Work Environment Survey Information for BCPS Employees

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• What does the WES survey measure?

  The survey measures the health of the work environments within the BC Public Service. Questions cover many aspects of employee’s day-to-day work, physical environment and tools, development and performance, co-workers, supervisors, the organization in general, and commitment to the work unit, organization and BC Public Service.

  BC Stats reviews the questionnaire each year to ensure questions are valid and reliable, and balances making improvements with maintaining year over year comparability.  New questions added are often pilot-tested with smaller groups and as much as possible supported by current literature.  Sometimes BC Stats is the first to introduce a specific question that other jurisdictions haven’t asked before.  Each question is scrutinized thoroughly so that we’re not including redundant questions, questions that could have better wording, or questions that offer greater reliability, validity or strength in our BC Public Service Employee Engagement Model.

• What is employee engagement and why is it important?

  To fully understand the results of the Work Environment Survey, it is important to know what employee engagement means and why it is important.  Employee engagement is a multi-faceted concept.  At its core, it measures two concepts, namely how satisfied and how committed employees are with their organization and their job.  An employee’s satisfaction and commitment levels are impacted by many different elements in the workplace. The Employee Engagement Model developed by BC Stats helps to identify which workplace functions influence engagement and which improvements will have the biggest impact.

  Aside from the obvious benefits from working in a healthy, high functioning environment, private sector research shows highly engaged organizations tend to be more productive, more profitable and experience less turnover.  In the public sector, research has confirmed that higher levels of employee engagement result in higher client satisfaction, which in turn, leads to increased citizen trust and confidence in government.

• Why are other questions included if engagement is the focus?

  While the four engagement questions are the ‘key’ questions used to calculate overall engagement, the other survey questions are asked for three reasons:

  1. The non-model questions provide additional context and support the understanding of different circumstances.
  2. There are a number of questions used nationally by other provinces and jurisdictions that we include for comparing our results with other provinces.
  3. The model explains the work environment of the BC Public Service each year; sometimes the questions that make it into the model change.  In other words, some questions that were previously non-model questions become stronger predictors of engagement in a given year, or gradually over time.  Therefore, it is important to continue to test new concepts and keep alternate questions in the survey to test their predictive power each year.  

• How did the survey begin?

  In 2001 and 2003, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) undertook studies of the BC government work environment. After the first study, the Auditor General reported:

  “I believe a well performing government, one that meets the service expectations of
  British Columbians, can only be achieved through a strong, highly competent and
  committed public service.”
  

  
  

  In 2005, the BC Public Service Agency committed to government-wide measurement of the public service work environment. The commitment to annual government-wide measurement was reinforced in the BC Public Service Corporate Human Resources Plan, released in October 2006:
  

  
  

  “…We will gauge our progress annually through a Work Environment Survey
  overseen by the BC Public Service Agency, and share these results with all
  employees.”
  
  

  In early 2006, BC Stats in partnership with the BC Public Service Agency conducted the first annual government-wide Work Environment Survey. Since then, the Work Environment Survey has been established as an annual measurement program.

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• Who is eligible to complete the survey?

  The survey is available to all regular and auxiliary employees who are not on long-term leave and who are employed directly by a ministry. The head of the organization must report directly to the Deputy Minister to the Premier and employees within the organization must be covered by the Public Service Act.

  Over the years, other employee groups, such as agencies, boards, commissions or crown corporations, have expressed an interest in conducting work environment surveys.  While the groups do not satisfy the eligibility criteria to be included with the Public Service, BC Stats is able to conduct an independent survey at another time.  Please contact BC Stats for more information. 
  

• Why should I complete the survey?

  The survey is completely voluntary but all eligible employees are strongly encouraged to complete it.  Particularly given the large amount of change in government in the last year, this survey is your opportunity to be heard and influence priorities for action in the Public Service moving forward.  The more completed questionnaires we receive, the more accurately your work environment will be represented.  Your executives and Strategic HR groups use this information to direct resources and inform areas for development and improvement.

  There are many examples where WES results have provoked targeted action and positive change.  This is because results reflect real employee needs.  Improving the work environment is everyone’s responsibility. If you choose to not complete it, you do not need to inform BC Stats unless you want to be removed from the reminder list.

• Which workplace should I be thinking about when I respond?

  When completing the survey, please answer the questions based on where you were working on February 28, 2011. Many employees have changed positions, departments, or had a change in supervisor or executive team since the last annual survey.  If you changed jobs throughout the year, please think of your most recent position that you have been in since February 28th or before.  If you changed jobs in March or April, please still think of where you were on February 28th as opposed to your brand new job/work unit.

