Since the Johns Hopkins Employee Engagement Survey launched March 4, thousands of health system employ­ees have shared their feedback on the organization’s workplace environment. This year’s survey is much shorter and features just 13 questions, including the Gallup “Q12.”

Leaders hope for meaningful in­creases in engagement scores, which for the past few years have hovered slightly above a grand mean of 4 on a 5-point scale for Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Redonda Miller, president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, says the 2019 theme “Our Mission, Our Values: Powered by Engagement” resonates because making the hospital a work­place of choice is a strategic priority.

“With the right level of engage­ment among our respective teams, our patients are better served, our cus­tomer service orientation is improved and our work just goes much easier,” Miller says.

The survey is essential to a continu­ous process of evaluating, giving feed­back and improving. When the survey closes, Gallup will aggregate the results and share them with managers.

Then, employees will work with their colleagues to create an action plan of goals, interactive activities and strate­gies to make their departments better.

Marian Asiedu, nurse manager for Nelson 7, credits an action plan—one that she and her staff of 70 nurses, clinical techs and clinical customer ser­vice representatives created—with sig­nificantly improving engagement. With a focus on recogni­tion, respect and teamwork, the unit’s overall grand mean score rose .75 points to 4.64 in the past three years, and 80 percent of the em­ployees are consid­ered engaged. (That’s almost 10 times what Gallup considers a “meaningful” increase.)

Asiedu says she sees a difference in her staff. “Employees are empowered to speak out. They have support so they’re much, much happier from that perspective,” she says.

Here’s what employees need to know about the survey:

This survey will be available on­line Monday, March 4, through Sunday, March 24, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The survey can be completed from a desktop, smartphone or tablet.

Taking the survey is voluntary, and employees’ responses are confiden­tial.

When the survey closes, Gallup will aggregate the results and share them with managers. Then, em­ployees will work with their teams to create an action plan of goals, interactive activities and strategies to make their department better.

Employees who used a paper sur­vey in the past or who do not have access to a Johns Hopkins email account should contact their man­ager for help to take the survey.

Employees with a Johns Hopkins email account should refer to the invitation they received from Gallup on March 4. The email includes a personalized link to take the survey. Do not share your link with anyone. Or, they can go to gallup.jh.edu and enter their JHED ID and password.