Indiana University Bloomington
PA-12: Assessing Employee Satisfaction

Three surveys seeking to address faculty/staff engagement, priorities, and concerns have been administered in the last three years. Most recently, in Fall of 2017, IU participated in it’s first university-wide staff engagement survey called “My Voice @ IU,” administered by Gallup. Every staff member at IU received the survey. A job-satisfaction survey of just faculty members at Indiana University Bloomington was conducted for IU by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education -- known as COACHE -- a consortium based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2016. Respondents include tenured faculty and librarians, tenure-track faculty and librarians, and non-tenure-track academic appointees in all schools and departments. IU Bloomington faculty members were sent an email message in mid-October inviting them to participate and directing them to the website for the online survey. They received follow-up reminder emails. Participation in the 25-minute survey was voluntary. The survey was open Spring semester 2016. https://provost.indiana.edu/doc/coache-2016.pdf Professional and service staff were not included in this survey. Faculty make up 24% of IUB staff. Additionally, The College of Arts and Sciences, IU's largest college, surveyed representatives of IU's professional, service, and paraprofessional staff (this group, plus faculty, totals 87% of IU's workforce). College of Arts and Sciences used a 3rd party survey, the Q12 Gallop Survey. The surveyed was administered Fall 2015. IU Bloomington faculty members were sent an email message in mid-October inviting them to participate and directing them to the website for the online survey. They received follow-up reminder emails. Participation in the 25-minute survey was voluntary. The survey was open Spring semester 2016. https://provost.indiana.edu/doc/coache-2016.pdf Professional and service staff were not included in this survey. Faculty make up 24% of IUB staff. Additionally, The College of Arts and Sciences, IU's largest college, surveyed representatives of IU's professional, service, and paraprofessional staff (this group, plus faculty, totals 87% of IU's workforce). College of Arts and Sciences used a 3rd party survey, the Q12 Gallop Survey. The surveyed was administered Fall 2015.

Data from the 2016 Faculty COACHE survey was made public in fall 2017. The survey identified the following strengths: (courtesy IU Communications) • 72 percent of faculty said they would choose again to be employed at IU Bloomington. That compares with 70 percent at peer institutions and 66 percent at all COACHE institutions. • 67 percent were satisfied with family medical and parental leave policies and options for flexible workloads, a higher rate than at peer institutions. IU faculty were also more satisfied with health and retirement benefits. • IU faculty were more satisfied than peer institution faculty with library resources, computing resources, support for teaching, and clerical and administrative support. Weaknesses identified in the survey will be addressed by IU leadership. The Office of the Provost says it will use the survey in the following way: "The Office of the Provost will use the results to determine areas of faculty satisfaction and identify the most important targets for improvement." Three areas of improvement have thus been identified: 1.) “Two areas of concern stand out. The first is the divergent perception of campus and departmental culture for white, Asian, and minority faculty…Under the direction of John Nieto-Phillips, Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and IUB’s Chief Diversity Officer, a faculty committee will further assess and recommend ways we can improve.” 2.) “A second area of concern is the lower satisfaction of IUB’s associate professors on many items. The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs will seek faculty input for campus workshops and other initiatives that might be useful for associate professors, and we will work with department chairs and associate deans to develop practices and procedures in departments and schools to better guide promotion to full professor. Finally, we will continue to support and partner with other campus resources that may be useful for mid-career faculty, such as the faculty writing groups, the Faculty Success Program through the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, and the Institute for Advanced Studies.” Both items above are from the initial survey report, published Fall 2017. http://vpfaa.indiana.edu/docs/bloomington/Exec%20Summary%202016%20COACHE%20Survey.pdf Results of the campus-wide staff survey have not yet been published. However, the My Voice @ Website sites the following purpose of the survey: “Survey data will help IU understand the needs of its staff employees, what IU is doing well, and where there are opportunities to improve the work environment at IU. IU wants to foster an environment where all employees feel valued and are engaged in their work. Collecting your feedback was the first step – there is much more work to be done. Watch for updates here and in IU publications.” http://hr.iu.edu/myvoice/

(staff) http://hr.iu.edu/myvoice/ (faculty, initial report) http://vpfaa.indiana.edu/docs/bloomington/Exec%20Summary%202016%20COACHE%20Survey.pdf (faculty, summary article) https://news.iu.edu/stories/2017/10/iub/inside/03-coache-survey.html (faculty COACHE launch) https://provost.indiana.edu/doc/coache-2016.pdf (staff, launch) https://news.iu.edu/stories/2017/09/iu/inside/13-employee-engagement-survey.html