Unveiling the Secrets to Boosting Grad and Professional Program Enrollment
In the latest episode of the Higher Ed Demand Gen Podcast, Shiro Hattori welcomed David Gladson, the Associate VP for Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU), to discuss strategies for increasing demand and enrollment in graduate and professional programs.
Centralized Marketing for Enhanced Efficiency
David shared that PLNU’s central marketing office collaborates extensively with undergrad and graduate admissions as well as the fundraising office. They’ve shifted towards a centralized marketing model to streamline efforts, focusing about 90% of their time on revenue-generating activities. This move has significantly improved their operational efficiency, enabling more targeted, effective campaigns.
Strategic Enrollment Planning and Market Research
One game-changing strategy David emphasized is integrating marketing insights at the very inception of program development. Being part of the strategic enrollment planning committee has allowed the marketing team to shape offerings based on market demand. This proactive approach ensures that new programs are market-aligned from the get-go, boosting enrollment outcomes.
Grad Program Success Through Online Modalities
David cited PLNU’s graduate teaching programs as a prime example of success. Transitioning these programs to an online format following market research led to a 40-50% enrollment growth. By listening to student demands for flexible learning options, PLNU not only expanded its reach but also significantly improved accessibility and convenience for learners.
Tools and Techniques for Demand Generation
To manage the plethora of demands that come with a centralized marketing office, PLNU employs various tools and strategies. They have a digital asset management system and Canva templates allowing self-service options for stakeholders. This reduces the burden on their team, enabling them to focus on higher-priority marketing efforts. Additionally, having a full-time project manager on board has helped them streamline workflows and eliminate inefficiencies.
Flexible Work Models for Better Team Performance
David also highlighted the benefits of PLNU’s flexible work model. With around 25% of the marketing team fully remote and the rest having hybrid options, they save on commuting time and enjoy better work-life balance. This flexibility has enhanced their productivity and staff retention, making the marketing team more responsive and effective.
Conclusion
PLNU’s strategic, market-aligned approach to marketing for graduate and professional programs has yielded impressive results. By centralizing efforts, staying market-responsive, and maintaining a flexible work environment, they’ve been able to drive significant enrollment growth while enhancing overall efficiency. If you’re looking to optimize your higher ed marketing strategies, PLNU’s model offers valuable insights.
Read the transcription
Shiro [00:00:15]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast hosted by Concept three d. If you like our content, please follow and subscribe to us. I’m Shiro Hattori, your host today, and I’m very excited to talk about increasing demand and enrollment for graduate and professional programs. And for that conversation, I’m very thrilled to speak with David Gladson today. He’s the associate VP for marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. Welcome to the show.
Dave Gladson [00:00:44]:
Hi, Cheryl. Thanks for having me.
Shiro [00:00:46]:
And Dave, I’ll ask all my guests this as an icebreaker. Can you tell us what you love about higher ed?
Dave Gladson [00:00:51]:
I mean, it’s not a unique answer, but I love that I get to do awesome marketing, but it’s, I mean, it’s helping people change their lives, do the thing, you know, get a degree that helps them make an advance in their life. So I yeah. I get I get to be a marketing professional, but directly helping people every day.
Shiro [00:01:09]:
That’s fantastic. And can you tell us a little bit about your role and maybe your team in just, like, a minute or two?
Dave Gladson [00:01:16]:
Sure. So we’re the we’re the central marketing office for the university. So we partner with undergrad admissions, graduate admissions, the fundraising office. And we’re really we really try to keep our our team’s time focused on the revenue generating activities in the university. So we have about 10% of our time set aside for all the all the other stuff, all the random requests that come through, helping with this flyer, help with this, but really 90% of our team’s time is focused on supporting those those three revenue generating arms. So I lead the team and then, some of the outside of our team management, some of the biggest pieces of my role is serving on, like, our strategic enrollment planning committee and just making sure that that marketing perspective is represented right at the beginning of the program design processes. We’re even deciding what program should we have and what should we launch.
