The Survey of Organizational Excellence was developed at the Center for Social Work Research at the University of Texas at Austin. It has been used in many Texas State agencies and public universities.
Currently it consists of eighty-six questions that are organized into twenty survey constructs to profile organizational strengths and weaknesses. The twenty constructs are grouped into five workplace dimensions. Constructs are included in only one dimension, but individual questions might be included in more than one construct.

The survey was first administered to the UT Arlington Library staff in May 1999. At that time the survey consisted of 110 questions. The 2003 survey consisted of 86 questions. Of the 86 questions in the 2003 Survey, 66 match wording exactly or closely with questions from the 1999 Survey. The staff at the Center explained that the questions are constantly being revised and refined, and that we should have little concern about comparing dimension or construct scores between the two versions of the survey. The other major variation is that the Construct "Job satisfaction" is included in Dimension I in 1999 and Dimension V in 2003. The other variations between the surveys are in the names of the Constructs and Dimensions.

Additionally, twenty extra questions developed by Libraries’ administration were added to the survey in 1999. These same questions were asked of staff in 2003, with the exception of question 4: "I understand the merit raise process." This question was eliminated from the 2003 survey. The substitution question was: "My immediate position responsibilities are similar to those I had in 1999 (check N/A if you did not work for the library in 1999)."

It is not possible to trace any answers to any individual or Program Area. Both the 1999 and the 2003 survey data can be sorted by "Librarians/Archivists" and "Classified Staff/Others."

The 1999 Survey was administered on paper and had a 90% response rate, with 92 out of a possible 102 responding. There was a 79% response rate on the web administered 2003 Survey, with 88 out of 112 responding. Between one fourth and one third of our staff have been hired since May 1999 and did not participate in the 1999 Survey.

The scoring of the Survey is based on a Likert scale ranging from 100 to 500, and the scores can be expressed as 100-500 or 1.00-5.00. The higher scores indicate strengths and the lower scores indicate weaknesses. The Survey documentation states: "Scores of 400 or higher indicate areas of substantial strength. Scores above 300 suggest that employees perceive the issue more positively than negatively, while scores below 300 are viewed more negatively." The Libraries did not score below 200 on any dimension, construct, or question in either 1999 or 2003.

One of the purposes for repeating the Survey was to evaluate organizational responses to the organizational weaknesses identified in 1999. It is important to be aware of identified weaknesses and strengths in the 2003 Survey, as well as to observe changes in dimension and construct scores since 1999.

When the construct "Job satisfaction" is moved from the first dimension to the fifth, in order to have the locations of the Constructs within the Dimensions correspond, the resulting scores for those affected Dimensions for 1999 are:

Team Perceptions: 338
Personal Demands: 318

In this table and those that follow, P/A will indicate the Professional/Archivist group, and CS/O will indicate the Classified Staff/Other group. Scores below 300 will be highlighted in red in some tables to emphasize weaker areas.

For 2003, one construct scored below 300 (Fair Pay). The rest of the scores were between 315 and 394. The only 1999 score below 300 dropped further in 2003 (Fair Pay). Seven constructs had a lower score in 2003 than 1999.

• For 2003, all of the scores for the twenty constructs are in the 300 – 384 range.
• The 1999 construct scores below 300 showed improvement in 2003. (Team Effectiveness and Fair Pay)
• Five constructs had a lower score in 2003 than 1999.
• This group scored lower that CS/O on all constructs except "Benefits" and "Employee development."

• For 2003, one construct scored below 300 (Fair Pay), and one scored above 400 (Quality).
• "Fair Pay" was the only construct below 300 both in 1999 and 2003.
• No scores were above 400 in 1999.
• Seven constructs had a lower score in 2003 than 1999.

The three constructs scoring lower in 2003 than 1999 that are in common to all three sets of compared data are Strategic (Organizational Feature), Internal (Information) and External (Information). The scores of these three constructs are all above 300. However, Internal (Information) is also the second lowest scoring construct on the 2003 Survey, and Strategic is the third highest scoring construct in 2003.

Organizationally, three of the five lowest constructs are from the first Dimension, Work Group. All but one of the CS/O low scoring constructs is higher than any of those from the P/A group. Three of the P/A low scoring constructs are on the borderline of 300.

Benchmark scores for constructs are provided by the Center for comparison by organization size and "mission category." The Libraries’ 2003 scores are generally below benchmark for both size and category. It should be noted that the construct "Fair Pay" score by size is 276, and by category, 282. The Libraries’ 2003 scores are comparable for "Change oriented," "Goal Oriented," "Quality," and "Time and stress." The Libraries’ scored much higher in one construct, "Employee development."

In comparing the Libraries’ 1999 scores with the benchmark scores then available, the Libraries scores were comparable in seven of the twenty constructs, and higher in thirteen.

Question Scores

In the 1999 Survey, fourteen questions scored above 400, and eleven scored below 300.

