You can take this job–and love it. HSPH employees will soon have the opportunity to tell the school’s administration what they like about HSPH as a workplace and what they’d like to see improved.

From March 14 to 28, HSPH employees, including all staff, contract employees, faculty, researchers and post docs, will be asked to fill out a survey from the Great Places to Work Institute. The Institute helps produce "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America," published in Fortune.

The survey is anonymous and consists of 67 questions about issues such as fairness and respect in the workplace. The HSPH survey effort has been organized and coordinated through a planning and promotion team made up of union staff, non-union staff and faculty members.

In the next week, every HSPH employee will be sent an e-mail from the Great Places to Work Institute with a password and URL of a web site where the survey can be filled out. The survey is exclusively online. Employees without computers may pick up passwords from Patricia Edwards, assistant director in the Office of Human Resources, Kresge 505, and use computers in the computer labs in the basement of the Kresge Building. The form takes about 30 minutes to complete, but respondents can fill it out in increments, saving their answers and returning later.

"This is a real opportunity for employees to let administration know how they feel about the workplace at HSPH," said Russ Irwin, director of strategic planning and projects at HSPH. "Administration is very interested in knowing employee perceptions and feedback, too, because satisfied employees help us retain, recruit and motivate people."

The survey has precedent at Harvard. In 1999, the university’s central administration, JFK School of Government (KSG) and Harvard Divinity School all distributed a "Great Places to Work" form to employees, although at KSG and the Harvard Divinity School, faculty were not asked to participate. The results produced "action plans." For example, a new leadership development program was created, and "town meetings" with high-ranking Harvard officials were arranged.

Now, all three of the 1999 participants are undertaking the survey again to measure their progress while HSPH, the Graduate School of Design and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study will join them for the first time. Irwin said the 2002 survey will create a baseline of sorts for HSPH against which future workplace surveys can be measured.

Irwin expects the results will be announced sometime in the spring, after which action plans will be launched.