Shiro [00:02:08]:
That’s fantastic. And and I know, there’s a lot of things that make PLNU, unique. One of the things I love is also the location. But can you tell us a little bit more about the student population and what’s unique about that as well?
Dave Gladson [00:02:23]:
Yeah. So we’re we’re a private liberal arts institution. We’re located right on the water. I do have the advantage of putting, you know, sunset shots and surfboard racks by the freshman dorms on a lot of our brochures. Of course, that comes to the downside of having beachfront property prices. So there’s there’s a trade off there. But, yeah, our undergraduate our traditional undergraduate campus is has a capped enrollment. We we are located we’re between the ocean and military base and a a very, inclusive neighborhood, so we’re we’re we can’t expand that that campus.
Dave Gladson [00:02:59]:
We have 2,700 students there, and and that’s the most we can ever have. So to grow the university beyond that, we’ve really had that’s how we’ve had to invest in our graduate programs or, adult undergraduate programs. And we’re we’re getting we’re approaching the 50% mark. Almost 50% of our student body is now that non either nontraditional undergrad or graduate online programs, in addition to that that traditional undergraduate campus that will always be there at Pointe Lamar.
Shiro [00:03:28]:
That’s great. And I I believe you you told me in our prior conversation that in in San Diego, you had you’re capped in your undergrad enrollment because of the the physical, limitation of expanding your campus. But you’re able to actually grow your graduate professional programs more because you can, build classrooms outside of that, undergrad zone. Is that right?
Dave Gladson [00:03:49]:
Exactly. So yeah. I mean, in 2021, we built a a health science campus at our Balboa Regional Campus, which is, all focused on our graduate health science programs, athletic training, OT, physician assistant, really excellent graduate programming. We have our Mission Valley campus that focuses on education programs. So, yeah, expanding throughout San Diego, partnering with the community colleges, either deliver classes on those community college campuses or or in an online format, but all of that in addition to our our main traditional campus.
Shiro [00:04:28]:
Gotcha. And tell me a little bit about, each of these graduate programs or professional programs you have. Do they also have their own, you know, what it would be equivalent to VP marketing or director of marketing, or do you partner with them, or do you own those programs?
Dave Gladson [00:04:44]:
We have basically centralized marketing. So we do all all the marketing for the university, particularly for graduate professional happens through our office. Articional undergraduate admissions has a little bit more of the maybe the traditional higher ed model where they have some that they do within their team, and then they partner with us for for some of their bigger initiatives. But, yeah, for graduate professional, it’s 100% centralized marketing, centralized marketing budget, and a really strong partnership between us and admissions to make sure that our efforts are aligned with their outreach efforts. They’re going to different places they’re going, making sure that our two teams are aligned so that admissions and marketing are closely aligned. It makes it much easier for us to partner with academics when there’s alignment between the two the two sides of the house over here.
Shiro [00:05:34]:
Oh, that’s amazing. I I’m very excited to hear that because a lot of a lot of times, I interview guests on the show, and, obviously, they have pretty segmented or siloed marketing departments separate for their graduate and pro professional programs. And, you know, while they do partner with central marketing sometimes, like, sometimes, you know, being siloed is is a part big part of the conversation. So, it’s it’s great to hear that. I’m curious, like, how much of your role is, like, split between undergrad and the graduate and professional programs?
Dave Gladson [00:06:09]:
Yeah. And and to your point a second ago, like, that was Point Loma’s reality back in 2018. We did have a a decentralized model with with individual program budgets, and it was a a several year process to really centralize that, and and bring bring that bring those marketing budgets under central control and really build that central strategy office. Yeah. Today, I would say 40% of our team’s time is focused on that graduate professional side, probably about 30% on the traditional undergraduate, 20% for fundraising, and then that 10% for assisting everybody else with the the various projects we can do, whether that’s just to help them out or whether that’s for that general brand awareness, partnerships. But, yeah, that’s kinda how we split our team’s time.
