Staff Survey 2024

• The work climate: Staff experiences of the psychosocial work environment, looking at elements such as participation, influence, social support and workload. Is there a risk of discrimination?
• Leadership: How do staff feel about the way their managers run their organisation? Do staff have confidence in their managers and see them as role models? Do managers help with staff development? Do managers make their staff feel appreciated and provide feedback?
• The organisation: How successful is SLU regarding culture, information flows and fair treatment?
• Goals and strategy: How do staff view and contribute to the organisation’s tasks and goals?

Additional background questions will be asked together with some concluding questions.

The survey will be conducted online and can be answered using a computer, tablet or mobile device.

All staff who, at the time of the survey: 

• are working a minimum of 40% of full-time
• have been employed by SLU for the past six months
• are doctoral students funded by scholarships who have conducted active studies over the past six months
• are post docs receiving a postdoctoral scholarship and have been active over the past six months
• are or have been on sick leave or parental leave for up to three months during the past 12 months.

Those who are on a leave of absence will not participate in the staff survey.

Eligible participants will be emailed a personal link to the survey. SLU works with the Quicksearch analytics company that specialises in questionnaires. Survey responses will be stored and processed by Quicksearch. All respondents will remain anonymous.

Naturally, the survey may be answered during working hours.

Creating a staff survey is a complex task, which is why we enlisted the help of Quicksearch. They have extensive experience and are responsible for the Insight Model, which has been validated and adapted to legislation with focus on the organisational and social work environments.

SLU has adapted some of the questions and added more about discrimination. The index questions that measure work climate, leadership, organisation, goals and strategies are the same. This enables us to compare the responses with those from previous surveys and with other higher education institutions that work with Quicksearch.

SLU management and the central work environment committee are involved in the work with the staff survey. Other groups have participated in the preparatory work, including a reference group comprising the chief safety representative, health and safety representative and managers.

The responses form the basis for discussions between managers and their staff. At the Division of Human Resources, we recommend that managers enlist their health and safety representatives when working with the results. This work may include information beyond that included in the survey responses, providing an indication of where to begin – not the answer to the problem.

Staff are guaranteed full anonymity.

• No responses are sent directly to SLU, instead they are sent to Quicksearch who are behind the survey.
• All data will be stored in a Quicksearch database.
• All traffic to and from the servers will be encrypted.
• Nobody at SLU has access to the respondent’s email address or IP number.
• All respondents must use a one-time authorisation code. This code is personal and changes regularly.
• All survey communication is automatic and reminders are auto-generated.
• Group results with distribution will only be presented if there are a minimum of eight respondents.
• For groups of 5–7, only the mean value/degree of satisfaction will be presented for each question.
• If there are fewer than 5 responses, no group will be presented. However, responses will be included in the total.
• Line managers will be able to see all free-form responses, but they will not be able to see who has answered.
• Quicksearch will translate any English responses into Swedish.

The preparatory work paves the way for continuing work: what is the survey trying to measure? This is the stage where background variables, questions and population are determined and the organisational chart is designed linking the employees and their managers.

The survey will run for two weeks during January and February 2024. No individual responses will be seen by anyone at SLU, and staff are guaranteed anonymity.

The staff survey is a key component of systematic work environment management and the active measures in work with equal opportunities. Working with the results is the most important element of a staff survey. The results serve as a tool for improving and developing the work environment and organisation.

Managers have a significant role in providing feedback on the results, planning action plans that are monitored continually – and involving their staff in this work. Managers have access to an online portal where the results are presented in several reports. The portal also includes an ‘Action Manager’ that provides a clear picture of the results, including measures, activities, action plans and timeframes for the activities. Comparing 2024’s results with those from 2021, 2018 and 2016 will be possible.

Between 22 January and 2 February 2024.

The survey is a way for SLU to find out more about employee satisfaction at the university. The results will form a valuable guide for continuing development work and work environment management. So it is important that as many people respond as possible. We hope that you will be able to make time to prioritise the survey.

All staff who, at the time of the survey:

• are working a minimum of 40% of full-time
• have been employed by SLU for the past six months
• are doctoral students funded by scholarships who have conducted active studies over the past six months
• are post docs receiving a postdoctoral scholarship and have been active over the past six months
• are, or have been on sick leave or parental leave for up to three months during the past 12 months.

Those who are on a leave of absence will not participate in the staff survey.

You are guaranteed full anonymity. All responses are sent directly to Quicksearch. Quicksearch will translate any English answers into Swedish. It will not be possible to see which employees have responded. SLU will only be able to see the response frequency. Read more about anonymity in the section about anonymity above.

The survey is a way for you to influence your work environment, but your participation is not compulsory.

All eligible participants will be emailed a unique link to the survey (see under ‘Who can respond?’). If you have not received a link, check your junk mail folder before emailing medarbetarundersokning@slu.se with your age, cost centre and name of your line manager.

Email support@quicksearch.se and they will reset your password.

Email medarbetarundersokning@slu.se with the name of the correct manager. Your line manager is the one who holds your staff development review and salary appraisal. You will receive a new email from Quicksearch.

The name of the correct manager must be entered, so do not answer any further questions until this has been corrected.

You can exit the survey at any time and return later by clicking the link in your email. This will redirect you to where you left off.

Email support@quicksearch.se and they will reset the survey and send you a new link.

Quicksearch has an online portal where managers can access the results from their department or equivalent. Support materials for work with the results are available from the portal and online. The Division of Human Resources and occupational health services will assist managers with following up on the results and planning and implementing measures.

Your manager will present the results during spring 2024.

Talk to your manager – they can access the results for your department or equivalent in the Quicksearch portal.

The results form materials that employers can use to examine the work environment. Some of the questions enable the identification of individual managers, and this information will be used by their manager. Therefore chief safety representatives and health and safety representatives will not have access to the Quicksearch portal.