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In a recent episode of the HigherEdJobs Podcast, Dr. Patrick Brugh, director of the Center for Staff Life Design at Johns Hopkins University, joined co-hosts Andy Hibel and Kelly Cherwin to talk about what it looks like to bring life design — a framework long used in student career services — to university staff.
Brugh gave some background on how the center came together. His findings on staff experience mirrored what researchers found across the sector, including the CUPA-HR 2025 Higher Education Employee Retention Survey, which found that belonging and feeling valued ranked among the strongest predictors of staff retention. At Johns Hopkins, voluntary turnover was highest in the first four years of employment, and feelings of belonging tended to dip around the eight-year mark. Staff were also struggling to see where their careers could go, had difficulty finding mentors outside their immediate departments, and had little visibility into opportunities elsewhere at the institution. “We don’t want staff leaving here thinking they haven’t gotten all they could get out of the university when it’s such a large place with so many opportunities,” Brugh said.
The center sits within human resources and serves 13,000 full-time, benefits-eligible staff across Johns Hopkins’ campuses — the largest private employer in Maryland. “Our vision is that every employee at Johns Hopkins University — regardless of their social capital, their seniority, their discipline, their job title, or their job level — can live their life purpose through, with, or because of the Johns Hopkins community,” Brugh said.
When Kelly asked how the center reaches staff, Brugh explained that rather than waiting for employees to come to them, his team embeds itself across the university. Life design consultants are assigned to specific campuses and divisions, showing up to departmental meetings, walking office floors, and reaching out directly to staff. One consultant focuses entirely on internal mobility and career transitions across the whole institution. “If I see my life design consultant in my departmental meetings and my divisional meetings, running workshops, putting up posters, stopping me and talking to me while they’re walking around campus — I’m going to know exactly who that person is and how to get to them if I need their support,” Brugh said. More than 6,000 staff had engaged with the center’s programs since it launched, putting the team roughly halfway to its goal of reaching every eligible employee.
The center built its programming by asking staff what they wanted. That process flagged an immediate need: there was no universal mentorship program anywhere across the university. “Early on, we were like, OK, let’s build a mentorship program,” Brugh said. One hundred and fifty people went through the first cohort. The center has since added:
- life design discernment courses
- bite-sized career clinics covering resumes, LinkedIn, and interview skills
- a talent intelligence platform called Eightfold that helps staff see career pathways across the university based on skills they already have.
When Andy brought up obstacles, Brugh pointed to two recurring ones: resource limitations with a team of only six people, and occasional resistance from managers who worried that career development programming might encourage staff to leave. That concern usually faded once he explained what the center actually does. “It plugs staff across the university to each other,” he said. “And yes, that opens doors and creates opportunities to leave or to jump to another department sometimes. But it also creates information tendrils that are now reaching out into the university and collecting information and ways of working from other folks in other departments and divisions that can be brought back to the team and help the team perform better.”
On the question of measuring success, the numbers Brugh watched most closely were retention and internal mobility. Staff who engaged with the center three to 10 times over an 18-month period had a voluntary turnover rate of about 4%, compared to 17% for those who had not engaged. “The people who are coming to us are thirsty for their next step — they tend to be highly engaged.” Brugh said.. “They’re not using this as a distraction or an out — they’re looking to find ways to stay here and grow.”
For institutions looking to build something similar, Brugh outlined three starting points:
- make staff development a named strategic priority
- secure executive sponsors who will actively advocate for the work
- engage staff in designing the programs meant to support them.
“If staff say we want mentorship programs, build mentorship programs,” he said. He also noted that the center is not an expensive operation — a point worth raising with leadership early. “You have to have a bias toward action. Build a little prototype of it, see how it works, and put some money and resources behind it.”
For the full conversation on life design, staff retention, and building a culture of career growth, listen to the episode below.
