It is true that HCC used to be "a great place to work", but over the last 2-3 years, especially since COVID, the culture of the college has taken a massive plummet into toxic territory. Over the past 18 months, there has been a mass exodus of people in senior leadership positions, across all areas of the college (administration, faculty, deans, etc.). It would be interesting to hear the college's response as to why that is happening. Surely "covid" will be to blame, but the sad truth is that the pandemic only revealed and exacerbated the existing failures of senior leadership - the President and Vice Presidents.
Even prior to COVID, strategic direction and actual leadership from the "leadership" team was severely lacking. While the college does have a strategic plan, the goals of the plan are so vague and broad that they read more like a mission statement, i.e. "support student success". There is no clarity on how to actually achieve those goals, and the college tends to constantly spin its wheels chasing the next big innovation, rather than optimizing what already exists. Subject matter experts are rarely consulted when leadership is making big decisions, and new initiatives are decided and assigned with no additional investment in resources - time, money, tools, or staff - to actually implement them effectively. High performing staff are assigned more work and more special projects, with no additional pay, promotions, or recognition. Several key areas of the college have been understaffed and underfunded for decades, with no plan to expand or grow the teams or budgets.
With COVID, the college president essentially vanished from public life. Outside of "emails" that were obviously drafted by someone in public relations, she had extremely limited contact with employees. During her "regularly scheduled" interaction with the staff, she spoke from prepared remarks and only responded to pre-vetted questions. When asked about employee morale, she pointed people to the Employee Assistance Program, completely missing the point that "morale" is actually her responsibility.
During the pandemic, the college decided to roll out a massive restructure of the entire academic affairs area, impacting all areas of the college. The major announcement was sent to all staff by email on a late afternoon. There was no regard for the fact that the email implied that many people would be losing their jobs. No sense of how a massive restructure in one area may impact other areas or departments. No understanding of the gravity of the announcement and the fact that "email" may not have been the best medium. Then, leadership were quite shocked when the college community responded (appropriately) with anger and confusion. Belatedly, they decided to pause the restructure, but the damage to trust was already done.
I left because I was burned out, tired of having my expertise discounted in favor of "politics" or because someone with no credentials but a higher title disagreed, tired of dealing with the same problems over and over with no organizational motivation to actually solve them... and just tired of the paralyzing bureaucracy and micromanagement.
I shared all of these thoughts in an exit interview and when I asked where/how exit interviews were used I was told "they just sit in the employee file". And that says it all.
