2024 Working at Iowa Survey
This year's survey will be available for University of Iowa faculty and staff from Oct. 16-31, 2024. Eligible employees will receive an email with a personalized link to complete the survey. There are no right or wrong answers when completing the Working at Iowa survey—employees are encouraged to share their honest thoughts and opinions about their work experience in this biennial survey.
Our employees’ voices matter, and by participating, they contribute to making Iowa a place where all faculty, staff, and students feel valued, supported, and engaged.
Why employee voice matters:
Strategic success: Engaged employees boost performance across the university, supporting our overall mission, and demonstrating our core values of creativity, community, excellence, inclusion, and integrity.
A better workplace: Employee feedback allows us to build on strengths and explore changes that improve belonging, and enable individuals and teams to grow, thrive, and excel.
Measuring Engagement
The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) outlines employee engagement and belonging as important elements that impact hiring and retention. According to Gallup, just 32% of American workers are engaged in their jobs; 51% say they're "just showing up," and 17% describe themselves as "actively disengaged."
Measuring employee engagement and belonging through Working at Iowa helps the institution understand what is going well and where improvements can be made.
In this presentation, Eean Crawford, associate professor of management and organizations at the Tippie College of Business, describes how understanding and fostering engagement advance organizational goals:
Working at Iowa Results
Results from Working at Iowa help us identify trends around success and opportunities for improvement.
Campuswide results from Working at Iowa will be shared in the spring semester, followed by unit-specific reports for each college and division. HR leaders will collaborate with their respective units to develop action plans. Findings from the 2022 Working at Iowa survey informed a number of org level and campuswide initiatives:
Org level:
Faculty responses to the question addressing workload distribution resulted in increased transparency around how faculty effort is assessed.
New P&S job family created, parallel to librarian job family, to enhance career pathways for Merit staff.
Campuswide:
Supervisor training @ Iowa refreshed, and available on-demand to all supervisors. 86% of participants indicated they would “Probably” or “Definitely” use what they learned in the training. In FY24 “Please rate your knowledge about how to positively impact employee engagement” saw a 53% year-over-year increase for those who responded with “Very” or “Extremely Knowledgeable.”
We encourage and appreciate every employee’s participation in the 2024 Working at Iowa survey. Thank you for helping us make Iowa a place where faculty and staff grow, thrive, succeed, and belong.
Frequently Asked Questions
The campuswide survey is conducted every two years to measure engagement and belonging among faculty and staff at the University of Iowa. It provides a snapshot of the employee experience and allows us to compare survey results over a period of time.
Survey results lead to unit action plans that enhance our workplace and help us make Iowa a place where all employees feel valued, supported, and engaged.
Thank you for participating in this important effort! Here's how you can help.
- Review the short orientation module.
- Share flyers and digital signage in your unit/department's public spaces.
- Answer questions from your colleagues.
- Encourage staff to participate in WAI 2024.
You can find a complete job description and additional resources in the course module.
If you have questions about your responsibilities, please contact workingatiowa@uiowa.edu.
Please email workingatiowa@uiowa.edu and a member of our team will get back to you. If you're a survey ambassador and an employee asks a question you don't know how to answer, you may also direct them to that email address.
All regular faculty and staff will receive an email from Qualtrics on Oct. 16 with a personalized link to the survey. Emails will be sent throughout the day on Oct. 16 and the survey closes on Oct. 31.
UI Health Care conducts a separate survey with Press Ganey that includes a subset of 10 WAI questions. This year's Press Ganey survey runs Oct. 7–28.
Yes, the survey is mobile-friendly. Use the personalized link sent to you via email to complete the survey on your phone or computer.
We encourage faculty and staff to complete the 5-minute survey as soon as possible between Oct. 16–31. The survey can be completed during the workday.
Survey results will be released to campus during the spring semester, followed by unit-specific reports for each college and division.
The Working at Iowa survey is confidential. Aggregated data is shared only with departments or units that have 10 or more survey responses.
Five new questions have been added to provide deeper insights into belonging.