The Staff Climate Survey (SCS) is designed to assess the campus climate for diversity from the staff/administrator perspective.
The staff perspective and experience is an essential component for a fuller understanding of the climate for diversity on any given campus. The SCS has questions that overlap with, and is designed to be administered alongside, the HERI Faculty Survey and the Diverse Learning Environments (DLE) survey. This will enable you to compare campus climate from the perspectives of students, faculty, and staff. It is designed to be administered to all staff employees.
Register for the 2025 Staff Climate Survey at https://surveyportal.heri.cresst.org/. The 2025 Staff Climate Survey can be administered between November 15, 2024, and April 30, 2025.
Watch our informational video on the Staff Survey
Institutions use the SCS to:
Evaluate the campus climate
SCS was designed to include measures that specifically focus on aspects related to the climate for diversity, including experiences with discrimination, and cross-racial interactions.
Collect information about institutional cultures and practices
The survey focuses on connecting diversity efforts with campus practices, including items related to the ease with which campus constituents interact and work across differences, satisfaction with working conditions and compensation packages; and what factors contribute to stress or excitement in their jobs.
Assess baseline strengths, identify areas for improvement, and track progress related to diversity efforts
SCS provides a snapshot of the campus climate, institutional practices, and staff experiences that can be used for campus diversity improvement efforts. Institutions can use the SCS as a tool for strategic planning and benchmarking.
Foster/initiate dialogue about diversity
Using data from the SCS, institutions can initiate dialogue about diversity related issues on their individual campuses.
Disaggregate staff perceptions, experiences, and outcomes by different social identities (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation)
The survey includes measures that can be disaggregated by different social identities, including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability/disability status, parent/guardian status, and military veteran status.
What Will a Participating Institution Receive?
Schools participating in the SCS receive an institutional profile report, which includes institutional results broken out by sex, comparisons with other similar institutions, and a data file of unit record responses for the institution.
Administering the Staff Climate Survey
The HERI Staff Climate Survey is an anonymous survey. Survey respondents will not be asked for their name or other identifying information (identification number, address, telephone number, birth date). The SCS is a web-based survey administered annually to all staff.
The Web Survey can be administered either with your campus managing the email notification process, or for ease of use, you can elect to have HERI manage the email notifications to staff. Our web portal allows you to select email notification and reminder dates, customize “welcome” and “thank you” pages, customize email notifications, and upload your additional questions. Throughout the administration, you can monitor your response rate and adjust email reminder text as needed. Your survey data updates in real time, so you can download your preliminary data file at any point to analyze early responses.
Web Survey Features
- HERI can send customizable email notifications (including reminders) to your staff
- Your “Welcome” and “Thank you” screens can be customized
- You can include your own additional questions, including 30 closed-ended questions and five open-ended questions
The Survey Instrument
Forms and Documentation
2025 SCS
- Administration Guidelines – Necessary information for schools concerning the administration of the SCS
- Administration Timeline – Use the timeline to track the general tasks required during a survey cycle
- Survey Information Sheet – Copy of the informed consent given to survey respondents
- Additional Questions – Important information for campuses adding their own questions to the instrument
- School Managed Distribution – Instructions for sending your email invitations directly from your institution
- Mailing List – Sample file for uploading your distribution list
- Invitation and Reminder Templates– Sample text for inviting your staff to participate
- Welcome and Thank You text – Editable text for your welcome and thank you survey pages
- Anti-Spam Guidelines – How to prevent survey invitations and reminders from CIRP being filtered out as bulk or junk mail
- Group Codes – Comparing specific subgroups of your staff sample
- Confidentiality and Privacy – Protocol for ensuring the confidentiality and privacy of our data and suggestions about how to assure your staff that their information is safe
- Encouraging Participation – Suggestions for increasing response rates
- Promo-Pack Instructions – Instructions on how to use the SCS Promo-Pack
- Pre-notification Email Templates – Editable text for your pre-notification emails
- Data and Reporting – Descriptions of the institutional data and reporting institutions will receive from CIRP
- UCLA IRB Approval – Copy of the current UCLA IRB approval for the SCS
Survey Fees
Survey Fees
The combined survey administration and registration fee is calculated based on total full-time equivalent (FTE) undergraduate enrollment (for student surveys) or full-time faculty (faculty/staff survey) with information obtained from the IPEDS database on September 1, 2021. You can find the survey fees for your institution by searching on our pricing page.
Optional Costs
-Customized Welcome and Thank You Pages: no additional fee
-Additional questions for web administration – 30 closed-ended and/or 5 open-ended: $400
-Group Codes: no additional fee
-HERI-managed email distribution to staff: $400
-School-managed email distribution: no additional fee
Billing Policy
HERI uses a two-step process for billing. First, within two weeks of receiving an order to administer one of our surveys from an authorized campus representative, we will send an invoice to that representative or the designated billing contact requesting payment for a $1,000 registration deposit. This registration deposit will be credited toward the total administration cost. Should needs on campus change, please read below to review our cancellation policy.
Second, approximately six weeks before the national administration closes for the Staff Climate Survey, we will send a second invoice for the remaining balance associated with each respective survey administration, including any optional services requested during the administration period (i.e., HERI-managed emails, additional questions on web-based surveys).
The costs for administering HERI’s surveys cover customer service support from HERI’s staff throughout the administration process, the full suite of campus reports (i.e., Institutional Profile Report, Construct Report, Theme Report, Executive Summary PowerPoint), preparation of the final dataset, and targeted consultation to help clarify or explain the results featured in each set of reports.
We will continue to invoice separately for any orders for data services or customized reports placed by authorized campus representatives, and we typically send those invoices within two weeks of fulfilling each order. Additionally, for campuses that have more specific needs related to developing more tailored surveys, generating a more comprehensive, in-depth analysis of their survey data, or creating a more comprehensive assessment of campus climate, HERI staff members are available for more extensive consulting partnerships. Please contact us at heri@ucla.edu for more information.
*Expedited payment is helpful because UCLA charges additional fees after invoices become 90 days past due. If there are delinquency fees on your account, your payment will be applied to these charges first. The unpaid balance on the account will remain past due and will continue to accrue additional delinquency fees. Balances which remain unpaid for several months risk going to collections.
Cancellation Policy
Placing an order indicates your institution’s agreement to participate in the survey. HERI will refund $800 of the $1,000 deposit if a campus informs HERI in writing of its decision to cancel the administration of the Staff Climate Survey more than two weeks before the launch of the survey. HERI will refund $200 of the $1,000 deposit for orders cancelled one week before the launch of the survey. If the survey is within one week of the launch date and your institution has received survey links or distributed links via HERI’s email system, you will be charged the full $1,000 (or forfeit the $1,000 if already paid) with no refund/credit.
Withdrawal Policy
For Web Administrations
If the URL(s) have already been sent to the institution or distributed via HERI’s email distribution service to the sample of intended survey participants, the campus will forfeit the full $1,000 registration deposit. In addition, if HERI has provided any customized services at your request (e.g., incorporated on-line additional questions, etc.), you will also be responsible for the full cost of these services.
The 2025 Staff Climate Survey can be administered between November 15, 2024, and April 30, 2025.