Shiro [00:06:56]:
That’s amazing. And I didn’t know that you guys moved to the centralized model, like, quite recently. I I thought it was, you know, embedded before that. What was the evolution like from, like, the, you know, the first couple years? And, like, when did you really start seeing outcomes, or what are the outcomes you saw?
Dave Gladson [00:07:14]:
Yeah. Yeah. So Point Loma made a strategic decision to start really investing in that graduate professional over a decade ago. And the first couple of years were really rough trying to market those more, you know, professional programs with that decentralized model. We had a lot of problems the first couple of years. We didn’t see the enrollment growth we wanted. And we definitely had to work with accounting, make the pitches, build the models, and show, like, this is how much efficiency we’ll gain if we can bring the centralized. You know, we went from a one or 2% conversion rate on a lot of room marketing efforts to a a 6% rate to enrollment.
Dave Gladson [00:07:55]:
And now, like, we’re heading heading heading potentially towards seven or 8%. So just being able to make that business case of we can market three times more efficient, you can spend a lot less lot fewer dollars on marketing. Where else can you invest that in the student experience and professors? Like, what are all the other places you’d rather invest those funds than spending more on marketing dollars? So and it it was definitely a multiyear journey. It kinda it didn’t happen all in all in one step. There was definitely some incremental steps along the way where we started to centralize and then a little bit more each year until, really in 2019 is when we were able to have a fully centralized mark budget and then be able to launch a truly integrated campaign that supports all of graduate professional.
Shiro [00:08:45]:
That’s amazing. How how long was that strategic plan to, like, you know did you create a four or five year plan? Like, hey. This is, like, when we expect results, or did the goalpost move as you went along?
Dave Gladson [00:08:57]:
There was definitely some learning as learning as we built. The goalpost definitely shifted. And, yeah, the results didn’t come in like it wasn’t magic. The first year of the that we we partnered with a local agency, Red Door Interactive, to run our external campaign. And Mhmm. Yeah, the results in year one were not quite as high as we expected. But year two, we built momentum. Year three, and now we’re in a position where we’re exceeding results.
Dave Gladson [00:09:24]:
So really sticking with the strategy, obviously, making course corrections along the way, but really fully committing to it, sticking with it long enough for that for those awareness efforts to start paying off because it wasn’t it wasn’t instant success.
Shiro [00:09:41]:
Got it. Thanks for sharing that with us. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the success you’ve built over the last four years. What have the numbers been like? I I want everyone to know. I get this this these amazing results.
Dave Gladson [00:09:53]:
Yeah. I mean, for graduate professional, we’ve seen double digit, growth in enrollment and in revenue, last four years in a row. And like we were talking earlier, I think the biggest obviously, the campaign is really successful, and and I’m very proud of the campaign. But I think the biggest reason for that success is bringing the marketing voice in at the strategic enrollment planning process the very beginning. Because if you don’t have a market line program, no amount of marketing dollars is gonna make up for a program that doesn’t meet the students’ expectations. So just really bringing that market research in all the way at the beginning of the process, having having those tough conversations of, like, should we launch this program? If we if we launch this, this this is the expectations. But if we can add this or this and this is what the students are expecting, that will make this program that much more successful. Mhmm.
Dave Gladson [00:10:52]:
Lot of work on the front end, but it’s it’s worth it. It’s worth it on the back end.
Shiro [00:10:56]:
Got it. And I know we talked about a couple examples of programs you’ve helped to do research for and relaunch. Can you tell us more about one specific example?
Dave Gladson [00:11:05]:
Yeah. Probably the biggest single example would be our our graduate, teaching programs. You know, we’d we’d been looking back to 2018, we had a couple years in a row of a fairly steep declining enrollment. So marketing was brought in, was given a seat at that table to really look in look into the issues. And, coming out of that research process, the biggest gap was the modality. Students really were asking for online. We were able to make the case to the dean in that area that, like, the the thing that’s the thing is gonna the single biggest difference you can make for these programs is to add that online modality. To their credit, they listened.
