A Bird in the Hand: Strategies for Retaining Library Employees

The COVID-19 pandemic decentralized many workplaces, including libraries, resulting in alternate ways of providing services and resources not bound by buildings. The pandemic also highlighted conversations regarding such labor issues as fair compensation, flexible work locations, and more meaningful assignments or positions. Additionally, many people left education and service-based roles, citing lack of respect, workplace discrimination, few opportunities to advance, neglect or overburdening of employees, and poor or imbalanced financial compensation. With these shifts in expectations in higher education and increasing numbers of employees exploring the many options available to them as a result of the Great Resignation, what are academic libraries doing to retain their employees and provide additional support for retaining a diverse and inclusive workforce?

This presentation sponsored by the ACRL University Libraries Section brings together panelists from a range of academic libraries who are applying various techniques to successfully retain employees. Their methods are resulting in a more resilient workforce thanks to leaders who are directly engaging with employees and working to shift their work environments to cultures that are more accommodating and inclusive. Speakers for this session will come from university libraries of varying size and ranking, from different regions and backgrounds, and will speak to issues of equity regarding gender, race, and other identifiers.

Some questions panelists may address include:

* From the perspective of your institution, what do you think are the key causes of employee turnover?
* How did you determine and address which workplace issues are important to your employees?
* Are your retention strategies, or “stay conversations” different for established staff versus new hires? If so, how?
* Advancement/pipeline policies vs. onboarding/orientation
* How could employee retention strategies be used to foster EDI in the workplace?
* How did you navigate campus, system, and other policies?
* Which programs/initiatives were most/least successful for retaining employees?

Panelists will present their thoughts and recommendations on these topics and allow time for questions from the audience to engage in a discussion. Although focused on academic libraries, the advice given by the panelists is anticipated to be broad enough to be applied to several types of libraries.