In summary, in 2003, fewer staff believes that "people who challenge the status quo are valued." There are concerns about pay, but there appears to be a slight positive trend in considering salaries as competitive with similar jobs in the community. A perception remains that favoritism is still an issue in raises and promotions. The other concerns from 1999 that have comparable 2003 questions appear to have been addressed, as the scores have risen over 300. The score for "The right information gets to the right people at the right time" had the least increase in score.

Professionals/Archivists have ten questions with scores below 300 in the 2003 Survey. Six of these questions were also asked in 1999. Classified Staff/Other have six questions with scores below 300 in 2003. Three of those questions were below 300 in 1999. For comparison, the individual questions with corresponding organization scores and scores for each group are listed in the chart "Low Scoring Questions Comparisons" attached in the Appendix.

The low scoring questions from the P/A group include questions from all five Dimensions, but most of the questions are from Dimension 1, Work Group, with the questions from all four constructs.

The low scoring questions from the CS/O group are from three Dimensions, but primarily from Dimension II, Accommodations, with three questions from the Construct "Fair Pay."

Additional 20 Questions

The same additional questions were asked in both 1999 and 2003, with the exception of the fourth question, in order to gage any changes in perception. The fourth question in 1999 was "I understand the merit raise process." The question substituted was "My immediate position responsibilities are similar to those I had in 1999. (check N/A if you did not work for the library in 1999)."

There is some change in the responses to the other nineteen questions. The scores indicate that the staff believes more that the performance evaluation process works well. This question’s score was one of two scores of this group below 300 in 1999, increasing by 47 points to 318. The other score still remaining below 300 was lower by 63 points: staff are less likely to believe that "things are changing so rapidly that it is difficult" to keep up with their positions. This is a case of the lower the score, the better the news. Generally speaking, staff is less inclined to believe they need more training to do their jobs well. The score on that question is lower in 2003 by twenty-nine points. The last major negative change, dropping twenty-one points, indicates that staff is less likely to believe "my department is viewed positively by other library staff."

The Appendix includes the tables comparing organizational responses between the two surveys, as well as comparisons between CS/O and P/A groups for the other nineteen additional questions.

Questions not in Constructs

There are several questions with some unique information that were not included in the twenty constructs. Many of these questions are meant to elicit information about the understanding and satisfaction levels about benefits. The table "Questions Not in Constructs: 1999/2003 Questions Comparisons" provides the score averages for the organization and the staff groups scores for questions which are in common on both Surveys. Generally speaking, staff still feels that we are ethical in the workplace, although the organization score slipped from 397 to 356. There was little change in the scores for "Information and knowledge are shared openly within this organization," with organization and CS/O averages declining, and the P/A average still the lowest of the three averages.

There are twenty-seven questions unique to the 2003 Survey, five of which are not included in the constructs. These twenty-seven questions are in the table "Questions Not in Constructs: 2003 Unique Questions," along with, when appropriate, the associated dimension number, construct name, question number, and the average scores for the organization, classified staff/other, and professional/archivist groups. Two questions scored across the board in the 200s:

Q Question ORG CS/O P/A

Issues of importance to respectively to CS/O and P/A are also evident in these two questions:

Q Question ORG CS/O P/A

Of the twenty-seven questions, the CS/O scores are higher than the P/A scores on all except the following eight. The difference is also included:

Q Question CS/O P/A Diff.

Summary

Statistics can be used to prove nearly anything. The meaning of low and high scores is relative within a given context. Generally speaking, scores in these two Surveys above 300 imply more positive indications and scores below 300 imply more negative indications. Scores that have declined since 1999 may be indicators of trends that need to be watched, or they may be simple variations. Surveys generally raise more questions than they answer, but they provide data that directs an organization’s attention in certain directions.

The organization dimension scores are lowest in 2003 for Work Group, Accommodations, and Information. The Work Group and Information Dimensions were in the bottom three of five both in 1999 and 2003. Adjusting the 1999 Work Group score for including "Job satisfaction" in the Personal Dimension, the scores for Work group between 1999 and 2003 change very little. The Information Dimension scores are also very close.

The Fair Pay construct remains an issue. It is the only organization construct score below 300 in 2003, but the score is lower than 1999. Four of the lowest scoring 2003 constructs are in common between the professional/archivist and the classified staff/other groups. The "Executive Summary" distributed to all staff included analysis of the weakest constructs (pp. 8-10). These analyses also include some suggestions to address each area. Copies of those three pages are included in the Appendix.

Generally the professional/archivist group scored lower on constructs and questions. The lowest scores on constructs for this group are lower than the scores for the classified staff/other group, except for "Fair Pay." Three of the lowest constructs for the P/A group are borderline above 300.

The data seem to indicate the staff is mainly concerned with matters of work relationships, information sharing, and fair pay. Although there are some differences in how the two groups professional/archivist and classified staff/other view some things, these three areas seem to surface repeatedly in analyzing the data.