The University of Iowa invites UI faculty and staff to provide candid feedback on what it’s like to work at the university.

Working at Iowa (WAI), a quick and confidential survey, will be offered to all UI faculty and staff beginning Tuesday, Oct. 14 through Friday, Oct. 24.

Individual faculty and staff access the survey via unique URLs distributed in email invitations, but surveys are not matched with individual respondents. Units only get reports on items with 15 or more responses, another measure to preserve confidentiality.

UI Staff Council President Chuck Wieland says he strongly encourages all faculty and staff to take the online survey, which consists of 20 questions.

“’It’s quick, it’s confidential, and it matters’ is much more than a slogan,” says Wieland, an administrator in the UI School of Social Work. “Building and sustaining an engaged workforce supports our ability to achieve our strategic goals, whether related to student recruitment and success, discoveries in research, or providing high quality health care.”

Wieland adds that an engaging work culture attracts and retains top talent, supports both health and productivity, and provides an environment for UI students, patients, and guests to be welcomed and embraced.

UI Human Resources administered the first WAI survey in 2006 and deployed follow up surveys in 2008 and 2012. The 2014 survey builds on these experiences, drawing on input from a cross-campus advisory committee, and responding to advice from experts on workplace assessment.

In 2012, participation was at 67 percent of all employees, up from 62.3 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2006. This year, the UI hopes to boost participation by 3 percent or to get 70 percent of 16,400 UI faculty and staff.

The Center for Public Health Statistics in the UI College of Public Health will help process the Working At Iowa reports once the survey closes. Units only receive reports for items with 15 or more responses, and those responses are only reported out as percentages to protect confidentiality.

Kevin Ward, assistant vice president of UI Human Resources Administration, says the survey results will be used to both celebrate successes and pinpoint areas for improvement.

"The survey provides an opportunity to build upon those things that we already do to create engagement," Ward says. "The university provides an excellent foundation in providing meaningful work, opportunities for learning, and a system of shared governance to share ideas and participate in campus leadership."

Making a profound, positive impact

The feedback from the Working At Iowa Survey is used in a variety of ways across campus to make a profound and positive impact on the work climate.

Since 2006, a number of long term-university initiatives have been implemented as a result of feedback from previous surveys.

These include offering more conflict management training/resources for faculty and staff, ensuring performance review compliance and improving performance feedback, enhancing the compensation structure to better support career development, and adding Livewell programming to support health and productivity, just to mention a few.

University of Iowa Tippie College of Business Dean Sarah Gardial is a strong champion of the survey.

“I was thrilled when I got here and found out that there was an active initiative to continually monitor the engagement and satisfaction of the folks that are working with me on this campus,” says Gardial, who joined the UI in July of 2012.

She adds that the timing of the 2012 survey was perfect because the college was in the midst of strategic planning and so they were focused on talking about where the college was headed, where they wanted to be 10 years from now, and thinking through all aspects of the college.

“We do very important work, and engagement of everyone is so critical," Gardial adds. “We work in a complex environment, and we do very important things, from the faculty to the staff to our students, so if we are not all coming together as a team and working together in a really positive way, we’re never going to achieve the goals of excellence we have.”

Gardial says that Tippie used the feedback from the 2012 survey to pursue a number of initiatives to improve the climate for faculty and staff.

Examples include clarifying the flex-time policy to create more consistency and equity across the college and organizing a unit retreat to improve work culture and functioning.

“The results of the 2012 survey reinforced the need for staff representation on virtually all of the strategic planning committees that have been created to move the college forward,” Gardial says. “It is clear that we cannot reach our goals and aspirations without all hands on deck and all voices at the tables where decisions are being made. We are purposefully inclusive in our decision-making.”