Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why run a Staff Attitude Survey?

Many organisations run staff surveys periodically because they recognise the importance of seeking and responding to the views of staff. By understanding how staff feel about a range of factors, the University can take action to create a high performance culture that values and engages staff at all levels.

When do I complete the survey?

The survey will be available for staff to fill in until Friday 12 June 2009. Hard copies of the survey questionnaire will be sent to staff who do not have Monash email access, with instructions for its return.

What is ‘staff engagement’?

Staff engagement is the extent to which employees commit to something or someone in their organisation, how hard they work, and how long they stay with their employer as a result of their commitment.

How can I find out what has happened as a result of my feedback from the last process?

Each faculty, division and campus developed a local Action Plan as a result of the last survey and focus group process. A summary of all University Action Plans is available on the Staff Attitude Survey website.

Please contact your local HR representative regarding your specific faculty, divisional or campus Action Plan.

In addition to local Action Plan initiatives, the HR Division has commenced work in the following areas:

• A review of the leadership development approach
• Review of academic performance management
• Review of professional development for general staff

Who is running the 2009 Staff Attitude Survey?

The University ran a competitive tender process in late 2006. Voice Project was selected due to their extensive experience in the Australian higher education sector, expertise in implementing ‘engagement’ surveys, benchmarking capacity and presented the University with the best value for money proposition.

For more information about the project you can email StaffAttitudeSurvey@adm.monash.edu.au

Will the survey be confidential?

We want honest responses so we are taking several steps to ensure confidentiality. All survey responses will be analysed by the research team in Voice Project. Online surveys will be completed via a secure Voice Project website and paper-based surveys will be sealed in envelopes by staff and sent unopened to Voice Project. Results will be reported by Voice Project only for groups of 10 or more people. At no point will anyone from within Monash University be able to identify responses from individual staff. The survey will contain some demographic questions (such as age, gender, employment status etc) but these questions are designed purely to enable analysis of differences in responses across different groups of people (eg. to see if women have different opinions from men, or if academic staff have different opinions from general staff).

Why are some double-barrelled questions used in the questionnaire?

There are a few double-barrelled questions in the questionnaire, eg. Discrimination is prevented and discouraged. While double-barrelled questions are technically not ideal from a survey design perspective, the questions in the survey have been assessed as appropriate cultural indicators. All double-barrelled questions in the survey have been reliability tested and statistically validated. Like any question in the survey, if a double-barrelled question performs poorly, it requires further exploration.