College Employee Satisfaction Survey™

Understand the Employee Experience, Satisfaction, and Culture at Your Institution

The 2024 College Employee Satisfaction Survey™ (CESS) has been refreshed based on RNL’s 25 years of helping our campus partners assess faculty and staff satisfaction, the employee experience, the work environment, and campus culture. Find out how your employee community feels about these key topics as well as their prioritization of institutional goals, feedback on institutional strengths and areas for improvement, work-life balance, and likelihood to retain.

More than 60 standard survey items, plus custom questions

The survey offers a thorough array of questions, covering every facet of campus employment. You can also add up to 28 custom items specific to your campus. With the data from this survey, you can:

• Answer critical questions such as whether employees would recommend your institution as a good place to work, how satisfied they are, and their likelihood to retain at your institution.
• Assess employee engagement
• Identify which institutional goals are most important to your faculty and staff
• Understand employee perception of your culture and work environment
• Assess the importance of key aspects of employment such as pay, benefits, and work-life balance and satisfaction with those items
• Gather feedback on your institutional strengths and areas for improvement as perceived by faculty and staff
• Utilize survey findings in institutional planning processes and to support accreditation requirements

Once the survey is completed, you’ll receive a survey data file (excluding demographics and open-ended comments) and a complete set of summary tables including an overall report, faculty and staff reports, and a benchmarking report (when available).  In future years, returning intuitions will receive a longitudinal trends report for their institution.

In addition, colleges and universities may order additional segmented or comparison reports and can elect to have a consultant analysis and presentation of the findings.

Designed exclusively for colleges and universities

Unlike other employee surveys, the College Employee Satisfaction Survey addresses areas specific to working on college campuses. Questions on interdepartmental communication, campus mission, enrollment, and decision-making reveal attitudes on issues critical to higher education.

The College Employee Satisfaction Survey has been refreshed in 2024 to include a focus on employee engagement, priorities for work-life balance, satisfaction, and likelihood to retain at your institution.

The College Employee Satisfaction Survey is appropriate for every level of college employee: administrators, staff, and faculty members.

RNL is Excited to Announce the Refreshed College Employee Satisfaction Survey

The College Employee Satisfaction Survey has been refreshed for 2024-2025 academic year.

Institutions that participate in the refreshed College Employee Satisfaction Survey in 2025 will receive 25% off the standard administration.  This discount does not apply to additional supplemental analysis or consultant analysis.

In addition to refreshed question sets, institutions now receive the following additional reports as part of the standard survey price.

• Overall report
• Faculty response report
• Staff response report
• Benchmark National Norms Report*
• Raw data file (excluding demographics and open-ended comments)

Institutions that participate in the CESS more than once in a five-year period will receive a complimentary longitudinal comparison report. Existing campus partners may elect to utilize the prior version of the CESS through December 2026.

*Benchmark reports will be sent to participating institutions once seven institutions of their type like 4-year publics, 2-year publics, or 4-year private conduct the 2024 CESS.