'myVoice' Survey Project

For Staff

The Core Planning Group meeting held in July 2008 endorsed the recommendation to the Vice-Chancellor that the University undertake a staff opinion survey. On Wednesday 22 October the Vice Chancellor granted approval for the project to commence.

How the Survey will be Undertaken

The survey is based on the Voice Climate Survey, which was developed by Voice Project, a research and consulting company operating under licence from Macquarie University. The survey is anonymous and participation in the survey is voluntary, however, participation will be strongly promoted to encourage high levels of completion to enhance survey outcome actions. The survey will be available to all continuing (permanent) and fixed-term (contract) staff. Casual (or sessional) staff may be included in subsequent surveys. The survey will only be accessible on-line, via an emailed link to a secure survey website hosted by Voice Project. The survey results will be analysed independently by Voice Project. It will not be possible to identify individual staff from the results. Voice Project will provide reports to the Vice-Chancellor and senior managers, and these results will be communicated to all staff.

The Business Needs to be Addressed

The survey will address the University’s need for a greater awareness of staff opinion regarding the management practices that impact staff engagement and performance, in order to inform future management strategies and decisions for improving organisational performance. The survey will also provide lead indicators to assess the viability of the University’s staffing profile as part of the workforce planning process.

Expected Benefits for the University and Staff

The survey will benefit the University by:

• Providing an informed picture of the overall workplace climate;
• Allowing the University to successfully diagnose the drivers of employee engagement;
• Supporting a range of workforce management strategies identified for the University including attraction and retention of quality staff;
• Identifying development requirements for staff and supervisors across the University;
• Indicating the level of staff awareness of, and commitment to, the Mission and the University’s values through appropriate questioning;
• Identifying areas for the development of wellness initiatives; and.
• Establishing a base-line for measuring responses to interventions and analysing trends through future surveys.

The survey will benefit staff by:

• Increasing the feeling among staff that their opinions are valued and are being heard;
• Creating an additional means of communicating with management;
• Building staff belief in the current and future performance of the University;
• Enabling staff to identify barriers to employee satisfaction, engagement and performance; and
• Allowing all staff to participate in the overall development of the University and to inform the decision-making process.

Key Objectives of the Project

1. To collect the opinion of staff about a range of management practices and factors that drive employee engagement and performance using a validated survey instrument;
2. To analyse the results to obtain an assessment of strengths and weaknesses, including measures of ‘staff engagement’ and ‘intention to stay’;
3. To present these results to management for consideration, and staff for their information.

Key Dates

• Monday 23 March 2009 (week 5 of semester 1) for the survey launch.
• Monday 18 May 2009 for the receipt of the final report on the survey results.

Contacts

The Staff Opinion Survey is being project managed by Personnel Relations and Equal Opportunity on behalf of the project sponsor, the Vice-Chancellor. Both a Staff Opinion Survey Working Party and Project Team with members representing key stakeholders have been established for project governance.
For inquiries or assistance, please contact the project staff below via myvoice@acu.edu.au

• Project Manager
• Terry Ring
• Coordinator, Workforce Planning
• ext 4345

• Project Officer
• Liz Paul
• Administrative Officer, PREO
• ext 4396

• Project Officer
• Alishan Megerdichian
• Administrative Officer, Workforce Planning
• ext 4338

• Project Charter (PDF, 49kb)