Dave Gladson [00:11:45]:
It it took a little bit, but we were able to relaunch their entire suite of programs in an online format, and now we’ve seen 40 or 50% growth in enrollments over over that those three years since then. So very sharp upward trajectory. Now, the majority of their students are choosing the online format even when they have options to choose in person as well. It’s allowed us to expand across the state of California. We’re able to partner with school districts that we never could have served before because we are now able to offer the online format. So, yeah, bringing the market research in, they were receptive, and we’re see we’re seeing the results.
Shiro [00:12:23]:
That’s amazing. Was there a shift in the programming that you had to do in the educational model as well as you built online? Because I think a lot of schools struggle with bringing their coursework online, and I’m sure that was also a challenge as well.
Dave Gladson [00:12:38]:
Yes. And I mean, to to give to give the the deans and and and the the faculty in that department the credit, like, doing the market research and and figuring out the problem was only step one. They had to rebuild the programs. They had to invest in delivering the program well, learning a new way to deliver the program. So, yeah, our we had we played a big part, but they also had to had to come to the table and really learn how to deliver the programs in that in that modality, and and they’ve done it. And so Yeah.
Shiro [00:13:09]:
At at that executive level, like, how much like, what what are the meetings? Like, do you talk with faculty as well and the deans in education? Like, do do you bring them all together in one seat? Like, I’m just curious what those meetings are like.
Dave Gladson [00:13:23]:
We do. And that that’s really where that partnership between between our team and the the graduate admissions team, the the vice provost over over graduate professional, Jamie Brownlee. Like, we really have a a really close partnership where we’re going to those meetings together, presenting United Front, talking about how the marketing strategies and the outreach strategies will work together. So, yeah, I think if it was just marketing come to the coming to the table by ourselves, like, we’d have a lot less success. But when marketing enrollment can partner together and deliver that unified message with the academics, it makes it so much easier to build that partnership, and it goes from a single voice to really a triad.
Shiro [00:14:05]:
Gotcha. No. This is this is great. I think it’s a great model and a framework other, institutions can adopt. So appreciate you sharing that. So when I first talked to you and you said, hey. We own 40% of all of our graduate and professional programs and online education as well. I was like, that’s a lot of work.
Shiro [00:14:22]:
How do you do that? I know you said for your student size, you have a a larger team, but still, I was I was pretty, surprised to hear that. How do you marketing gets asked a lot of things. Right? They’re like, hey. I need to make this brochure. Hey. We actually need to make this change on the website, like, before next week, etcetera. These things come up all the time. And with all the different graduate programs, including undergrad that you own, like, how do you spread the workload? Like, how what it just seems like there’s just a lot of moving parts, and I’m just curious how do you own that? How do you, as a leader, like, manage all that, all those asks?
Dave Gladson [00:15:03]:
Yeah. It’s a great question. And there there’s, I mean, there’s several answers. One, we we do have a a database a a database model that we built to really understand where where we should put our effort, which programs have the capacity to grow, which programs don’t. And sometimes those are tough conversations, but sometimes it is literally saying, your programs in this quadrant, we can only we can only offer this level of of support. Or you’ve got an awesome program, it doesn’t have any problem filling the seats, we don’t need to do additional efforts here. So really making that case of your program is so market aligned that’s why we’re not we’re not gonna give you additional help, We need to align our efforts to this other to other programs that do need that support, and having a having a a data informed model to be able to make that case. It’s also been a a multiyear journey of, like, really transforming from again, ten years ago, we really were almost more of a key post, like, taking requests and and producing stuff.
Dave Gladson [00:16:07]:
Now we really are a marketing strategy office. Some of the some of the ways we do that, like, we’ve launched different tools for the campus community, a lot of self-service options. So we brought, like, a Canva a Canva model into the campus where we’re providing those branded templates. We’re giving a lot of self-service options where it’s like, our team can’t do x for you, but I have y solution instead. And oftentimes, once once people get over the initial shock of, like, oh, you’re not gonna do this. I was like, oh, I can make it myself. I can book whatever I want on it. You’re not gonna do a final check.
