State of the Workplace Surveys

State of the Workplace Survey Results - Fall 2022

Date: November 21, 2022

Dear Campus Community,

First, thank you to all of you who took the time to respond to the latest State of the Workplace Survey. We had almost 1,000 more responses as compared to February 2022, and that lets us know that many of you are eager to share your experiences with us and how important it is for us to listen. 

Here is what we have learned from our analysis of the data so far: 

  • 27% of you are looking for a new job, much better than the national average of around 40%. The main reason for leaving is that people simply want to be paid more. On the bright side, 22% of you who are looking to leave your current position do want to stay here at Berkeley, and a further 23% want to stay within the UC system. Only 20% of you are looking outside to the private sector for your next job, which shows that the majority of us believe in Berkeley, the UC system and higher education as long-term places to work and grow our careers.

  • The 73% of us who are not looking for a new job list the primary reasons for staying as:

    • Opportunity to work remotely (18%)
    • Benefits package (16%) and,
    • Ability to maintain a flexible schedule (9%). This shows that our Flexible Work Arrangement policy is working for both you and the University - put simply, it’s both driving retention and attracting new talent.

  • 66% of us agree/strongly agree that the workload our supervisors expect of us is reasonable. Only 16% disagree, and while the general anecdotal consensus on campus is that we are all overworked to some degree, our remote work and flexible schedules are clearly helping us get our work done under these circumstances.

At a high level, the survey data tells us that if your workload is reasonable, you trust your division leader and you feel like you have an equal opportunity to succeed, you are far more likely to continue your career here. In order to make this data actionable, and respond to your concerns, we intend to meet with the leadership of each division to give them the support they need so that we all feel valued and can add value here at Berkeley.

You may have noticed a new section in our survey regarding employee empathy that we have not addressed in our summary highlights. This is because we are currently in the process of designing a new program to address empathy in the workplace, and the data you gave us is helping us to design it. More to come soon on this front.

The full survey report provides detailed information to better understand how different demographic groups experience Berkeley and to see how experiences differ across our Divisions. We also encourage you to take a look at the CUPA-HR national survey that we use as a benchmark. More information on actions you can take to improve the employee experience for yourself and others are on the employee engagement web page. Our Employee Engagement Guide is a great place to start!

As always, our goal is to learn what we can do to make Berkeley a great place to work for everyone, both now and moving forward. We also want to remind you of our ongoing feedback tool that invites you to share your confidential suggestions year-round. Your feedback really does help us do our jobs better. 

Thanks,

Eugene & Victoria


Eugene Whitlock, Chief People & Culture Officer
Victoria Plaut, Vice Provost for the Faculty

State of the Workplace Survey Results - Winter 2022

Date:April 12, 2022

Dear Campus Community,

Our February State of the Workplace survey captured your current experiences as an employee of UC Berkeley and, in particular, how you are engaging with your colleagues. Although the results below present the "overall" view for UC Berkeley (i.e., they reflect the views across all demographic groups), they appear to show that Berkeley still has work to do to get closer to employees feeling a sense of equal opportunity to succeed.

Most of our questions had little statistical change from last summer’s survey; so, while we originally decided to survey you every six months, we are now considering changing to less frequent surveying. Among the results we wish to note are:

  • People were more likely to agree with “I know what my supervisor expects of me”: the average increased to 4.24 (Agree) from 3.34 (Neutral). Communication is a critical part of this success, as seen in the latest systemwide engagement survey

  • Trust in campus leaders remains roughly the same. Although the question changed from “I trust campus leaders” (Jul. 2021) to “I trust the most senior leader of my school/college/division” (Feb. 2022), the average score was the same: 3.50 (Agree/Neutral). We will dig deeper to see why the level of trust in leadership is not higher. 

  • Finally, over a quarter (26%) of us are currently looking for a job outside of Berkeley. While this may seem like an alarming statistic, we should bear in mind that 44% of people nationally are looking for a new job. Nevertheless, that a quarter of us are looking for a job is still a cause for concern, something we will seek to address.

The full survey report provides detailed information to better understand how different demographic groups experience UC Berkeley and to see how experiences differ across Divisions. We encourage you to take some time to review.

More information on actions you can take to improve the employee experience for yourself and others are on the employee engagement web page. Our Employee Engagement Guide is a great place to start!

As always, our goal is to make sure we are serving you in the best ways possible now and moving forward. We have just developed an ongoing feedback tool that invites you to share your confidential suggestions year-round. Your feedback really does help us do our jobs better. 

Thanks,
Eugene & Ben

Eugene Whitlock, Chief People & Culture Officer
Benjamin E. Hermalin, Vice Provost for the Faculty

State of the Workplace Survey Results - Summer 2021