Developing Staff Survey for Garfield by Samantha Barron

Demographics (division, length of time at GHS, length of time in career/position)

samanthabarron11 — 2025-07-25 18:44:11 UTC

When thinking about understanding trends across teams, roles, or experience levels what identifiers matter most to pay attention to?

Workplace Culture (Communication - efficiency, clarity, across divisions, between levels; Collaboration - across divisions; Values/Mission/Vision - alignment, operationalization, consistency; Flexibility - hours, time flex)

samanthabarron11 — 2025-07-25 19:04:39 UTC

Do these feel like the right areas to explore when we talk about “Workplace Culture”?
Are there other cultural dynamics that feel important to include but aren’t listed?
Which "Workplace Culture" theme or area feels the most important to explore?

Internal Processes (Consistency - across divisions, workload, HR processes; Efficiencies - software systems, document signing; Growth - PD, internal growth, supervisor supports)

samanthabarron11 — 2025-07-25 19:14:31 UTC

If we develop these types of questions, would the results help leadership better understand what matters most about how systems and structures affect staff?
Would these questions surface real staff experiences, or do they miss something important?

External Services (Value to the community - messaging, collaboration; Client Services - efficiencies, quality, communications)

samanthabarron11 — 2025-07-25 19:17:02 UTC

Do the question types in this category feel important to include in a staff survey? Why or why not?
Is this an area staff are well-positioned to reflect on through a survey?
Would asking about external services give us meaningful insight into staff perspectives—or would this be better explored in another way?

Current Strategic Plan (Understanding the plan; Strengths; Refinements)

samanthabarron11 — 2025-07-25 19:19:15 UTC

Will these questions help us understand how the current plan is landing and where it needs attention?

2025-07-29 16:50:02 UTC

Seems like efficiencies is found in 3 out of 5 themes (and probably also in our current strategic plan. Just an observation.

Demographics

2025-07-29 16:50:33 UTC

I think this data could be important to understand experiences for team members who have been here for a period of time versus new team members.

Some processes are pain points for supervisors, but our other staff may not be aware of those issues or affected by them (like inconsistencies with HR and supervisor supports.)

2025-07-29 16:50:35 UTC

Workplace Culture

2025-07-29 16:52:48 UTC

Clarity as to what communication is missing with specifics

We've gotten so many new staff members since the first Strategic Plan that may not be aware of where we started.

2025-07-29 16:52:50 UTC

Workplace Culture

2025-07-29 16:53:04 UTC

It is important to know how everyone feels about collaboration and communication between departments. Our goal is get teams out of working in silos and feeling like part of a larger team.

Demographics

2025-07-29 16:53:11 UTC

length of time at GHS, we have a few staff that move around to different divisions and have been at the department for a long time.

workplace culture

2025-07-29 16:54:04 UTC

Yes they feel like the right areas to explore, namely communication, efficiency, collaboration, and Values/Mission/Vision operationalization.

Demographics

2025-07-29 16:55:50 UTC

I think it will be important to differentiate roles in the survey: an administrator will have a very different view compared to a direct service worker.

Internal Processes

2025-07-29 16:55:57 UTC

Yes, the results would help leadership better understand what matters most about how systems and structures affect staff. It would be good to get their view and perspective on how things look on the front line.

Internal processes - HR processes seem to cause hurdles in gettign results

2025-07-29 16:56:00 UTC

Internal Processes

2025-07-29 16:56:09 UTC

We want to understand what PD employees see value, so this important. But themes like "workload" can be subjective, and we do not have much control over what technical systems we use.

2025-07-29 16:56:39 UTC

In Demographics it could be important to differentiate between length of time in current role/unit versus time in DHS. There could be some differences (or not).

External Services

2025-07-29 16:58:22 UTC

not sure if staff are positioned to respond to these questions. when saying "community" they may think that the "community" are the actual clients they work with. I'm thinking that working with the community ends up happening at a higher level, rather that the work that the front line staff do every day. I don't think there is much outreach from lower level workers into the "community per se"

Internal Processes

2025-07-29 16:58:58 UTC

Specific examples of inconsistencies between divisions.

Define how division is being used (current structure or prior use of "division" that are now "programs".

Define "workload" (# cases, hours worked, etc.)

External Services

2025-07-29 16:59:23 UTC

This feels more like an internal service, but it is good to know if teams understand services provided by other departments and to what extent they want to know, since this affects our customer service.

External services

2025-07-29 17:00:05 UTC

I think answering this theme will be better done in an external survey.

Current Strategic plan

2025-07-29 17:01:10 UTC

I'm not sure that the current strategic plan is a consistent topic to staff. I see room for improvement in going forward. I would say that some staff are more versed on the plan if they had a project assigned to them from the current plan. Other than that, it is highly likely that the current plan is out of sight and out of mind.

will be good to get feedback on how all staff view /define "strategic plan" and where they think they fit in.

2025-07-29 17:01:17 UTC

Current Strategic plan

2025-07-29 17:01:40 UTC

I think that even though we may be bringing in some themes from the old plan, just focusing on the current plan gives us an opportunity to think of this process as a new beginning.

Culture

2025-07-29 17:02:36 UTC

Establish consistent language for structure, workload, processes

2025-07-29 17:02:43 UTC

Workplace Culture: If we are going to discuss collaboration, we need to define it to ensure everyone is using the same language. For example, collaboration to one person is someone else is just thinking of "being a team player" so they may not recognize it as being collaboration.

Internal Processes

2025-07-29 17:06:35 UTC

Yes, the results would help leadership better understand what matters most and seeing from their point of view of how processes and workflows affect them.