Employee Engagement
The UCR School of Medicine’s Strategic Plan, 2024 – 2030, includes imperatives and strategies to support a thriving workforce. Specifically, improve our processes, operations, and employee engagement through opportunities for increased productivity and engagement and establishing community building.
What is Employee Engagement?
Employee engagement is the commitment, passion, and emotional connection employees feel toward their work and the organization’s success. Engaged employees get more out of their work: they have opportunities to do what they do best every day and feel a sense of belonging at work.
Devoting to the measurement and maintenance of personnel is our journey to best serve staff, students, faculty, and patients of the Inland Empire.
Who is Responsible for Engagement?
Organization
- Availability of resources.
- Building a participative, learning, and high performing culture.
Managers
- Fostering departmental and team member success.
- Connecting members to resources.
Individuals
- Responsibility to their own participation & support to team members.
- Contributing to community culture.
Engagement Ambassadors
Ambassadors are key department influencers who were nominated by their supervisor and support the environment where engagement can thrive. These trusted colleagues provide valuable support with engagement activities, encourage survey participation and provide year-round peer guidance with engagement action planning for their units, as well as collect and share feedback.
How are we Prioritizing an Environment of Engagement?
We are committed to creating a culture of engagement by investing in Communication, Learning & Development, Work Life Balance, Recognition & Rewards, and Performance Management.
Communication
- Employees are invited to attend the Dean’s Townhall in person or via Zoom to see ongoing School of Medicine activities.
- Inside UCR Health.
- Dean’s newsletters received via email.
- Departmental meetings and huddles.
- Digital signage (monitors).
- Wealth of information on SOM via the Intranet.
- Find upcoming UCR & School of Medicine events on our calendar.
Learning & Development
- School of Medicine professional development activities and awards for staff. SOM activities include:
- Lunch, Learn and Mingle.
- Mentorship Program: Financial Analyst & Human Resources bootcamp.
- UCR campus wide certificate programs and courses.
- UCR learning management system and LinkedIn Learning.
- Continuing education interests and journey through the UCR Extension Program.
Work-Life Balance
- Sustained work and home scheduled through the hybrid work schedule.
- Preface that this is position dependent- for cases where roles aren’t capable of working in a hybrid capacity.
- Support through the Faculty & Staff Assistance program providing confidential support, personal and work life issues.
- Leave and flexible options for time away for work-life support.
Recognition & Rewards
Cyclical recognition reward programs:
- CARE Awards – Annually recognizing exceptional staff in the following categories in clinical, administrative, research, and education CARE Awards.
- Values in Action Awards – Recognizes individuals embodying the values of inclusion, integrity, innovation, excellence, accountability and respect Values In Action.
- STAR & Spot Awards – Staff Appreciation & Recognition plan to recognize, acknowledge and reward employees for exceptional performance and/or contributions.
- DEI Award – Annually recognizing individuals who champion efforts related to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.
- UCR Staff Assembly Awards – UCR campus celebrating staff through the Outstanding Staff & Retiree Awards, Get Recognized Peer Recognition Program, and Service Awards. More information via Staff Assembly.
Performance Management
The goal of this program is to support the continuous improvement of individual and organizational performance by focusing on the things that support performance development: clear goals and expectations, real-time feedback about performance, and forward looking coaching. Supervisors and their employees will meet three times per year to discuss progress on goals, professional development needs, and receive coaching.