The University of Oregon’s Campus Planning and Facilities Management, responsible for maintaining campus functions, is entering its second year of its “Quest for the Best” program.

The program, run by CPFM leadership and the Institute for Policy Research and Engagement, uses feedback from UO employees to improve CPFM operations across campus. 
Michael Harwood, associate vice president for CPFM, said CPFM comprises five groups that oversee the planning, design, construction and maintenance of all academic facilities across the campus.
The groups included in CPFM are Facilities Services, Utilities & Energy, Campus Planning, Design & Construction, and the Office of Sustainability. 
The merger of Campus Planning and Construction & Campus Operations in 2016 created what students know today as CPFM. The new organization would oversee campus operations but experienced some growing pains and felt a need to improve operations, said Brendan Adamczyk, a graduate student in the Department of Public Policy and Administration.
Through the 2023 “Quest for the Best” focus sessions, CPFM gathered feedback from employees regarding what they should continue, stop and start doing. They chose six themes to explore in focus groups, Natalie Davis, Executive Assistant for CPFM, said.
One thing CPFM employees wanted to continue doing was social gatherings, Davis said.
“Social gatherings are something we do regularly,” she said. “We have four yearly gatherings, and that was something that came about after the last ‘Quest for the Best’ in 2019,” she said.
Davis said that CPFM employees also wanted more professional development opportunities or a continuation of the professional development program referred to in the 2023 final report.

 “[The program] gives employees the opportunity to learn a new position without formally changing [or] moving positions,” she said. “It’s a really great way to keep people moving and giving them the opportunities to try different jobs [and] advance in different roles, even if they may not have the direct experience that they would normally need.”
CPFM employees listed three issues under the “stop doing” section. One issue identified was understaffing and lower pay. Davis said this issue is challenging to address because CPFM has control of pay since most of their employees are classified staff or employees in a position that does not require certification.
“We do recognize this is an issue, and we want to do as much as we can to help, even though it cannot be a flip-of-a-switch solution,” she said.
The third issue CPFM employees wanted their organization to stop doing was degrading services and lowering standards. Davis said the theme came from staff needing more people on their teams.
“That largely came from custodial staff, feeling like they could not hold their standards as high as they wanted because there was more work to be done in the same amount of time,” she said. “They were feeling the pressure to move through their jobs to an acceptable degree, but because they have such high expectations of themselves, they wanted to spend more time making things great.”
CPFM employees also gave feedback on what their organization should start doing. One theme in that section was increased pay and benefits for recruitment and retention. However, Davis said, CPFM does have much control over pay.
“We really don’t have a lot of control over those things really, especially from the administrative side, but it’s something that we know is a concern we want to be aware of,” she said. “I’m not sure where the solution is yet from my standpoint, but it’s great to know how our staff are feeling.”
Davis said that CPFM will use the themes compiled in the 2023 final report as a starting point for the next set of focus groups this month.
“What we want to do before isolating those things is talk to these focus groups because we do not want to be the ones to narrow it down and say these are the only issues,” she said. “The focus groups [will] go through our sessions and investigate their top themes and how they want to move forward with those.”
The program will continue throughout 2024 as CPFM goes into the second year of the program. For more information, students can visit the program’s website.