Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are employee experience surveys e.g. engagement or pulse surveys?

Emloyee engagement surveys are an effective and confidential way to check on how employees are feeling about working at ANU at a particular point in time. Committed, consistent employee engagement surveying is an opportunity to gain ongoing and measureable insights into what’s working well, and what can be improved. It's one of the best ways that the ANU can consistently listen to its employees, to understand where to focus planning and action to improve employee experience. 

An engagement survey is a longer survey, between 50-60 questions, that takes about 10 minutes to complete. This type of survey helps the University understand the baseline sentiment and engagement of employees. Following a full engagement survey leaders incorporate survey feebdack to inform specific action planning for improving employee experience. 

A pulse survey is a short survey, between 20-30 questions, that takes about 4 minutes to complete. This type of survey helps the University take a ‘pulse’, a snapshot of employee sentiment and engagement, and can include focused questions in areas that were highlighted for improvement in the preceding engagement survey. Following a pulse survey leaders incorporate survey feedback into their ongoing, holistic planning and action to improve employee experience.

These surveys measure employee engagement by asking participants to rate their experience against a series of questions in categories such as leadership, management, teamwork, wellbeing and learning and development.

2. How often will there be employee engagement surveys?

The University plans to hold a survey every 6 months, one engagement survey and one pulse survey over the course of 12 months. 

3. Who administers employee engagement surveys?

ANU employee engagement surveys are administered by the People and Culture Division using an external online platform called Culture Amp.

4. Why do we care about engagement and pulse surveys?

As part of the 2025 strategic plan, ANU is committed to having a respectful, inclusive and collegial workplace culture. One way to consistently measure the University’s culture is through employee engagement surveys. These surveys allow the University to:

• Measure current employee engagement and identify drivers for improvement.
• Give employees a voice to provide confidential feedback directly to theUniversity.
• Identify areas to drive improved employeeexperience across the University.
• Take meaningful action, keeping in mind that cultural change can take time, and often happens incrementally.

Higher employee engagement is associated with happier and healthier employees, where productivity is increased, and turnover and absenteeism are reduced.

We want ANU to be one of the best places to work. We are committed to a safe, respectful, inclusive and engaged workplace culture. One way to measure our culture is through committed, consistent employee engagement surveying.

5. Who can complete the ANU pulse survey in September 2024?

ANU employees who commenced on or before 19 August 2024 in continuing, fixed-term and continuing contingent-funded positions are encouraged to complete the survey.

6. Are ANU employee engagement surveys confidential?

Responses to employee engagement surveys are confidential. No one at ANU will be able to identify individual responses.

Employee engagement survey project team members from the People and Culture Division and the College/Portfolio HR teams will have access to view aggregated results and produce reports. Local College/Portfolio leadership teams (Deans, DVCs, General Managers and Directors) will have access to aggregated results for their College/Portfolio or School/Centre/Division.

No employees at ANU will be able to view results for sample sizes of less than 10 people.

The purpose of ANU employee engagement surveys is to identify aggregate patterns and themes, and not to act upon individual responses. If you would like to make a disclosure or seek support, you can do so via any of these resources available to employees:

• The Staff Respect Consultant via staffrespect@anu.edu.au
• The Employee Assistance Program 
• Harmful Behaviours Disclosure Response and Support

7. Will my supervisor/manager see my answers?

Your supervisor/manager will not be able to individually identify your responses. Appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that individual respondents cannot be identified in reporting (e.g. qualitative responses will be de-identified where necessary, no quantitative reporting will be available for sample sizes of less than 10 people).

8. How do I access the survey?

You log in to complete the survey via a link which will be emailed to all continuing, fixed-term and continuing contingent-funded employees (who commenced on or before 19 August 2024 ), or the link that will feature on the ANYOU web page.

9. How long will I have to complete the ANYOU pulse survey?

The survey will be open for two weeks from Monday 2 September to Monday 16 September 2024 (midnight AEST). 

10. How long will the ANYOU pulse survey take?

The survey takes around 4 minutes to complete.

11. How do I answer the questions?

For the majority of questions, you will be asked to rate your level of agreement with a statement. You also have the option to provide comments to expand upon the rating given.

There are also a small number of free text questions which ask for your views on particular topics.

12. Can I skip questions?

Yes you can skip questions, however we would ask that you try to answer all questions to make the feedback more meaningful.

13. I recently moved teams/departments, should I answer based on my previous or current team?

Answer the questions based on your current team. If you wish to give specific feedback about your previous team, this can be done using the open comments.

14. Why should I complete the survey?

This survey is your opportunity to have your say and contribute to your future ANU. The more employees who complete the survey, the more representative the feedback, and the better we will understand where ANU is now and where we can take action to improve.

15. Is this survey mandatory?

Although the survey is not mandatory, it is strongly encouraged to ensure that we have a clear understanding of where ANU is now and where we can take action to improve.

16. Do I have to complete the survey in one go or can I save progress and return later?

You can save progress and return to complete the survey later.

17. How is ANU data used in the platform?

Employee data (including name, UID number and email address) is used to provide individual access to the Culture Amp platform for the duration of its use by the University. This data is uploaded by employees in the People and Culture Division.

In addition to the engagement survey, Culture Amp offers access to a range of other surveys, such as inclusion, wellbeing, on-boarding and exit surveys. It also provides resources, such as ‘skills coach’, which support leaders to take action in response to survey feedback. These features are also used by the University.

18. What data security measures are in place?

ANU data is securely stored by Culture Amp, hosted in Amazon’s AWS cloud platform.

As part of the procurement process, the Culture Amp platform was assessed by the ANU Information Security Office and recommendations adopted to comply with ANU security requirements, including the use of Single Sign On and Multi-Factor Authentication to access the survey.

19. What privacy measures are in place?

The contract between ANU and Culture Amp specifies that Culture Amp must comply with the Privacy ACT 1988 (Cth).

The Culture Amp platform requires that users consent to the collection of personal information before receiving access to complete each survey. Users who do not consent are not required to complete the survey.

Individuals can request that their data be deleted at any time by emailing the request to privacy@cultureamp.com or HRD.development@anu.edu.au.

20. Who will have access to the data?

Engagement survey project team members from the People and Culture Division and the College/Portfolio HR teams will have access to view aggregated results and produce reports. Local College/Portfolio leadership teams (Deans, DVCs, General Managers and Directors) will have access to aggregated results for their College/Portfolio or School/Centre/Division.

No employees at ANU will be able to view results for sample sizes of less than 10 people.

Culture Amp employees and sub-processors will have access to information on a privileged access basis determined by role and function.

Specialist staff from Culture Amp will assist ANU with the analysis and interpretation of results.The contract between ANU and Culture Amp specifies that Culture Amp must comply with the Privacy ACT 1988 (Cth).

21. How will the results of ANU employee engagement surveys be used?

Results will be communicated at the University-wide, College/Portfolio and School/Centre/Division level, for leadership teams to lead discussions on developing and implementing actions in response to the feedback.

22. When will the 2024 ANYOU pulse survey results be shared?

University-wide and individual College and Portfolio survey results will be shared with employees from October-November 2024.

23. Who is the survey provider?

The survey provider is Culture Amp, a web-based analytics platform. More information is available on the Culture Amp website.

24. Where do the questions come from?

The survey uses research-based questions developed by Culture Amp. Some amendments have been made for consistency with the ANU environment. Using the Culture Amp survey questions will allow us to benchmark ANU results against our own and other industries.

More information about the development of the survey questions is available in this article from Culture Amp: The science behind our Engagement surveys.

25. Where can I get more information?

For further information, please visit the ANYOU survey website.