Reports made to the Board of Regents show a decrease in the amount of administrative staff hired, this contrasts with the hiring reports from faculty campus wide, the reports show the inverse relationship between hires and staff leaving.
The latest quarterly report from February revealed a net loss of one staff member. However, the report made in November 2017 showed a net loss of 25 staff members.
Alex White, associate professor of mathematics and the Faculty Senate Chair, delivered the data during one of the senate’s weekly meetings.
“Faculty hiring has actually been up. When we say staff, we refer to the administrative body,” White said. “But I have only seen about five reports overall, so I wouldn’t be able to know whether this is a consistent trend or not.”
The university’s quarterly reports are made to the Board of Regents, created in part by Eric Algoe, vice president for Finance and Support Services. One of the topics reported are the changes made within the faculty and administrative body of the university.
“This year is the closest break we have had in a long time in terms of staff hired and staff lost,” Algoe said. “Although the numbers are not always so significant, the staff we are referring to is the one that works to make everything easier for faculty and students, so we definitely see the impact this has on faculty and students.”
The job market in the area is one of the most competitive of the past decade, forcing the university to compete for qualified staff.
According to the 2017-23 Planning Background Brief, in the chapter entitled Hire, Inspire, Retain, the university currently offers 3,100 staff positions spread across 734 job titles. In recent years, the number of staff job postings has increased, but the applicant pool has decreased.
The brief states in 2015, 14.5 percent of all postings were closed as “no hire” and there has been an average 40 percent decrease in applicant per posting in the last couple of years.
“We are not purposely cutting staff, but we only want to hire the best people out there to serve the needs of the school and 38,000 students,” Algoe said. “We have a talent management professional team who gets the message out to workers, telling them to come and work at Texas State.”
One of the biggest problems the university is facing in regards to its staff is 25 percent of Texas State’s current employees will be eligible to retire within the next five years, with 33 percent of those in administrative support positions, as stated in the brief.
“We are working on attracting employees through competitive salaries and better benefits packages,” Algoe said. “We have been conducting searches both on the state and national level for people to fill positions.”
Texas State is improving its incentives to motivate current staff members to stay. This includes promotion, training opportunities, increased responsibilities, special classes, amenities or other non-monetary awards.