Recruiting excellent talent during the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting era has left even the most experienced recruiters and leaders on a roller coaster ride. Candidates have the upper hand and we oftentimes find ourselves vying for that Final Rose! Flexibility, higher pay, and a dynamic culture are just a few of the demands. Come join Caltech’s talent management team and AVP of Advancement Services to learn some tricks we have learned along the way including how to market a role, attract a diverse candidate pool, and develop the candidate experience...to take home the Final Rose!

It is an industry trend for institutions of higher education to experience turnover among development officers at the end of a campaign. As the University of Florida ends their historic Go Greater campaign, we will discuss creative strategies for engaging and retaining high-performing employees as a campaign ends.

Recruiting major gift officers would be much simpler if new gift officers were easier to find. In this session, we will discuss a new approach to recruitment that explores ways to bring those without a fundraising background into advancement shops and help them flourish and thrive. By examining a case study from Louisiana State University and Advancement Resources, participants will learn the top three qualities new fundraisers should have (curiosity, grit, and professionalism), identify ideas for where to find these candidates, and gain new insights for how to equip them for success.

The global pandemic transformed the way people work. You have watched your team do their best to meet the demands of the fast-changing times and recognize they are overwhelmed and burning out. As a compassionate and forward thinker, you recognize that engaged team members are essential to the advancement of a healthy organization. The task of refueling and preparing your teams to adapt has fallen to you. Learn how the UCLA Alumni Association introduced a coach-based leadership program for staff designed to develop self-empowered leaders and teams that move forward with confidence and ownership of their growth, and are ready to embrace the future.

Why is everyone leaving? It’s the question on the minds of talent managers everywhere, and it’s also the question on the minds of the executives, managers, and colleagues we serve. This session explores how data and talent metrics can be leveraged to track the health of your organization as team members move in, around, out of the organization. From compositional data to engagement surveys, recruitment metrics to exit interviews, and everything in between, we will look beyond pie charts and bar graphs to see the stories our data is telling. Knowing the story behind the data is the first, and most important, step to re-writing the ending.

In July 2021, UVA's University Advancement team began operating in a remote-first, hybrid work environment, allowing employees to choose where they worked. Fast-forward to today - 20% of our staff lives remotely (as far away as Hawaii!), and only 15% of staff work from the office daily. Is the future of work hybrid? It is at UVA. At this session, you'll learn about the challenges we've faced and the opportunities we were able to take advantage of. Gain insight into our lessons learned and how we've had to adjust our strategies for staff success.

Employee job satisfaction and feelings of belonging positively contribute to employee retention. Supportive supervisors can increase employees' feelings of belonging and job satisfaction, but in "lean" organizations, bandwidth for supervisor trainings is often limited. This session will explore how a VP of Advancement (and doctoral candidate in organizational leadership) partnered with colleagues across campus to implement leadership trainings for the university's supervisory staff that focused on building skills and community through small-group cohort discussions. The training led to increased job satisfaction for supervisors. It also increased belonging and satisfaction in their direct reports, as evidenced in post-workshop surveys and interviews in the presenter's doctoral research.

The world is climbing its way out of the pandemic and during this time we are all recognizing that who we are, the ways of life and the expectations we held are no longer the same. Every industry and profession are navigating and negotiating the new rules to workplace culture, growth opportunities, and leadership. Listen to the strategic talent management faculty as they discuss adapting to behaviors that impact a sense of belonging; addressing retention challenges and looking ahead at the skills needed for future strategic talent management leaders.