Survey information

Confidentiality

The employee survey is confidential.

The actual online survey process and the evaluation of the data will be carried out on behalf of ETH Zurich by external pageEmpiricon AGcall_made, an independent consulting and research firm which specializes in analyzing employee satisfaction.

Empiricon AG guarantees complete confidentiality in handling your personal data.

At no point are the individual questionnaires available to ETH Zurich. The questionnaires are recorded and evaluated directly by Empiricon AG.

The company also ensures that no attribution to individuals is possible from the evaluation. The data is only analyzed in consolidated form and the results only made available where they refer to groups of at least five respondents.

Target group

All employees of ETH Zurich are suveyed (with the exception of persons who joined ETH Zurich after 31 December 2020 as well as employees with a level of employment of less than 30 per cent, such as teaching assistants).

Process

The survey will be conducted entirely online. It will take about 20 minutes to complete the online questionnaire.

The questionnaire will be available in German and English.

Evaluation

The data evaluation is carried out with confidentiality granted on the smallest possible organisational unit (at least five completed questionnaires per team/research group). In addition, the results are summarised at (admnistrative) department level.

The results of the survey will be anonymized for publication. It will not be possible for ETH Zurich to trace them back to individuals.

Benefits for staff members

• The survey gives you an opportunity to voice your problems and needs. In this way you can influence your own personal situation at work.
• The judgments of staff members indicate where improvements could be made, in all areas. The survey shows where the problems lie and where there is potential for development. This allows targeted measures to be drawn up, for example to increase staff satisfaction.

Objectives of the Executive Board

• The ETH Zurich Executive Board wants to take the views of staff members into account in order to have another perspective on the future development of the university. Their subjective assessment of their situation at work can help to identify areas where further action is needed.

• If conducted regularly, employee surveys can serve as a tool for analyzing and diagnosing the level of staff satisfaction and how it changes over time. Any problems that arise can then be spotted early on, and targeted measures taken to resolve them. Employee surveys can also be used to evaluate the success of any measures that are introduced.

• The employee survey is carried out regularly and is an established part of ETH culture for its staff members.

Timeline

• From 23 March to 23 April 2021 employees could participate in the survey.

• After the evaluation, VPPL presented the overall report with the fields of action to the Executive Board of ETH Zurich in June 2021 and will then discuss the results and decide which measures are to be taken at a higher level.

• The main results and fields of action will be communicated from summer 2021 and the measures from automn 2021.

Project organisation

• Commissioned by: ETH Zurich Executive Board
• Project control: VPPL
  
• Project management: Development and Leadership
  
• Questionnaire planning and concept development: The questionnaire was developed in close cooperation with internal representatives of the Rectorate, the Prorectorate, the Lecturers¡¯ Conference, the Staff Commission, AVETH, the Office of Faculty Affairs, the Office of Equal Opportunities, the University Assembly, the Office of Research, the Department Coordinators, Corporate Communications, VPPL and the independent consulting and research firm Empiricon AG.
• Implementation and evaluation of the survey: external pageEmpiricon AGcall_made

You can find the results, action areas and measures of the employee survey 2021 here.