Dave Gladson [00:16:41]:
Like, okay. Like, I can get on board with this. So the Canva model, another example, Kanta, we brought in a additional asset management to be able to give people self-service options for getting photography they want. So just what are all the different ways that we can create efficiencies, help people around campus do some of those things themselves, and then creating space to partner when there are those projects that we really do need to partner on.
Shiro [00:17:07]:
That’s amazing. So the the content, I’m sorry. What you called it? It’s like it’s like a Google Drive but for higher ed in in essence?
Dave Gladson [00:17:16]:
Yeah. Canto, digital asset management. So all through the the tens of thousands of of images and even short video clips that we filmed over the years. They’re there highly searchable. People can self serve, find the exact photo they want. Right. Canva online design platform where they people can go in. We have prebuilt templates with all the branding in there.
Dave Gladson [00:17:37]:
It can very quickly drop in their content and
Shiro [00:17:40]:
Right.
Dave Gladson [00:17:40]:
Have a a print ready file super quick.
Shiro [00:17:43]:
That’s that’s great. Yeah. So they’re if they’re like, hey. I need a a picture of a sunset and a surfboard to use for this, business school event coming up, they can search in your digital asset management system without having your to send you an email and say, hey. I need this image. It’s already there.
Dave Gladson [00:17:59]:
Exactly. And it’s an investment of time upfront to get all the images in there, tag them well, make them well searchable, but it pays off it pays off in the end with being people being able to self-service.
Shiro [00:18:10]:
Got it. No. I mean, I I know that in your opening sentence, you said most of your activity and your work goes to revenue generating activities, I think, is is what you said. Right? And, I mean, what you just said aligns perfectly to that. It’s you said you’ve spent about 30% of your time on undergrad, which you mentioned at the very start is you haven’t had an issue with enrollment because it’s been capped. And so why focus, you know, 80% of your efforts there when you can grow more of your professional graduate program? So, I mean, I mean, everything you’re saying speaks to, like, your first opening sentence. So, I appreciate that, and I like that you’re able to also say no to things that you know. From a business standpoint, it’s not gonna make as much impact as in other areas.
Shiro [00:18:58]:
And I think that’s a hard thing that as a marketing person, you really do have to juggle. So, really concrete examples there. Thank you.
Dave Gladson [00:19:07]:
Thank you.
Shiro [00:19:09]:
I struggle with it personally too because it’s like, I wanna make this prettier and fancier, but but why? Why the what’s the impact? And so what’s the upside? Is is it’s you gotta always think about that. Speaking about, you know, digital asset management and, management or resources, I believe your team actually has a full time project manager on the team. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I think that’s a unique model.
Dave Gladson [00:19:33]:
Yeah. I think it it goes back to that recognition of where where figuring out where the best place to invest our resources in. And if we can make a project more efficient for the designer, it’s worth it to have that extra layer of having a project manager to ensure that that project is going as efficiently as possible. Can we eliminate three rounds of review by having that person who’s overseeing the project, really keeping the client focused on what the outcomes are, preventing scope creep. So, yeah, it’s an investment of resources in having that that role on the team, but it pays so many dividends for just making everyone on the teams work more efficient, increase the amount of projects we can do. So, yeah, this has been part of our our team’s culture for a long time, and I I I don’t know how I don’t know how we would function as a team without that full time project manager role.
Shiro [00:20:27]:
Right. And and I know that the status quo is higher ed moves slow. And, obviously, there’s elements that marketing can control, but do you think that a project manager role how can help at least things internally, within what you have control of move move things a little bit faster, keep things on track and on schedule?
