Here you will find a summary of results to the most recent Staff Council Newsletter survey. Although brief, these surveys serve a critical function within Staff Council. The results are shared with campus leadership and help inform the decision making process at multiple levels of campus.
If you have any questions about the results, or would like to provide additional feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us.
January, 2023 Survey
We asked staff to provide us information about what types of community events they attend, their preference on modality, and barriers that they faced (if any). We received 170 responses and summarized the results below:
| Types of CU events staff have participated in since August, 2022 (multiple choice) | |
|---|---|
| Type | Responses (#) |
| Sporting Events/Performances | 50 |
| Professional Development | 109 |
| Health & Wellness | 66 |
| Talks/Lectures/Forums | 83 |
| Volunteering | 34 |
| Holiday/Recognition Events | 91 |
| Other | 14 |
| Preference of event modality (select one) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Modality | Responses (#) | Responses (%) |
| In-person | 96 | 56.5 |
| Virtual | 70 | 41.2 |
| Do not attend events | 4 | 2.4 |
Top 5 barriers for attending events
- Time constraints
- Lack of a hybrid option
- Parking/Transportation
- Cost
- Lack of awareness
Other barriers included a lack of childcare, COVID concerns, and dietary restrictions for catered events.
October, 2022 Survey
Staff Council leadership wanted to know how staff felt about CU's hybrid work modality policy, now that staff have hopefully had time to work with their supervisors on setting a schedule. We received 180 responses, and have summarized the findings below:
| Work modality of survey respondents (select one) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Modality | Responses (#) | Responses (%) |
| Fully in-person | 26 | 14.4 |
| Hybrid, mostly in-person | 77 | 42.8 |
| Hybrid, mostly remote | 63 | 35.0 |
| Fully remote | 14 | 7.8 |
| "How do you feel about CU Boulder's approach to hybrid work?" (select one) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Option | Responses (#) | Responses (%) |
| Extremely satisfied & thankful | 88 | 48.9 |
| Satisfied but have concerns | 49 | 27.2 |
| Neutral | 23 | 12.8 |
| Stressed and lacking information and clarity | 7 | 3.9 |
| Not satisfied | 13 | 7.2 |
- 78.5% of fully remote staff are “Extremely satisfied”. By contrast, only 11.5% of fully in-person staff are also “Extremely satisfied”
- The vast majority of “Extremely satisfied” staff are hybrid employees, with an even split between those mostly in-person & mostly remote.
- 66% of hybrid staff report they did feel empowered to work with their supervisor to set a flexible, hybrid work modality that works best for them.
- Of those who are unsatisfied or have concerns, some common themes included lack of clarity around if the hybrid policy is permanent, a lack of equity across campus on how the policy is applied, who is holding everyone accountable, removing “blanket policies” and parking. (Make the “SAVE5” permanent)
August, 2022 Survey
We asked "Please briefly list 1-2 priorities you believe CU Boulder Staff Council should focus on in the coming year". Of the 144 responses we received, below is a breakdown of the priorities, which we were categorized into 15 topics:
| Mentions | Priority Category |
|---|---|
| 62 | Compensation & Benefits |
| 39 | Future of Work/Work Modalities |
| 24 | Professional Development/Promotion Pathways |
| 17 | Advancing Diversity & Equity |
| 13 | Employee Engagement |
| 13 | Parking & Transportation Costs & Accessibility |
| 10 | Staff Retention |
| 7 | Improve Campus Communication |
| 4 | Staff Recognition |
| 3 | Campus Safety |
| 3 | Rec Center Membership Affordability |
| 3 | Tuition Benefit |
| 2 | Food Insecurity |
| 2 | Parental Leave |
| 4 | Miscellaneous |
June, 2022 Survey
The topic of this newsletter survey dealt with Leave Sweeps. Below is a list of our questions, and the responses we received. While the reason for staff not using their leave was not surprising, the number of people who had their leave swept was. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the number was quite low. So despite the high volume of work put on our staff, most were able to take enough time off to not have accumulated more than allowed to be carried over.
| Survey Question | Number of Responses |
|---|---|
| Are you eligible to earn vacation leave in your current position? | Yes - 193 (95%) No - 10 (5%) |
| Will your balance of VACATION leave exceed the maximum amount permitted by CU, meaning you will "lose" hours on July 1st, 2022? | Yes - 10 (5%) No - 193 (95%) |
| What factors have helped you feel supported in using your vacation time? (Multilple Choice) | Supervisor Support - 161 (40%) Clear understanding of leave policy - 114 (28%) Coworker Support - 95 (23%) Scheduled "down time" - 37 (9%) |
| If you did have your leave swept, what factors contributed to you not using your leave? | I'm too busy - 24 Poor office culture - 4 Vacation cancelled - 3 Lack of supervisor support - 1 Didn't want to take time off - 1 Saving to donate - 0 |
April, 2022 Survey
In an effort to gain a better understanding of how staff utilize the Tuition Assistance Benefit, we asked 3 specific questions. We received 121 responses, and the results showed us that the process of using the benefit needs to be more streamlined, and if possible, expanded. This feedback was shared with campus leadership in one-on-one meetings that took place over the Summer.
| Question | Number of Responses |
|---|---|
| Have you ever utilized the Tuition Assistance Benefit? | Yes - 36 (30%) No - 85 (70%) |
| If yes, please rate your overall experience on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the best. | 5 (Best) - 10 (28%) 4 - 13 (36%) 3 - 8 (22%) 2 - 4 (11%) 1 - 1 (3%) |
Additionally, we asked what issues, if any, staff encounterd when attempting to use the benefit. We offered a list of choices, which staff could select multiple:
| Issue Experienced | Number of Responses |
|---|---|
| No issues | 25 (19%) |
| Other | 24 (18%) |
| I found I didn't have time to engage in a course while working | 19 (14%) |
| I could not enroll in the class I wanted | 17 (12%) |
| The benefit was too confusing to utilize | 15 (11%) |
| I couldn't take the time away from work to attend the class | 14 (10%) |
| I could not afford tuition, even after the benefit was applied | 11 (8%) |
| I was unaware I had to pay all costs up front and wait to be reimbursed | 8 (6%) |
| I missed the deadline | 4 (3%) |
Of the "Other" responses, we saw some consistent reasons given included:
- Fees were too high
- The process to apply for the benefit, register for classes, and be reimbursed was too complicated
- I couldn't afford paying everything up front and then waiting to be reimbursed
- I couldn't use it for the course I wanted (e.g. Continuing Education)
Febrary, 2022
For our first newsletter survey of the new year, we asked staff to provide "one word you would use to describe your hope for the new year ahead?". We then created a list of all of those words and put them into a word cloud. Top words included, "Health", "Stability", "Hopeful" and "Opportunity".
