By Dr. Jennifer Askey, ModernThink Consultant and Executive Coach
The best insights into institutional engagement involve both data (like ModernThink’s Great Colleges to Work For survey results) and stories. Looking for patterns in the macro-data to tell us why our faculty and staff feel the way they do is an important element of the work. But, when we treat engagement as an abstract institutional metric—a score to be managed rather than a reflection of human experience—we are missing a big part of the equation.
But recent data from the ModernThink Higher Education Insight Survey© used in the Great Colleges to Work For program points to a massive, undeniable headline that disrupts how we usually think about morale: How employees feel about their benefits package is meaningfully tied to how they feel about work overall. In fact, how employees feel about their benefits package is more significantly tied to their overall engagement than response rates, enrollment size, or institution type.
For an academic leader, this fact might be cause for panic. In higher education, central administration, boards, or state funding models often lock benefits packages into rigid structures. If you are a dean, a department chair, or a director, you almost certainly do not have the power to unilaterally upgrade the health insurance policy, expand tuition remission, or match a higher retirement contribution.
When the highest lever for engagement feels entirely out of your hands, it’s easy to slide into a deficit mindset and feel defeated. “My hands are tied,” we tell ourselves. “If central HR won’t fix the compensation model, how am I supposed to keep my team motivated?”
To move past this roadblock, we have to look at what a benefits package actually signifies to an employee. A benefits package isn’t just a collection of co-pays and policy numbers. Psychologically, it represents the perceived appreciation of labor. It is the tangible proof of how much an institution values the time, energy, and emotional labor its people expend every day. When benefits feel meager or stagnant, employees don’t just see a math problem; they see a lack of institutional care. They feel like a temporary cog plugging into a system for a paycheck, rather than a valued member of an educational community.
Furthermore, we must remember who these employees are: they are the community of people who serve your students. From the advisor navigating a crisis to the administrative assistant managing the department’s chaos, the way we care for our staff correlates to how engaged they are in their work caring for students. When employees feel unseen and unappreciated, their capacity for empathy and excellence shrinks.
If we pull back the curtain on the ModernThink data, we discover a powerful truth. While you might not control the line-item budget for dental insurance, there is a whole ecosystem of “benefits” that live directly in the local culture of your unit. When you look at what employees actually value—and where higher education is currently dropping the ball—there are immediate areas completely within your control that can rebuild that sense of care and community.
- Fix the Lowest-Rated Benefit: Recognition
According to the data, Employee Recognition Programs are the single lowest-rated benefit by higher education employees across the board.
In a sector that explicitly values excellence, our people feel that recognition is the absolute worst part of their compensation ecosystem. Academia regularly expects herculean efforts from faculty and staff but rarely recognize these outside of a formal, multi-year tenure review or a literal milestone plaque.
Because it ranks so low across the sector, turning this around in your own department can be an instant differentiator. You don’t need a budget allocation from the Provost to fix this. Recognition that restores a sense of valued labor is immediate, specific, and process-aware. It’s the email sent five minutes after a tough committee meeting thanking a staff member for how they defused a tense situation. It’s acknowledging the “rockstars” who keep the department running day in and day out, ensuring that the people who hold the fabric of the student experience together know they are seen.
- Reimagine the Second Lowest-Rated Benefit: Professional and Career Development
The second lowest-rated category in the survey data is Professional and Career Development Programs.
In times of budget crunches, travel lines and conference fees are often the first things cut, sending a clear message to employees that their long-term growth is an institutional luxury we can’t afford. But “professional development” doesn’t have to mean an expensive flight to an annual conference.
In a culture of possibility-focused leadership, development is about mentorship, autonomy, and human investment. Ask your direct reports and the faculty you mentor: Where do you want to grow next, and how can we stretch your current role to get you closer to that skill set? Invite staff to co-design projects that align with their long-term career aspirations. When people see that their supervisor cares about their trajectory—not just their daily output—their psychological contract with the institution shifts. They feel championed, not just utilized.
- Design the Whole Workplace Environment
Beyond recognition and career growth, the ModernThink data points to a cluster of workspace and lifestyle factors that heavily influence how employees experience their day-to-day work lives. If you are looking to strengthen the ecosystem of care inside your circle of influence, look at these five areas:
- Flexible Work Arrangements & Work/Life Balance: Can you offer hybrid options or core collaboration hours that respect your team’s life outside the lab or office? Honoring an employee’s life outside of work is one of the ultimate forms of acknowledging their humanity.
- Physical Workspace Conditions: If you can’t renovate the building, can you optimize the spaces you have? Addressing basic workflow friction and improving the physical environment says, “I care about the comfort of the space where you spend your days.”
- Wellness Programs & Employee Activities: Are we treating wellness as a compliance module to tick off, or are we actively creating spaces for genuine human connection and shared experiences within our units?
When we look at our organizations as hubs of human connection rather than rigid structures and policies, our definition of a “benefit” expands.
The ModernThink data shows us that benefits aren’t just about a drug card or a pension plan; they are about how valued, supported, and protected an employee feels throughout their work week. You might not control the central budget, but as a leader, you completely control the local climate. By focusing heavily on recognition, development, and flexibility, you can build a community where people don’t just stay for the corporate package—they stay because they are part of a vibrant, changing network where their labor matters, and where they are fully equipped to serve the students at the heart of our mission.
About Jennifer Askey
Dr. Jennifer Askey is an executive leadership and mindfulness coach who works with higher education leaders all over North America. She leverages assessments, mindfulness practices, and powerful coaching conversations to help her clients build the career impact they want to see. Jennifer is also a sought-after workshop leader and team alignment facilitator. She works with units to establish a solid connection between their success parameters and their strategic and operational tactics. Learn more about her work and contact her at jenniferaskey.com.