increasing the number of trainings, professional development certificates, employee programs, policies, assessments and recruitment programs related to sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion from 31 to 35.

Potential Strategies​

• Create training for supervisors focused on holistic onboarding and collaborative performance management which assist in connecting employees to institutional priorities including diversity and inclusion, wellbeing, and sustainability  ​

• Offer sustainability and cultural competency workshops and training opportunities to faculty and staff​

• Offer training on implicit bias for job search committees​

• Use a market-based pay schedule for faculty and staff​

• Include wellbeing benefits as recruitment tool​

• Incorporate sustainability into Wellness Champion program​

• Create professional development programs that impact this goal​

• Regularly engage in structured assessment processes to improve diversity, equity and inclusion on campus​

Benefits of Goal #1 

• Improved reputation
• Increased recruiting
• Increased productivity

Costs of Goal #1

• Staff time

Moving Forward: 2021-2026 Sustainability & Climate Action Plan Goal #2

Goal 2: Support and promote employee wellbeing and resilience by:

• Increasing the percent engagement of eligible participants (employees and spouses/partners) in WellWorks-supported wellbeing programs from 21.1% (Virgin Pulse Program only, not including in other WellWorks supported employee wellbeing programs such as Biometric Health Screenings,100 Day Challenge and Risk Reduction) to 50%
• Decreasing the  annual number of recordable incidents of work-related injury or ill health per 100 FTE employees from 2.1 to 2.0.

Potential Strategies​

• Continue to offer diverse employee wellness programs​

• Conduct faculty and staff surveys on employee satisfaction and engagement.​

• Continue employee benefits that contribute to wellbeing, resilience and sustainability, such as the Athens Transit Bobcat Pass, winter break closure, green cleaning procedures and flexible work schedules​

• Track aggregate utilization of employee assistance program and personal medical guidance​

• Offer regular workplace health and safety trainings​

Benefits of Goal #2

• Human health benefits
• Increased recruiting
• Increased productivity
• Reduced emissions
• Reduced insurance costs

Costs of Goal #2

• Staff time
• Healthy OHIO costs

2022 Hub-Supported Initiatives

Human Resources Partnership: Active collaboration with three administrators in Human Resources.

Partnership with Zero Waste and Campus Recycling: Providing program support and conceptualization for ZW and Campus recycling initiatives.

Hub-Related Initiatives

Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan:

The Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan, unanimously affirmed by the Board of Trustees in April 2021, provides a framework and initial action items for how the University community will work together to operationalize our diversity, equity, and inclusion pursuits. The four strategic goals included in the framework are:

• Recruit and retain a diverse campus community
• Create a sense of belonging for all
• Re-imagine teaching and learning with inclusivity as a core design principle
• Build a sustained commitment to data collection, analysis, dissemination, and continuous improvement

These goals complement and easily align with University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion-related sustainability efforts.

Make Respect Visible Campaign:

The Make Respect Visible campaign, which was one of the action items in the Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan under the goal of “create a sense of belonging for all,” provides the university community with expectations for engaging across differences. The campaign was launched in Fall 2021 and has been incorporated widely across campus. During the first year of implementation, the Make Respect Visible working group focused on outreach to students and below are a few of the ways the campaign messaging has been incorporated across campus:

• Students were introduced to the campaign and the University’s expectations for engaging across differences during Bobcat Student Orientation.
• The Make Respect Visible expectations were incorporated into the Learning Communities curriculum – as 98% of first year students take a learning communities course, we reached the large majority of new Bobcats.
• Residence Life Collaboration – the campaign messaging was splashed across the residence halls and incorporated into the residential education.
• https://www.ohio.edu/respect

Campus Climate for Diversity Survey:

During the Fall 2021 semester, the Division of Diversity and Inclusion partnered with Viewfinder Campus Climate Surveys to administer a campus-wide campus climate for diversity survey with over 2300 students, faculty, and staff respondents. The purpose of the survey was to identify data-informed climate-related action items for inclusion in OHIO’s Inclusive Excellence

Strategic Plan, which was unanimously affirmed by the Board of Trustees in April 2021. One of the strategic goals identified in the plan was to build a sustained commitment to data collection, analysis, dissemination, and continuous improvement. An initial action items under this goal was to conduct a campus-wide climate for diversity survey to increase our understanding of campus climate for diversity, establish a baseline for measuring change in campus climate over time, and to inform future plans and action items related to the Inclusive Excellence Strategic Plan.

The data collected measured various dimensions of campus climate for diversity, equity, and inclusion and the findings of the survey administration are reported for undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, executive staff, administrative staff, and unionized staff who responded to call to participate in the survey. These data will be disaggregated to examine differences in experience by race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability status, religious affiliation, and veteran status.

OHIO Experts

1. Do the goals, metrics and targets in the this category of the draft 2021 OHIO Sustainability & Climate Action Plan seem appropriate to you?

   These metrics seem ill-suited for the goals outlined here, and the goals themselves appear unrealistic. I'm unsure how one would ever effectively measure such intentions with quantitative metrics, as human resources is by nature a more qualitative category included in this plan. Therefore, it demands qualitative measures, none of which are mentioned here. The goals are also too general to implement because they're trying to champion too many causes (i.e., they lack focus).

   Response

   Excellent points, thank you. We agree this is a difficult category to track, especially qualitatively, and the broad/general approach taken in the plan is to link sustainability goals to overall HR goals and to track them through the quantitative metrics proposed. We appreciate this feedback and will share feedback with HR stakeholders.

2. Do the costs and benefits in this category of the draft 2021 OHIO Sustainability & Climate Action Plan seem appropriate for the goals? Please note that these cost/benefit criteria will be used to decide which strategies to pursue.

   Like the goals, the costs/benefits are too vague and need further defined/expanded. For example, couldn't human health be a benefit of goal 1 as well? What qualifies as "human health"?

   Response

   Thanks for your comments. The costs/benefits are difficult to determine and are intentionally general as we continue to develop our analysis tools. Human health (wellbeing) is the focus of goal 2 and included in the benefits, goal 1 takes a hiring/professional development/retention angle for HR.

3. If you have additional comments on this category, please provide below.

   The main issue I have with this category's poster is its unsuccessful attempt to cover far too much material at once. If Human Resources wants to increase sustainability across the board, measuring the number of programs or percentage of eligible participants does not represent factors—such as diversity and inclusion—being met or unmet. These goals/metrics go beyond numbers, and the poster should be reassessed as to how to best reflect the humanity of this category.

   Response

   This is valid criticism, thank you. You are correct that the humanity of this category is difficult to reflect in the metrics, but by tracking the programs/policies in these areas we will have data that will help us to see concrete developments towards reaching the diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing progress that will make OHIO more sustainable/socially equitable for employees. Unfortunately, as with many measures of social issues, there are few metrics to monitor progress as the change often happens at an individual level and is not well-documented. We will continue to work with HR and D&I staff to determine better ways, if they exist, to measure positive change in these important areas.