Baldwin Wallace University
PA-13: Assessing Employee Satisfaction

The evaluation tool measured organizational health on four areas: Alignment, Effectiveness, Connection and Manager. An online survey conducted by a third party evaluator (Workplace Dynamics) collected responses, recorded results and provided topline and in-depth reports by department and as an overall institution. The final report ranked BW as a Top Workplace in Northeast Ohio for 2017. BW was the only University recognized that year among only 24 businesses, organizations and schools evaluated. The report was delivered to the President’s Cabinet for review.

The 2017 Top Workplaces list was determined by employee nominations and surveys of businesses, government agencies and nonprofit organizations in an 11-county area. Hundreds of full and part-time members of the BW faculty and staff completed anonymous online questionnaires through Workplace Dynamics, which was tasked with compiling employee responses and ranking the top 100 places to work in Northeast Ohio. A multiplicity of questions were asked on the survey including, but not limited to, employee satisfaction with their:

(1) Overall experience of community at BW
(2) Overall experience of being a faculty member in [the employee's] primary unit (departmentschool)
(3) Overall experience of collegiality in [the employee's] primary unit (departmentschool)
(4) Mentoring [the employee] received in [the employee's] primary unit (departmentschool)
(5) Professional Development Opportunities
(6) Mentoring [the employee] received within the University
(7) Salary
(8) Benefits
(9) Start-up Package
(10) Opportunities to socialize with colleagues

There were 1152 surveys sent, 601 responses (faculty and staff), 52% response rate, 1000 comments provided.

Detailed reports by department were shared with VP cabinet members who used the rankings both positive and negative to better understand issues around communication, interpersonal connections, job and work effectiveness and manager roles. In some cases additional training was provided for employees and managers were there had shown a lack of experience necessary to perform the duties required. In other cases high scoring departments were used as models for other departments which needed to improve areas of concern. In most cases, the open comments (1000 exactly) provided insight to specific issues or concerns not previously voiced by employees, allowing leaders to directly change or improve processes, communication or alignment to better overall satisfaction rating for employees. BW plans to conduct this survey every three years.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Daniel Karp, Assistant VP of University Relations, for providing the background information necessary to complete this section of the report.