Measuring Engagement
Engagement survey now open: February 23 through March 9, 2026.
Faculty, classified staff, OAs, and GEs received the survey by email from Gallup on February 23 with the subject line "You’re invited: Take the engagement survey by March 9."
The Gallup Q12
Gallup has spent over two decades developing their employee engagement model, surveying over 57 million respondents, and has developed twelve employee engagement indicators that represent employee needs and describe a supportive and productive workplace.
Gallup's model predicts a team's ability to meet its goals and correlates strongly with things like productivity, retention, and well-being.
- Forty-four R1 universities have participated in Gallup's model, representing over 195,000 faculty, staff, and other university employees.
- Because the Q12 indicators are clear and actionable, the snapshot they offer provides employees and leaders a toolkit for moving forward.
The university's employee engagement survey includes Gallup's Q12 indicators because Gallup's model is highly able to predict our ability to meet our team and organizational goals.
Domains of Flourishing
The university's strategic plan, Oregon Rising, has a primary goal of creating a flourishing community at the University of Oregon. Employee engagement is a critical part of flourishing. Within the flourishing goal, the university has identified five domains that we consider when we talk about employee engagement:
- Growth.
- Well-being.
- Resilience.
- Community.
- Purpose.
Our employee engagement survey includes questions designed to measure these domains.
Areas of Ongoing Focus
Based on results of the university's 2022 climate survey, the university has identified key areas of focus to strengthen our workplace experience and support our teams, which are also represented in the 2026 survey.
Survey Questions
Each survey question falls into one or more of the following categories:
- a Gallup Q12 item.
- a measure of employee flourishing, and/or
- a follow-up to a question from the 2022 survey.
Why a survey?
To improve our employee engagement and flourishing, the university needs to first understand how we’re doing.
We have partnered with Gallup to create and administer an employee engagement survey that will launch in February 2026.
The survey and the post-survey conversations and action planning uses the model described above to better understand how our employees experience their work, highlight where we are doing well, and provide actionable insights and tools for areas where we need to grow.
Survey Logistics
- Who will take the survey? Faculty, classified staff, officers of administration, and graduate employees will take the survey.
- When will the survey be open? The engagement survey will be available from February 23 to March 9, 2026.
- How will employees take the survey? Employees will receive a unique survey link via email on February 23. If you do not have access to a computer workstation, your unit will help you arrange to take the survey another way.
- How long does the survey take to complete? The survey takes less than ten minutes and should be taken during paid working hours.
Survey responses will be 100% confidential.
Gallup collects the survey responses and will never share respondent-level responses with the university. UO leaders and teams will receive their results at the unit-defined workgroup level. A workgroup must have at least five members completing the survey for results to be shared. Individual responses will not be shared.
Survey and Engagement Milestones
Dates | Milestone |
|---|---|
Engagement education and survey preparation | Through February 23 |
Survey open | February 23 through March 9 |
Results available to units | April 2026 |
Unit and team action planning begin | May 2026 |
After the survey
Post-survey debrief conversations and action planning are essential to the purpose of taking the survey. The survey results are a starting point; it's the conversation that brings meaning and can begin to enhance engagement.
Your unit or team will participate in a facilitated debrief of the survey that gives colleagues the chance to discuss the survey results as a group and hear different perspectives; validate feedback; and identify group strengths and opportunities. In these conversations, you might discuss results that surprised you, identify the areas your group is the most interested in working on, or discuss what a high score on a given question would look like in your workplace.
Following the debrief conversations, units and teams will identify actions to implement as a response to survey results. You'll have guidance and resources to do this work.
Survey feedback
If you have feedback about the engagement survey (communication, the survey experience, etc.) please share it via this online form. Your insights will help us improve how we support the engagement survey process for employees at the UO. Your feedback will be reviewed and compiled by the Employee Development and Engagement team in Human Resources.
This form is for feedback about the 2026 engagement survey only. If you have questions or concerns about another HR-related topic, please connect with the appropriate HR team so we can support you.