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FAQs

Why does WVU conduct an annual culture and engagement survey?

Prioritizing a ‘culture of engagement’ is critical to faculty and staff, student and WVU success. The WVU Culture and Engagement survey helps gather feedback and measure engagement for continuous improvement by making it more actionable. WVU defines engagement as the connection and commitment that faculty and staff have toward their work, team, and our university. This survey helps WVU and its people leaders discover employee perceptions to implement changes that matter most to the workforce.

Who administers the survey?

To protect employee anonymity and confidentiality, Dialogue, a third-party service specializing in employee engagement surveys, will administer the 2023 survey. Dialogue uses an employee voice platform that places employees and their voices at the heart of organizational improvement.

Who is receiving the survey?

All benefits-eligible faculty and staff in the WVU system who are employed by the University as of Feb.15, 2023, will be invited to participate in the survey.

Why should I participate?

Participation is essential in creating positive change at WVU. A higher participation rate produces a more accurate representation of faculty and staff’s voice to better prioritize the most relevant and timely areas for building and sustaining a culture of engagement at WVU.

What information is provided to Dialogue about me?

WVU provides Dialogue with your name, email address, location, division/college, department/unit and job category (classified versus nonclassified; faculty versus staff). This information also enables Dialogue to register responses under the correct college or division and categorize employees as faculty or non-faculty (and either classified or nonclassified). This means no one’s responses can be traced back to a particular person and individual responses will be combined and reported as a group.

Are my responses anonymous? Who will know if I have responded?

Yes. All survey responses are anonymous. To ensure anonymity, no one from WVU will know who has or has not participated in the survey. Organization-wide and team results (for teams having five or more responses) will be reported in aggregate form and no individually identifying information will be provided to anyone at WVU.

Will my people leader or others see my answers?

No information will be given to link individuals to survey responses. 

Do I have to complete the survey?

No. However, the survey is essential in creating positive change at WVU. A higher participation rate produces a more accurate representation of faculty and staff’s voice to better prioritize the most relevant and timely areas for building and sustaining a culture of engagement at WVU.

Are there different questions for different employees?

No. All employees will receive the same questions.

How long is the survey? How long will it take to complete?

The survey has a total of 23 questions (22 metric questions and one open-ended question that may be seen and voted on by other survey participants) and takes about five minutes to complete.

What if I don’t have regular access to a computer to take the survey?

All WVU Morgantown library locations (Downtown, Evansdale, Health Sciences and Law) have public access computers available to employees. Enter your WVU login information to access these computers. For faculty and staff at the WVU Beckley campus, the Tech Library has public access computers. Similarly, the Mary F. Shipper Library at the WVU Potomac State campus also has public access computers. The survey is also accessible via a mobile device (e.g., smartphone or tablet).

Can I take the survey during normal working hours?

Yes. It is OK to take the survey during normal work hours.

How should I respond to the survey questions?

There are no right or wrong answers. Report your impressions—regardless of why you have them—regarding your current job assignment or position at WVU. The survey contains a series of statements. You will indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each by clicking on the appropriate response. Response choices range from strongly disagree to strongly agree. If you are neutral (i.e., sometimes agree and sometimes disagree with a statement) or if you partly agree or partly disagree, choose neither agree nor disagree. If you feel that you are not able to respond to an item, you do not have to answer that question (it is OK to skip a question yet continue with the rest of the survey that you feel you can answer).

What were the results of last year’s survey?

The last organization-wide culture and engagement survey conducted by WVU was in 2018. The aggregate results and a related Campus Conversation from the 2018 survey can be viewed on the Bureaucracy Busters website.

Who do I contact if I have questions about the survey?

For questions or more information, contact your HR Partner or email lod@mail.wvu.edu.

What is Dialogue?

Dialogue, a WVU third-party vendor, uses an employee voice platform that places employees and their voices at the heart of organizational improvement. The Dialogue survey platform provides faculty and staff with a voice to share their insights about what matters most to help the University make better decisions and more importantly, have meaningful team conversations to identify actions for continuous improvements.

How does Dialogue work?

There are three steps that make up the full Dialogue survey experience:

  1. Answer - Participants answer questions and contribute their authentic voice to the conversation.
  2. Vote and Prioritize - Participants vote on pairs of answers submitted by their colleagues to the open-ended question. The pairwise voting crowdsources and lifts the best answers to the top to produce ranked actionable results.
  3. View Results - Participants view summary survey results to build interest and alignment around actions for improvement.

Am I able to change my responses after participating?

Yes, you can revisit the survey and change your responses until the survey closes on April 30.

You can re-access the survey through the original link provided, navigate to the ANSWER tab and then the specific question you want to update.

  • For a metric question, simply change your selection and the latest response will be automatically saved.
  • For the open-ended question, you can enter additional responses or delete your previous response by clicking on the trash icon.

Can I submit multiple open-ended responses?

Yes, you are encouraged to submit multiple responses to the open-ended question if you have more than one idea/comment. Each response should contain a single thought or idea so that the voting is an apples-to-apples comparison.

I tried to participate in the survey, and it showed me “Pulse Complete.” What does that mean?

This means that the Dialogue survey has ended.

Why do I have to vote?

You are not required to vote, but your vote has a huge impact! Voting is an important part of providing your feedback as it influences how the University prioritizes the open-ended responses submitted by you and your colleagues. Through voting, the best answers are lifted to the top to produce ranked, actionable results. Voting also helps to enable your team to focus their efforts on the areas that would be most impactful in driving positive change.

How many times do I have to vote?

There is no limit to voting and we encourage you to return to the pulse periodically to view and vote on additional responses. Once you are done with voting, simply navigate to view results (if available) in the Results tab or close your browser.

Is voting really fair?

Yes – Dialogue uses a proprietary algorithm that ensures responses are seen by numerous participants and rated against other responses to produce the most accurate rankings. The platform deliberately shows as many different paired responses as possible, and hence participants are not able to simply vote for the same response repeatedly and unduly influence the results.

If I submit my response toward the end of the survey, will it still have a chance to be voted on?

An answer submitted towards the end of the survey can still be seen and voted on. Dialogue’s algorithm ensures responses are seen by numerous participants and rated against other responses to produce the most accurate rankings. The voting algorithm considers the time a response is entered so that all responses get a fair chance to be top-ranked responses.

Why hasn’t voting started?

The voting experience will begin as soon as there are 2 or more responses submitted. Check back periodically while the survey is open to view new responses and contribute to the voting.

How does Dialogue protect my anonymity?

Dialogue believes that anonymity is essential for creating a safe environment for you to contribute ideas and provide feedback.

To maintain this safe environment, all results in Dialogue are presented on an aggregated level and only if the anonymity threshold of five respondents is met.

Is Dialogue anonymous if I have to log in with my email address?

Every participant will have a Dialogue account, either created through setting up a password or through your company's SSO. Please be assured that your email address is only used to send you survey invitations, timely reminders, and to authenticate your participation in the pulse. Your email address will never be used for identifying you as an individual or your responses in any way.

Am I able to find out what personal information is being captured?

We believe each participant should understand how their pulse responses will be reported. To see which demographic and people leader information is linked to your answers, click on the “ See what information is linked to your answers” link underneath any pulse question:

Screenshot of a sample question on the Dialogue platform

You can then see how your responses will be grouped. As a reminder, all results in Dialogue are presented on an aggregated level and only if the anonymity threshold of five respondents is met.