Faculty and Staff Engagement at Case Western Reserve

In the fall of 2021, Case Western Reserve University President Eric W. Kaler charged Vice President for Human Resources Carolyn Gregory and Director of Institutional Research Edward Bolden with finding a third-party research firm to initiate the university’s first-ever combined faculty and staff engagement survey. The goal was to capture a global snapshot of university engagement to better understand where the university was meeting needs and, importantly, where it could do better. 

In collaboration with President Kaler, Gregory and Bolden selected Gallup to be the university’s survey partner, and to administer its Q12 Survey. This survey was selected because it is well-researched and widely used by companies and organizations across many sectors, including higher education. Using the Q12 survey also would provide the university with valuable baseline metrics and comparison data within higher education and with future university engagement surveys. 

The Q12 survey was shared with all faculty and staff on April 25, 2022, and remained open for two weeks. All faculty and staff were given a unique email link to complete the survey. Gallup analyzed the data on a university level and school, department and unit levels.

On July 27, 2022, President Kaler shared the university-level results of the survey with all faculty and staff. In addition, university leadership and supervisors were given department and unit-level results to begin the process of identifying engagement strengths and opportunities for improvement. The president also appointed an Engagement Committee, which included faculty and staff from across the university to serve as liaisons between the committee and their local units, analyze the data on a local level and develop action steps to enhance engagement. Since then, the group has been working on developing action steps and, in November 2022, shared a follow-up survey with all faculty and staff.