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College Sustainability

Employee Turnover Rate

Indicator Rationale: Being aware of and managing employee retention involves strategic actions by COCC to keep employees motivated and focused so they elect to remain employed and fully productive for the benefit of the College. A comprehensive employee retention program can play a vital role in both attracting and retaining key employees, as well as in reducing turnover and its related costs. By tracking employee retention, the College can continue to make our organization attractive to new and existing employees.

Indicator Definition: Employee turnover rate is determined by taking the number of employees who left the College in a given fiscal year and dividing it by the average number of employees during that same time period. The average number of employees is determined by adding the number of employees at year start (July) and number of employees at year end (June) and dividing by two.

Target Rationale: Increasing our employee retention can enhance employee engagement, minimize lost knowledge and productivity, reduce recruitment expenses, and positively impact mission fulfillment. Retention amplifies employee contributions, allowing the College to capitalize on our talented workforce. Time will be required to see how our retention efforts (increased salaries, continued excellent benefits, more wellness options, improved recruitment and marketing efforts, including DEI) play out. Additionally, we live in a place where costs are so high that retaining employees is even a greater challenge. Regardless, the College set employee turnover rates to align with national data and in response to COCC recent historical norms.

Peer Institutions: Other Oregon community colleges do not track this information on a consistent basis. Nationally, the College and University Personnel Administration (CUPA) Higher Education Retention Survey (updated May 2024) indicates that overall turnover of faculty and staff combined in 2023-24 was 14%. Turnover in 2023-24 was higher than pre-pandemic rates (approximately 12%), but lower than the 16% high of 2022-23.

 

Employee Awards, Recognitions and Professional Development

Indicator Rationale: Employee responses to the 2021 Great Colleges to Work For (GCTWF) survey item “employee awards and recognitions” indicated that the College needs to review its programs and systems for acknowledging and honoring its employees. Research consistently shows that employee engagement, retention, and workplace culture are linked to personal recognition of employee contributions and performance and that employees who receive positive recognition are twenty times as likely to be engaged as employees who receive low or poor recognition. Recently, the 2024 indicator was revised to broaden performance management questions and include professional development as indicators of employee engagement. In order to help the College reach its goal regarding College Sustainability, intentional work on employee awards, recognitions, celebration and professional development is warranted.

Indicator Definition: Percentage of benefitted employees responding positively to the following four Great Colleges to Work For (GCTWF) survey questions related to awards, recognition and professional development.

  1. I am regularly recognized for my contributions.
  2. Our recognition and awards programs are meaningful to me.
  3. I am given the opportunity to develop my skills at this institution.
  4. I have access to the training I need to do my job well.

Target Rationale: By improving employee’s positive response to the designated GCTWF questions from Acute/Warrants Attention/Fair to Mediocre to Good or Excellent to Very Good the College will have improved employee engagement and ultimately retention.

Peer Institutions: COCC uses the comparator institution data provided by Modern Think, the organization that coordinates the GCTWF survey. This data is aggregated from other, similarly sized community colleges who administered the survey, providing an average score across all participating institutions.

 

President's Climate Leadership Commitment

Indicator Rationale: COCC signed the President’s Climate Leadership Commitment November 2022 and an element of the assessment plan is completing a greenhouse gas emissions (GhG) inventory annually. The inventory will serve as a baseline to set reduction goals and evaluate progress each year.

Indicator Definition: COCC will use SIMAP® a carbon-accounting platform for the Greenhouse Gas inventory. Greenhouse gas emissions (GhG) include a combination of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) gases emitted from electricity, natural gas, commuting, refrigerant, with the remainder from sources such as waste, fertilizer and purchased goods. Data is collected in therms, kilowatts, miles, and gallons, then converted into one standardized unit, MT CO2e (Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide equivalent, MT CO2e).

Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are categories used to classify greenhouse gas emissions based on their source and control. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from a company's owned or controlled sources, such as burning fuel in vehicles or buildings. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from purchased energy, like electricity or heat. Scope 3 emissions are all other indirect emissions in a company's value chain, including upstream activities like supply chain emissions and downstream activities like waste disposal. 

Target Rationale: The overall climate action goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, or sooner. COCC’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) includes 15 priority climate actions and policies with a 5-year implementation plan. By 2030, COCC will achieve a 17% reduction in emissions over the baseline 2022 GhG inventory, which equates to a 3.4% reduction in net emissions each year of the strategic plan. Normalizing for the improved resource fuel mix by Pacific Power and other variables outside of COCC’s actual energy use, the annual target is considered met when a 3.4% reduction in net emissions is achieved.

Peer Institutions: Peer institution data is not readily available given the significant variance of the age of other institutional buildings, construction parameters, institutional and community infrastructure supporting carbon neutrality and related conditions.