Dave Gladson [00:20:48]:
Absolutely. Again, prevent preventing scope creep is huge. Being that voice in the room to understand the project requirements the very beginning and and even, like, do that determination of is this even something we should take on or or what what are other alternatives. So helping people find self-service options if if that is because people come and, like, I need a website. Let’s talk about it. We need oh, so you actually just need a page, and here’s an option you can make it yourself. Done. So, yeah, really having someone who can put that time into understanding what understanding the needs, helping people maybe reframe their ask into something that is doable.
Shiro [00:21:31]:
Mhmm.
Dave Gladson [00:21:32]:
No. We can’t do this, but, yes, we could do this instead. Really having that focus. And then, yeah, it just it creates so much more efficiency for everybody on the team who’s trying to implement projects, trying to get the work done. There’s nothing worse than having it on their project and trying to try trying to meet a deadline with a project that doesn’t have a clear objective.
Shiro [00:21:52]:
Yep. I’m I’m just this is pure out of curiosity. Did you bring this person in, or did you hire this role from outside of higher ed?
Dave Gladson [00:22:03]:
The the the person in this role are Erin Zogerson, our our director of marketing operations. She she came from higher ed.
Shiro [00:22:10]:
So Oh, interesting. Okay.
Dave Gladson [00:22:12]:
Yeah.
Shiro [00:22:12]:
Very cool. So you don’t have to look outside higher ed for a good project manager. That’s good to know.
Dave Gladson [00:22:18]:
Don’t have to. Nope.
Shiro [00:22:19]:
That’s great.
Dave Gladson [00:22:20]:
But it does help to offer, flexible working arrangements to, to get the best people into into higher ed, because higher ed is not known for paying the best. So where where are the ways that we can offer other ways to make people feel appreciated and give give people a way to be a be a part of the team?
Shiro [00:22:40]:
I think that was a perfect lead onto my next topic. So nice work, Dave. Yeah. Let’s let’s talk about work life balance and preferences. You know, I was very excited to hear that, in our initial conversation, you told us about a fourth of your team is fully remote, and the rest have a flexible hybrid option. And you’ve really doubled down on this by even, limiting the seats, at at your institution so that not if everyone comes in, there’s in a seat for everyone. So it’s really, like, supporting this model. Can you tell us a little bit more about this evolution?
Dave Gladson [00:23:16]:
Yeah. So even pre COVID, we had fully remote employees. We had a a fully remote manager on the team pre COVID. Just we had someone who was really awesome, and they they needed their wife got got work in LA. They needed to move. It’s like, we’d like to keep you, so how can we make this work? And, yeah, just being willing to do the work to figure it out. When when we made that COVID transition, our team was pretty well set up. We we had a project management system in place.
Dave Gladson [00:23:46]:
We we kind of already figured out how to do remote meetings, maybe not the best, but we were we had some practice at it. And as we kinda came out of the COVID times, it was like, well, why would why would we go back? Why wouldn’t this is working. This we all prefer this. Why wouldn’t we just figure out a way to make this continue to work? So as you were saying, we’ve now actually reduced the footprint of our our office space on the main campus. We collapsed it. It allowed the student counseling services to expand their footprint, which is a much better use for that square footage. But, yeah, there there’s we we we can’t actually all be in the office at the same time anymore. We have to go get the conference room because we’ve we’ve collapsed that square footage.
Dave Gladson [00:24:31]:
And, yeah, our entire team is is remote hybrid. Some people come in one day a week. Some people come in once a month or a couple days at a time, but then maybe not for a month. We really give that that trust and flexibility to everybody on the team to figure out, come in when you need to, come in when you want to. If you don’t need to, don’t be here. Just get your work done.
Shiro [00:24:53]:
Absolutely. And and I know this is a big benefit. I obviously have a hybrid slash remote role as well, and there’s a big worth work life balance element that I benefit from. What has been the benefit for your team and the institution by adopting and accepting more of this model?
