Q)  How do I decide which departments to list on the survey?

You should list all of the departments that you are interested in receiving department-level reporting for.  Data can only be broken down to the level that we ask on the survey — if two areas are combined on the survey, we will not be able to separate the data.  So, if you want to have the option of seeing data for a particular department, it must have its own entry on the survey.

Q)  What is a department book?

A department book is a summary of survey findings specific to each department.  This summary presents the department’s response percentages and mean scores for each question item, in direct comparison to those for the organization as a whole.  It will also allow each manager to identify OCA themes or variables that especially merit celebration and/or discussion within the department.  A department book report may be prepared for any department with three or more survey respondents. 

Q)  How do I decide which of my departments to receive department books for?

All departments with at least 3 respondents are eligible to receive department books.  However, those departments with less than 10 respondents will not receive certain types of data in order to preserve the confidentiality of the employees who took the survey.  You will be given a list of all of your eligible departments, and it is up to you to choose which of those departments will receive department books.  When you are making this decision, it is important to keep in mind that if you want to see any data for a department at all, you must select that department as receiving a department book.  If you do not choose to receive a department book for an area, then we will not have data available for that department in ANY form (no charts, no means run, not included in Business Unit Matrix).  You will not be able to receive data for departments not chosen to receive department books without a complete revision of the tabular data, which is a time consuming and costly process.

Q)  What is the difference between department and division reporting?

Department reporting is the smaller unit.  Each department corresponds to one of the areas that employees can select on the survey.  A division report is a combination (or “roll-up”) of several departments that all report to the same person.  Department reports are typically given to direct managers, and division reports are usually given to senior management.  The purpose of division reporting is to provide senior management with a summary report of all of the areas that report to them.