  February 28th is the date we pulled the data to create our population list, so your responses will be pooled with all others within the work unit as of this date.  This is our quality assurance that responses all reflect the correct work units.

  There has been considerable change over the last year, specifically, a recent cabinet announcement in March.  These changes will not be incorporated into the WES because they will have not been captured in CHIPS (the employee database from which we create our final list), and moves will not be finalized for some time. Further, employees are asked to reflect on their experiences of last few months, not projecting into the future.

• How can I access the survey?

  All eligible employees will receive an email invitation with a direct link to your online survey.  In 2011 the email came from Kim Henderson, Deputy Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government.  Each survey is coded with a unique and confidential userID. It is very important that employees do not forward this email invitation to colleagues.

• Why wasn’t I sent an invitation?

  There are a few reasons why you may not have received an invitation to participate. Please see the information above regarding "Who is eligible to complete the survey?"
  

  In 2011, the respondent list used included all those employees active and current as of February 28, 2011.  If you were in the February 28, 2011 payroll file, but not an active employee through April, you were not be eligible to participate in the survey.  Here, it is assumed that even though you were employed in February, you are not an active employee during the fielding of the survey; therefore, would not have had the opportunity to complete it.

• I accidentally deleted my email invitation. May I get another one?

  If you believe you have deleted your email invitation, search in your email for “Invitation” or “Work Environment Survey.”  These phrases are in the subject line of your email invitation.

  Sometimes people assume they deleted the email invitation when in fact they did not receive one. For reasons as to why you may not have received a survey invitation, please see the section above, Why wasn’t I sent an invitation?  If you feel there has been an error, please contact BC Stats.

• What about employees who don’t have computer access?

  Employees with limited computer access will receive a paper version of the survey by post, with the option of completing the survey online.  Paper responses are scanned in and included in all the results. The sample of employees with limited computer access is identified by Strategic HR partners.

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• Why is my User ID invalid?

  Your browser window would read, “Unfortunately, your User ID is invalid or you have previously submitted the survey for this User ID.”

  Each eligible employee is assigned a unique User ID.  BC Stats uses the User ID to connect each employee responses with the corresponding demographic information.  Record linkages are done solely for the purpose of producing aggregate reports (e.g., the linkage allows BC Stats to summarize results by ministry, work unit, or according to service years or occupational group, for example).  

  Each eligible employee can only complete the survey once.  If you forwarded or shared your link and your colleague completes the survey using your personalized link, our systems would have recorded you as having already completed the survey.  This is why we ask that employees do not forward the email invitation to colleagues.  If you do not recall sharing your link with anyone, and you receive the error message above, please contact BC Stats.

• The executives listed on my survey seem incorrect.

  To minimize ambiguity, a list of executive names is provided in the section evaluating the executive team.  Your Strategic HR do their best to record the correct set of executives for each department ID.  Given the large amount of change in the last year, it is possible that the list contains an error or that you are listed in the wrong work unit.  If the list does not seem to reflect who your executive(s) were as of February 28, 2011, please contact BC Stats.

  If you are an executive member, your name will not appear in the list of executive names (i.e. you are not asked to evaluate yourself).  You are asked to consider the other members of the executive team when responding in this section.

• I received an error message upon submission. Did my responses go through?

  There are a number of reasons as to why you may have received an error message. Please leave your browser window open and contact BC Stats.

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• Is this survey confidential or anonymous?

  The Work Environment Survey is confidential but not anonymous.

  Confidential means that BC Stats (and only BC Stats) has access to the individual responses. Having access to the individual responses allows BC Stats to analyze and produce results by key demographic characteristics (e.g., work unit, ministry, service years, etc.).

  Anonymous surveys are rarely implemented because of the limited utility.  Without any knowledge of who completed the survey or any means of linking to demographic characteristics, the only analysis possible would be a single report for the BC Public Service overall.  We would completely lose our ability to target local improvements or highlight areas of success since we would only know that respondents are employees of the BC Public Service.  

• How is the data treated?

  BC Stats takes every step to ensure the confidentiality of responses to this survey. The information provided will remain completely confidential within BC Stats as guaranteed under Section 9 of the Statistics Act.  Under the Statistics Act, BC Stats cannot disclose information that could be used to identify any person, organization, or government agency.

  To ensure confidentiality, BC Stats removes all identifying information and aggregates all collected information based on firmly established reporting criteria (see section below, What are the WES reporting criteria?).  

• When will I see the results?

  BC Stats releases the WES reports as quickly as possible following the survey to maximize their use.  While we are a small team, we are still able to produce final corporate results two weeks after the survey close, all ministry level results 6 weeks after the survey closes, and ~800 work unit reports 11 weeks after the survey closes.  Your Ministry SHR representatives and executives receive the reports and distribute them.