3 minute read
Taking the Title “Best Place to Work”
By Chuck Wasserstrom
Tyler Forrest remembers the conversation as if it took place yesterday.
Before the pandemic started, Forrest—vice chancellor for finance and administration at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga—was in Nashville for a meeting. As he was walking across the street, a police officer noticed the “Power C” lapel pin on Forrest’s blazer and asked him, “Do you work at UTC?”
“I said, ‘I sure do,’” Forrest recalls, “and we ended up talking for probably 10 to 15 minutes about how great of an experience his daughter had here on campus. He took the time to recognize what a tremendous impact UTC had on his daughter’s educational career.
“That was one of those moments where I had the takeaway that UTC is way bigger than the context we often put it in. We are impacting the entire state, and we often don’t recognize that to the extent we should.
“Our impact is far and wide, and any opportunity we have to celebrate this campus—whether it be a local distinction, a regional distinction or a national distinction—we need to do so because our impact is significant on the individuals we serve.”
To that end, a major initiative of the University’s finance and administration division, which includes human resources, is to gain a “Best Places to Work” distinction for UTC, helping achieve a goal of the UT System for all campuses across the state to achieve.
The best known of the local “Best Places to Work” surveys is conducted annually by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
UTC has about 1,400 regular employees, including 500 full-time faculty, making the University one of the larger employers within Hamilton County. About 84% of UTC employees live in Hamilton County, the fourth-largest county in Tennessee.
“Anytime we can be recognized by the broader community and celebrated as an employer of choice, it is a celebration of our existing employees, as it recognizes them for what a good job they are doing in promoting our culture.
“We want to be seen as an excellent major employer,” Forrest says, “and we want to attract top talent, not just from this community but from afar, to ensure that we are teaching students with a diverse faculty and staff. We want to attract the best and the brightest talent that we can.”
Thanks to a benefit available to the University’s entire workforce, employees can take UTC classes (or from any UT system institution) without paying tuition. Their children pay only half price to take UTC classes. The value of these benefits equals thousands of dollars saved for employees or their children who take advantage of them. Not to mention the value of opportunities made available as a result of completing a college degree.
“A lot of companies offer tuition reimbursement, but our fee waiver covers our employees, dependents, retirees and those in other categories such as public school teachers,” Forrest notes.“That is a huge added benefit for UTC employees.”
Counting his days as an undergraduate, Forrest is in his 15th year on campus this fall.
“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it is one of the absolute best places to be,” he says. “There’s never been a day that I haven’t enjoyed coming to work.
“I truly believe UTC is a place to be celebrated. The values and the culture that this institution represents and the role it plays in our community and region is significant, which is all the more reason I want to get a ‘Best Places to Work’ distinction for the campus.
“I’m a firm believer that UTC is more than just the best place to work. It’s a fantastic place to work.”
— Tyler Forrest, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration
