Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey 2023

Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey

The survey closed on Friday, April 28, 2023. Results were shared with executive leaders and engagement champions in July. With help and guidance from Engagement Champions, departments will review their results and conduct action planning in the fall of 2023. The Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey was administered by the CU Boulder Department of Human Resources. The survey was sponsored by CU Boulder Provost Russ Moore and Chief Operating Officer Pat O’Rourke.

The survey measured several research-based elements of engagement—enthusiasm for one’s work, career satisfaction, pride in the institution, intent to stay, connection to the mission of the institution, and others. The 2023 survey also measured aspects of faculty and staff wellness, as well as information on the hybrid work environment.

The goal of the survey was to gather information from our faculty and staff to inform interventions and initiatives that enhance the faculty and staff experience. Survey findings provide insight into the impact of leadership actions and provide trending data on key themes of importance to the campus community.

The Department of Human Resources partnered with the Arthur J. Gallagher Co. to administer the survey.

The 2023 survey was the third engagement survey conducted by the Department of Human Resources. Previous surveys were conducted in 2017 and 2020.

Current & Previous Survey Results

Current & Previous Action Steps

June-July: Executive Leaders were briefed on survey results for their unit
August: Engagement Champions trained and Community of Practice formed
September-October: Unit leadership teams briefed on the survey results
November: Faculty and staff from each unit briefed on survey results
December: Priority action items will be identified and all action plans entered into the KnowledgeNow Portal ( to be completed by December 22)
January-May: Engagement Champions Community of Practice will continue to meet monthly to discuss progress and share best practices

Engagement Champions

Engagement Champions are representatives from respective units across campus who assist in the support and facilitation of faculty and staff engagement in their specific departments. Click here for a complete directory of engagement champions.

What is the Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey?

The survey is a formal opportunity for faculty and staff to express their opinions related to their workplace. The University of Colorado ( CU Boulder) has partnered with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. ( Gallagher) to administer a survey that measures faculty and staff engagement. CU Boulder will use the results to create action plans to implement change in the work environment for all faculty and staff.

What is engagement?

The field of engagement includes concepts such as satisfaction, commitment, and empowerment. For our purposes, we define engagement as the "involvement and enthusiasm of employees with their work and their work environment.”

Did faculty and staff take the same survey?

Yes. However, six additional questions were asked of the faculty.

CU seems to have a lot of surveys. Why is it important to complete the surveys?

The University of Colorado Boulder is committed to hearing the voice of our faculty and staff. One of the ways we do this is through regular assessments; different surveys are implemented by various groups and measure different dimensions of the faculty and staff experience and target different campus populations. We survey frequently to identify the impact of organizational changes, stay informed about the staff and faculty and experience, and guide organizational changes.

What's the difference between the CCS and the Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey?

The CCS survey examined workplace environment and practices, and experiences of incivility, harassment, discrimination, and demographics. While there is overlap between the two surveys, the faculty and staff engagement survey measures satisfaction, motivation, wellness, commitment, retention, recognition, pay, and other dimensions of the faculty and staff work experience.

Was the survey anonymous?

Yes. The survey was anonymous and no individuals were identified.

Who do I contact with questions?

If you have general questions with regard to the survey, contact employeeengagement@colorado.edu.

When we will see results?

Results were shared with executive leaders and engagement champions in July 2023. Supervisors with five or more respondents were given their results on August 1.

What faculty groups were included in the survey?

All regular tenure/tenure-track faculty, research faculty, and other faculty are invited to participate in the survey. Temporary appointments and retirees do not participate in the survey.

Will CU Boulder be able to identify my individual responses?

Personally identifiable information is released to no one outside of Arthur J. Gallagher. Survey results will in no way identify you individually, and aggregate findings will be used for organizational improvements.

What type of questions were in the survey?

The survey has approximately 35 close-ended items. Participants respond to survey items on a six-point scale. 6=Strongly Agree and 1= Strongly Disagree.

What categories of questions were included in the survey?

Survey questions fall into the following categories:

Engagement (belonging, pride, satisfaction, and others)
Satisfaction with career growth
Communication on key issues
Pay and benefits
Wellness and burnout
Recognition
Relationship with ones’ supervisor or department chair
Teamwork
Progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion
Enablement to complete work

What is a key driver?

Key drivers are those items on the survey that have the greatest impact on engagement for our faculty and staff. These survey items are the most powerful indicators of engagement.

What is the engagement index?

The survey results provide both overall scores, as well as engagement index scores. The engagement index score is derived from items on the survey that are most highly correlated with research on engagement.

What is the method of ensuring survey content is reliable?

As part of the survey modeling and design efforts, the reliability of our survey items and thematic groupings of items are confirmed through multiple regression modeling (to understand the magnitude of the empirical relationship between survey items and key outcomes of interest), factor analytics (to ensure the integrity of the survey categories), various tests of validity (such as criterion and predictive validity, and non-statistical variations such as face validity), as well as reliability testing such as Chronbach’s alpha (to assess how well items are coalescing as categories).

How were the results benchmarked?

•Historical Benchmark – Compared to 2020 CU Boulder Survey results

•Internal Benchmark – Compared to CU Boulder results overall

•External Benchmark – Compared to 34 other Institutions of Higher Education in Gallagher’s database

•Percentile Rank – Based on Gallagher’s external norm and interpreted as the percent of external groups the team is out-performing

How is the historical benchmark calculated?

A multi-step approach is utilized to select historical matches including the following:

Reporting Group Direct Matches: In both 2020 and 2023, the Gallagher statisticians and data analysts created reporting groups of employees based on their department and supervisor. To link a 2020 reporting group’s data to a 2023 reporting group, Gallagher identifies cases where the department and supervisor have remained the same to create a direct match.
Reporting Group Indirect Matches: After linking all historical data for direct matches, Gallagher then looks to find indirect matches. Indirect matches would be cases in which a group’s department or supervisor from 2020 does not directly match a 2023 group. Gallagher is still able to link matches based on the distribution of employees from 2020 reporting groups that exist within a 2023 group with at least a 50% employee match. This method helps link 2020 groups as accurately as possible.
Direct Reports and All Reports: In the 2023 survey, Gallagher introduced a new level to the reporting group structure that builds a hierarchy of direct and all report groups. After historical matches have been made for the reporting groups, we then roll these matches up to their respective Direct Reports and All Reports levels. When viewing scores at a “(Direct Reports)” level, the historical score displayed in KnowledgeNow is an average of all 2020 reporting group scores that have been linked to any of your direct reporting groups. When viewing scores at an “(All Reports)” level, the historical score displayed in KnowledgeNow is an average of all 2020 reporting group scores included in your “(Direct Reports)” level from above as well as all other supervisors’ historical scores included in your structure that roll up to you.
Survey Changes Impacting Scores: It is important to note that the 2023 survey is not an exact replica of the 2020 survey. New survey items were added while some were removed. This means that any aggregated score like the overall score or most category scores will not be a 1:1 comparison.

How do we interpret the results?

•Percent Favorable – Total proportion of respondents selecting scale points 6 (“Strongly Agree”), 5 (“Agree”) or 4 (“Somewhat Agree”) from the 6-point agreement scale

•Score - The arithmetic average of respondents selecting from the 6-point agreement scale: 6 (“Strongly Agree”), 5 (“Agree”), 4 (“Somewhat Agree”), 3 (“Somewhat Disagree”), 2 (“Disagree”), and 1 (“Strongly Disagree”)

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Faculty and Staff Engagement Survey 2023

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