Nonprofit Employee Survey Rules

The survey consists of 31 statements divided into six workplace categories. Employees rate the statements in terms of satisfaction and importance. Volunteers working at least 20 hours per month may also participate in the survey, if the organization chooses to include them.

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The survey consists of 31 statements divided into six workplace categories. Employees rate the statements in terms of satisfaction and importance. Volunteers working at least 20 hours per month may also participate in the survey (at your organization’s discretion) but do not complete the Benefits and Compensation section. It also has six optional demographic questions, and two open-ended questions for written comments. Nonprofits are scored for October’s 100 Best Nonprofits to Work For in Oregon based on the average satisfaction rating for each of the first 20 statements. Ratings for the last 11 statements, the Sustainable Practices section, are used to help determine the rankings for the 100 Best Green Companies to Work For in Oregon, published in June 2016.

See all the survey questions…

Rules and guidelines

• Invite all Oregon  employees  to take the survey and, if your organization wishes to, volunteers who work at least 5 hours per week / 20 hours per month.

• Do not select a sample or subgroup of employees/volunteers to take the survey.

• Do not demand or imply in any communication with employees/volunteers that they should provide positive responses, nor suggest that nonprofit’s inclusion on the 100 Best list is important or necessary to an employees’/volunteers’ success.

• Do ensure that employees/volunteers know the survey is entirely confidential and anonymous.

• Each employee/volunteer may complete only one survey.

• Encourage employees in all departments and compensation levels (hourly, supervisory, senior management, etc.) to participate.

• A minimum of 10 employees and/or qualified volunteers (if applicable) or 10% of this workforce, whichever is greater, must complete the survey.

• The employee survey counts for 5/6 of the total 100 Best Nonprofits score.

• Feel free to compress your survey period to a shorter time span than the full survey period.

• If you would like additional access codes in order to survey different groups separately within your organization, email [email protected] or call 503-445-8828.

• Submit all online and hard-copy surveys by Friday, JUNE 26.

Employee surveys via the Web:

Encourage employees and volunteers (if applicable) to complete the survey online. They may do so on any computer with Internet access, at work or home. If they do not normally have access to the Internet, consider setting up computer kiosks and providing breaks for them to take the survey.

The steps:

1. Distribute via email, bulletin or employee-only Intranet site the survey code and link provided in your 100 Best instructions to all Oregon employees and qualified volunteers (if applicable). Do not reveal your survey code outside of your organization.

2. You may customize the sample e-mail/memo text (see below) to distribute to employees/volunteers, informing them about the 100 Best survey.

3. After accessing the link and entering your nonprofit’s name, the survey will take employees/volunteers about 10 minutes to complete.

4. If an employee/volunteer quits the survey midway through, he/she should retake it.

5. You will receive weekly e-mail updates from our 100 Best project manager indicating the number of employee surveys that have been successfully completed at your nonprofit.

Sample e-mail/memo to employees/volunteers:

TO: All Oregon employees [and volunteers who work at least 20 hours per month (OPTIONAL)]  
SUBJECT: Rate our organization in the 100 Best Nonprofits to Work For survey.

We want to know what you think!

[NONPROFIT NAME] is taking part in the survey for Oregon Business magazine’s 2015 list of the 100 Nonprofits Best to Work For in Oregon.

We encourage you to express your honest views about [NONPROFIT NAME] on a comprehensive set of workplace aspects in the 100 Best employee survey. Your participation, and the answers you provide, will be strictly anonymous and confidential. We hope that all employees [and volunteers] from every department and location in Oregon voice their candid opinions in this survey.

Each employee [and qualified volunteer] may complete just one survey. It takes about 10 minutes, and can be completed from any computer — at work or home. Simply go to the 100 Best Nonprofits survey link:https://www.oregonbusiness.com/2015100BestNonprofitsEmployeeSurvey  and enter our survey code: [ENTER SURVEY CODE HERE]. Please note: your responses are not saved until you reach the last page of the survey. The deadline is [DEADLINE].

After the survey is complete, we will receive survey results that may help us find ways to improve job satisfaction, productivity and performance throughout [NONPROFIT NAME].

Sincerely,

[Your name]

Surveys for employees/volunteers without Web access:

We urge all employees/volunteers with Web access to take the survey online. However, employees/volunteers who do not have access to a computer, or cannot access the Web, may complete a hard-copy printed version of the employee survey.

The steps:

1. E-mail your request for hard-copy employee surveys to: [email protected].

2. We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to any employees/volunteers who do not have access to the Web.

3. Provide employees/volunteers with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and return them to:

Rules about hard-copy employee surveys:

• Employee surveys that you collect and return to Oregon Business are strictly confidential. Do not read them or write any identifying information (such as employee name, department, etc.) on surveys before distributing them or after collecting them.

• Because hard-copy surveys entail significant data-entry cost, organizations that submit more than 100 hard-copy surveys will be charged a handling fee of $50 for every 50 surveys processed beyond the initial 100.

• Please encourage as many employees/volunteers as possible to complete their surveys online.

• All hard-copy employee surveys must be received by Friday, JUNE 26.

Spanish employee survey:

The survey is available in Spanish in hard-copy form. Spanish-speaking employees/volunteers may refer to it as they complete the survey online or fill it out it according to the rules listed above for the English hard-copy survey. The survey is not currently available in any other languages.

The steps:

1. E-mail your request for Spanish employee surveys to: [email protected] .

2. We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to Spanish-speaking employees/volunteers.

3. Provide employees/volunteers with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and return them to: