THE EMPLOYEE SURVEY consists of 60 statements divided into six workplace categories. Answers to the first five categories count for 5/6 of the overall score used to determine the 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon. The sixth category, sustainable practices, is used to help determine our 100 Best Green Companies to Work For, published in June. Employees rate the statements in terms of satisfaction and importance. The survey has six optional demographic questions, and two open-ended questions for written comments. Companies are scored based on average satisfaction ratings.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL THE SURVEY QUESTIONS

Rules and guidelines

• Do invite all regular full-time and part-time employees of Oregon (and Clark Co. Wash.) locations to participate. Executives and owners may also take the survey.
• Do not select a sample or subgroup of employees to take the survey.
• Do not demand or imply in any communication with employees that they should provide positive responses, nor suggest that company’s inclusion on the 100 Best list is important or necessary to an employee’s success.
• Do ensure that employees know the survey is entirely confidential and anonymous.
• No data is saved until the final page, so employees that quit the survey midway through should retake it.
• Employees working outside the state may participate if managed by an Oregon site.
• Temporary employees and contractors are not permitted to take the survey. Staffing firms should only invite internal staff to participate.
• Each employee may complete only one survey.
• Encourage employees in all departments and compensation levels (hourly, supervisory, senior management, etc.) to participate.
• A minimum of 12 employees or 20% of your Oregon workforce, whichever is greater, must complete the survey.
• We will email companies weekly updates regarding the number of employees that have completed the survey.
• Submit all online and hard-copy surveys by Friday, November 13.

Employee surveys via the Web:

Encourage employees to complete the survey online. They may do so on any computer with Internet access, at work or home. If they do not normally have access to the Internet, consider setting up computer kiosks and providing breaks for them to take the survey.

The steps:

1. Distribute via email, bulletin or employee-only Intranet site the survey code and link provided in your 100 Best instructions to all Oregon employees. Do not reveal your survey code outside of your company.
2. You may customize the sample e-mail/memo text (see below) to distribute to employees, informing them about the 100 Best survey.
3. After accessing the link and entering your company's code and name, the survey will take employees about 15 minutes to complete.
4. If an employee quits the survey midway through, he/she should retake it.
5. You will weekly email updates indicating the number of employee surveys that have been successfully completed at your nonprofit.

Sample e-mail/memo to participating company employees:

We want to know what you think!

[COMPANY NAME] is taking part in the survey for Oregon Business magazine’s 2010 list of the 100 Companies Best to Work For in Oregon.

We encourage you to express your honest views about [COMPANY NAME] on a comprehensive set of workplace aspects in the 100 Best employee survey. Your participation, and the answers you provide, will be strictly anonymous and confidential. We hope that all employees from every department and location in Oregon voice their candid opinions in this survey.

Each employee may complete just one survey. It takes about 15 minutes, and can be completed from any computer — at work or home. Go to www.oregonbusiness.com/survey and enter our survey code: [ENTER SURVEY CODE HERE]. Please note: your responses are not saved until you reach the last page of the survey. The deadline is [DEADLINE].

After the survey is complete, we will receive survey results that may help us find ways to improve job satisfaction, productivity and performance throughout [COMPANY NAME].

Surveys for employees without Web access:

We urge all employees with Web access to take the survey online. However, employees who do not have access to a computer, or cannot access the Web, may complete a hard-copy printed version of the employee survey.

The steps:

1. E-mail your request for hard-copy employee surveys to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
2. We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to any employees who do not have access to the Web.
3. Provide employees with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and return them to:

Rules about hard-copy employee surveys:

• Employee surveys that you collect and return to Oregon Business are strictly confidential. Do not read them or write any identifying information (such as employee name, department, etc.) on surveys before distributing them or after collecting them.
• Because hard-copy surveys entail significant data-entry cost, organizations that submit more than 100 hard-copy surveys will be charged a handling fee of $50 for every 50 surveys processed beyond the initial 100.
• Please encourage as many employees as possible to complete their surveys online.
• All hard-copy employee surveys must be received by Friday, November 13.

Spanish or Russian employee survey:

The survey is available in Spanish and Russian in hard-copy form. Spanish- or Russian-speaking employees may refer to it as they complete the survey online or fill it out it according to the rules listed above for the English hard-copy survey. The survey is not currently available in any other languages.

The steps:

1. E-mail your request for Spanish or Russian employee surveys to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
2. We will e-mail you an PDF version of the survey to print, copy and distribute to Spanish- or Russian-speaking employees.
3. Provide employees with pre-stamped envelopes or collect surveys anonymously and return them to:

If you have any questions about the employee survey, please contact Brandon Sawyer, 100 Best project manager at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or 503.223.0304 x228.