UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – In the spring of 2025, Penn State Human Resources will launch a survey for full-time staff and technical service employees across the University to evaluate job satisfaction and employee engagement. Results will provide critical insight into the experiences of Penn State’s staff and technical service employees, and identify areas of strength and for improvement.
Penn State has announced a separate faculty satisfaction survey, which will launch in February 2025. Together, these two surveys will provide a broad view of full-time employee satisfaction at Penn State.
“The outstanding contributions of our staff and technical service employees, day in and day out across all areas of our University, are critical to our educational mission, and to Penn State’s success,” said Jennifer Wilkes, vice president for Human Resources and chief human resources officer. “We want to continue to foster an environment in which our employees have the support they need to be at their very best. Next spring’s survey will be an important, new way for us to gather input directly from our staff and technical service employees across Penn State about their daily experiences. It will help us to identify areas of strength and for improvement as we continue our work to recruit, retain and develop a world-class workforce.
“When it launches next spring, I encourage all recipients to take the survey and make their voices heard,” Wilkes said.
Other institutional assessments, such as the Living Our Values survey, last administered in 2022, are designed to examine other aspects of culture, ethics and environment at Penn State. The forthcoming staff satisfaction survey will measure engagement and job satisfaction in areas such as collaboration; communication; diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; benefits; staff wellbeing; performance management, and more.
The survey will be administered by ModernThink, a survey group with extensive experience in higher education. As the launch of the survey approaches in 2025, additional details will be provided to all full-time staff and technical service employees about how they can participate. The survey will be voluntary -- all responses will be confidential, and no identifiable information will ever be shared with Penn State.
"We want Penn State to be a great place to work for all of our staff and technical service employees, no matter their chosen line of work or area of expertise,” Wilkes said. “The first step is to make sure we are creating the necessary space to listen to and learn, and this survey will help us to do just that. It also involves acting on what we learn. We are committed to using the results to enhance our workplace environment, and to help our staff and technical service employees to build rewarding careers.”
Results from the survey will be shared with the community and will be used to drive conversations about bright spots and areas for improvement in the staff workplace experience, and to identify next steps.
When the survey is distributed in the spring, Wilkes said all recipients are strongly encouraged to participate. Robust response rates, she said, will provide Penn State with the most accurate results, and will help to improve outcomes.