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Staff Survey

In summer 2013, the university Staff Council and the Office of Institutional Effectiveness will administer the university-wide staff climate survey. The council's University Staff Survey ad hoc committee has developed this site to provide additional information about the current implementation and the intended uses of the survey.

The survey was first conducted in 2011 and is repeated every two years. Click here to access results of the 2011 survey.

Benefits of the University Staff Survey

The University Staff Survey is designed to provide a range of benefits to the institution and its employees, including the following:

  • To provide baseline information about staff perceptions regarding the nature of their work, policies and practices, and the general climate at Georgia State.
  • To identify areas where staff feel the operational effectiveness of the university could be enhanced.
  • To indicate attitudes toward existing programs for staff and to identify the need for new programs. (Of particular note, the survey solicits specific information about training and development programs.)
  • To help guide the actions of the Staff Council, the Administrative Council, the University Senate, and other representative bodies through the use of reliable data.
  • To survey perceptions of managerial effectiveness and of the quality of the supervisor/employee relationship.
  • To identify issues that may facilitate or inhibit staff retention.
  • To help assess the effectiveness of internal communication efforts.

Confidentiality of Participants

The university Office of Institutional Research (OIR) will administer the survey, which will be distributed to all classified employees. As with other confidential university surveys conducted by OIR, staff members will use a unique code that cannot be tied to their identity to complete the survey. In the reporting of results, optional demographic information will only disseminated as aggregated data for university-wide reporting purposes. Any use of the data outside the Staff Council's biennial reporting process must be approved by the council Board of Officers and OIR.

Assistance to Survey Participants

The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) plans to set up proctored survey sessions for areas where staff do not have regular access to computers or may need other forms of assistance. Please contact the Office of Institutional Research if you wish to pursue this option for staff in your area.

Survey Composition

The survey consists of questions incorporating both structured and open-ended formats, in addition to an optional demographic section. The first section includes use of a six-point semantic differential scale ("Strongly disagree" to "Strongly agree"). The remaining questions are formatted to solicit further information following "Yes" or "No" responses. The survey concludes with a text box for general comments. Survey questions were developed by the ad hoc committee with the guidance of Institutional Effectiveness administrators. The validity and appropriateness of the survey questions has been verified through pilot testing and through the 2011 survey implementation.

Survey Analysis

OIR will provide the initial analysis of the quantitative and qualitative responses to the survey, and the survey ad hoc committee will further summarize the survey results, giving proper weight to the whole range of responses. The committee will provide a report of their findings to the council's Board of Officers, who will make the report available to the full council, including all non-voting members (i.e., the university president, provost, assistant vice president of Human Resources, etc.) and the full university Administrative Council.

Additional Information

If you have additional questions about the survey, you may contact the Staff Council, the Office of Institutional Research, or any of the members of the council Staff Survey ad hoc committee.

  • Staff Council/University Senate: David Caudill (HHS), MaryAnne Gaunt (COE), John Medlock (CAS)
  • Faculty representative: Dawn Baunach (Sociology, CAS)
  • Institutional Effectiveness: Charles Gilbreath, Mary McLaughlin, Terry Ward
  • Human Resources: Miriam Jackson (Classificaiton & Compensation)

Staff Survey Background

The Staff Council established the Staff Survey ad hoc committee to follow up on one of the recommendations of the Staff Retention Task Force of the University Senate, which implemented a climate survey in June 2008 as part of its information-gathering process. The task force recommended conducting a standard staff survey on a regular basis. As noted, the survey was first conducted in 2011.