By Edwin Darrell and Cate Morrison
Staff recruitment and retention remain pertinent issues affecting residence life and housing departments. The path of employment in this industry remains on shifting ground after coming through unprecedented times of stress and burnout and employers implementing changes within several roles in student housing. And like other industries such as hospitality and healthcare, there was a great loss of student housing staff during the Great Resignation (a period of job shuffling when 47.8 million employees in the United States changed jobs in 2021 and then 50.5 million changed jobs in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey). Recent budget cuts and staff reductions in higher education in the first quarter of 2024 have added more stressful change, and departments are once again trying to figure out how to spread the work out over a fewer number of employees.
These topics continue to infuse conversations among colleagues across the U.S. as they lean on their peers for support and share their frustrations over staff recruitment and retention. Before, there seemed to be few qualified candidates and multiple resignations, but now many individuals are staying – but not for the reasons employers think or want. It has been both frustrating and enlightening to see the shift that has occurred since the tail end of the pandemic. Many departments have been in continual cycles of recruitment for the last two years; they have flexed roles, added or eliminated responsibilities, or created new roles. What is evident is that the lived experiences and the mindset of professionals coming into the field have significantly impacted the hiring norms; new professionals ae now focused on being part of a culture and purpose with which they can identify.
SkyFactor Benchworks (now Benchworks by Elentra) and the Southern Association for College Student Affairs (SACSA) conducted a survey in the last quarter of 2022 to learn more about job satisfaction among student affairs professionals across the United States and Canada. Their research showed that 37% of student affairs professionals are seeking other job opportunities. Data from a 2023 SEAHO presentation revealed that housing and residence life directors estimated that, on average, one out of every four team members were actively searching for other jobs; that is, for a team of 12, one-third were seeking other employment. Directors and managers are also balancing recruitment efforts with the heightened expectations from new and seasoned staff. That can be a difficult balancing act for directors who are wearing multiple hats: not only as director, but also as HR manager, budget manager, and committee chair, among others.
Reconfiguring recruitment and retention practices is central to the process of campuses trying to slow or stop the never-ending cycle of hiring. Gone are the days of employees staying with an institution for decades (in many cases, their entire career) and experiencing both position and salary growth. Today, campuses are looking at the skill development, benefits, and engaging work culture they can offer staff soon after hiring them. Campuses have to be direct and must inform new staff about any professional experiences that will help them in their current position and will keep them in the job for a longer period.
Flexible work hours, meal plan stipends, and varied professional development opportunities are ways to show staff that they are valued without relying solely on salary increases.
For many campuses, reshaping recruitment and retention practices has meant going against traditional campus housing hiring selection processes and hiring staff who are not directly from the field or who don’t have a master’s in student development or administration. This kind of reshaping is not negative. Just as directors teach transferable skills to move staff up in housing, they need to be open to recognizing transferable skills in those coming from other academic backgrounds, departments, or industries. The time of being overly selective with finalists is a thing of the pre-pandemic past.
Andrew Naylor, senior director of housing and residential experience within academic and student affairs at Florida International University, sees this shift away from tradition as a means of supporting present recruitment efforts. He suggests that directors look for candidates who have a passion for the work, even if they have only a bachelor’s degree. If that degree is not related to student development, there is another potential solution: Grow your own. “Growing our own is another path to finding the right people. Are there current RAs in your system that, with the right training, could be excellent residential life coordinators or hall directors?”
Retention efforts go hand in hand with recruiting efforts and contribute to strategies to end the non-stop hiring cycle. And, these days, retention in the campus housing field is as important as retention in campus housing departments. The Skyfactor/SACSA survey highlighted that of those 37% of student affairs professionals who are searching for new jobs, 19% are doing so only outside of higher education. Creating rewarding career paths is essential, and it’s important to emphasize that both monetary and non-monetary strategies have value – and showing staff that they are valued goes a long way toward retention.
“Once we have them in the role, we need to have clear expectations and reward them well for meeting those expectations,” says Naylor. “This includes figuring out how to give them performance increases if they are doing excellent or outstanding work or nominating them for awards and other recognition opportunities available. Feeling valued as a contributing part of the organization is paramount to their longevity.”
Stephanie Carter-Atkins, interim dean for residence life and housing and president of the Staff Advisory Council at Wake Forest University, shares how their new flex work schedule, begun in 2022 as a pilot project, has increased staff retention. Staff were asked to meet with their supervisor to decide on their work hours and what their location would be. The leadership team established core hours for their department when all staff needed to be available. Once the department head approved their flex hours, staff were able to build their schedules along with the core hours, and the plan became a win-win for leadership and staff. The division of campus life assessed the plan in 2022, and staff reported that it increased both morale and retention efforts. The plan was then formalized in 2023. “I have absolutely loved the flex work program,” Carter-Atkins says. “In a day and age where we often can't budge on salaries in the way we all wish we could, having the ability to offer staff flexibility has been amazing.”
She goes on to explain how their efforts to create professional development opportunities have also led to increased retention. Their Professional Development Center has partnered with their Office of Diversity and Inclusion to develop an Inclusive Leadership Development Program that is open to administrators in leadership positions at the director level or above. While this program is limited to certain staff, it’s a great example of how these offices came together to offer a professional development opportunity for inclusive leadership that doesn’t require funds for registration or travel. She adds that while this has been a success, the university still “pushes hard” for all staff to have opportunities to present at conferences at the state, regional, national, or international level.
Just as directors teach transferable skills to move staff up in housing, they need to be open to recognizing transferable skills in those coming from other academic backgrounds, departments, or industries.
Burnout leading to staff attrition is not a new issue for directors to handle; however, it’s now more prevalent in campus housing than ever before. The demands and expectations during COVID protocols significantly changed the scope of work for staff in the industry, and many acknowledge that they do not feel recognized or appropriately recognized for their contributions to the safety, security, and well-being of students on campus. Knowing that staff feel this way, directors can help them feel seen and valued by better protecting the time and energy campus housing staff put into their work and letting other departments know that their staff have limits. “Setting boundaries for other campus partners is critical,” says Naylor. "For far too long, housing and residential life have been seen as the doers on campus. The pandemic highlighted this for many of us when we went from running housing operations to running health facilities providing care for students with COVID. Helping others understand what our bandwidth is for additional work duties or collaborative projects begins to set realistic expectations of what we can and cannot do.”
Naylor also notes the importance of directors having conversations with the department’s human resources staff. Directors need to tell them about the complexities of student housing work and explain why it matters. “The average person working in central HR doesn’t necessarily know that staff respond to crises late at night, and that taxes the employee. For that matter, having conversations with your university executive team to help them understand the roles can be fruitful.”
While thinking creatively to recruit and retain new professionals is vital in this critical time of shaping employment within campus housing, directors cannot ignore seasoned staff. All the information about supporting staff development and making staff feel valued applies to them too. Flexible work hours, meal plan stipends, and varied professional development opportunities are ways to show staff that they are valued without relying solely on salary increases. More impactful are face-to-face connections with administrators. When feeling overlooked and underappreciated, the impact of feeling heard, acknowledged, and valued is unmatched, and the extra attention shows them that directors are engaged in creating a path forward for them too.
Change is inevitable. But with less institutional knowledge being retained in actual human resources (i.e., staff), it’s harder and harder to adapt to change while maintaining consistency for the student experience. In order to retain students and continue to provide an exceptional residential experience, it’s imperative that leadership adapt and continue to think creatively to recruit and retain staff.
Edwin Darrell is the director of residential education at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Cate Morrison is president of eRezLife Software, Inc.