Dave Gladson [00:25:11]:
Yeah. I mean, some some of them are just kind of the standard. Like, it’s we all save an hour of commuting time every day by not driving campus. That recognition that a lot of the agencies we’re partnering with or or if we’re we’re if we’re partnering with a a company that’s that’s supporting Point Loma, like, we’d be on a Zoom call anyway. So why drive to campus to get on a Zoom call with a vendor? Just do it from home. I think all of us see that, you know, we get an hour back in our days whether that’s
Shiro [00:25:41]:
Right.
Dave Gladson [00:25:42]:
Sorry. I getting more work done. Sometimes that’s
Shiro [00:25:46]:
I asked the question a little poorly. So how’s how’s the the school and the institution been in a benefit from it? I mean, like, do you feel like, maybe retention is is better of employees? Do you think if it do you have any comments on efficiency, all these things, being able to use tools more digitally and, like, the digital asset management thing? You know? Like, I feel like those are all things that kinda came during COVID, and so I’m just curious to hear your outputs on that.
Dave Gladson [00:26:13]:
Yeah. Retention the retention benefits are huge. We have we have very low turnover on the team. People stick around for a long time. It’s it’s a huge benefit to be able to offer that. Again, higher ed is not known for paying the best, but we can give people a work situation they like, give people a team that they enjoy working with, and give people the trust that they can manage their work and their life. People are invested and they wanna stick around. And to your point also, I think the efficiency benefits, like, we’re partnering with agencies and and other outside groups that are not on campus anyway.
Dave Gladson [00:26:51]:
So being a fully hybrid team just helps us be able to work with those agencies better. Just it’s it’s just part of our core culture. It’s part of our communication style to do that well.
Shiro [00:27:05]:
Yeah. Now that reminds me. It’s like when you have a call, when you have five people in the office and you have to do the Zoom thing and you sit in a conference room, sometimes it’s actually less efficient than if if some if some people have to join remote, it’s sometimes better just have everyone join remote because the communication is more streamlined, I think. So, yeah, that’s a great point. Do you have any advice for other teams? So, like, I’m I think I told you about the salary survey I’m conducting right now, and one of the questions on there was preference for work. And I did see that Although higher ed is unique in that not a majority wanna actually work fully remote, they do want that hybrid option, but I still saw a gap. So, specifically, I think about, 14 people said they wanted to 14% of people wanted to work fully remote whether, but in reality, about 8% have that option. So there’s still a little bit of a gap there that I think needs to be closed.
Shiro [00:28:01]:
Do you have any advice for institutions thinking about, adopting more of a fully remote or hybrid option?
Dave Gladson [00:28:08]:
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s true that not everybody wants fully remote. Like, we got we’re in higher ed because we wanna serve students, and it’s nice to see the students sometimes. It’s nice to be here and talk face to face with the people’s lives you’re impacting. So, yeah, there’s definitely an element to that. Having the full remote option, expanding your talent pool, like, being able to keep people’s lives move and change. They wanna they wanna go other places, being able to keep quality people on the team when life takes them elsewhere is a huge benefit. There’s so many so much of a financial benefit to the institution by not losing people with all that institutional knowledge.
Dave Gladson [00:28:46]:
And, yeah, I mean, just that trust factor. I think people people give more to the work when you show them that trust, when you show them the the agency for them to figure out what days they need to be here, what days they wanna be here, and what days they can, do their work more efficiently from all, I think people are more invested in the work when they when they’re given that trust.
Shiro [00:29:12]:
I love it. I appreciate it. And I’m fully I’m a full advocate of giving employees the working situation that they want. So, that was great advice. I think we’re just at about time right now. I’m wondering where our listeners could connect with you and learn more about the good work you’re doing.
Dave Gladson [00:29:29]:
Yeah. Our institutional website, 0.1.edu, see the, you know, you can you can see the health science programs and the education, kinda see where where we’ve invested as an institution. Find me on LinkedIn if you wanna connect. Dave Gladson.
Shiro [00:29:46]:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Dave. It’s been amazing having you, and, I hope everyone enjoyed the episode. Thank
Dave Gladson [00:29:51]:
you. Thank you, Shiro.
