The Association Blog

A closer look at a science-based, CEO-approved tool to keep staff engaged

Effective and healthy organizations have long recognized the conventional wisdom that “the people make the place.” In other words, if we do not take care of our people, they cannot take care of our organizations or the animals.

The Shelter Employee Engagement & Development Survey (SeeDS) attempts to capitalize on this wisdom, but don’t just take it from us. One of the longtime leaders in the animal welfare field shares how this research-based employee engagement tool has helped her staff.

Humane Society of Charlotte has participated several times in the Shelter Employee Engagement & Development Survey. For us, it’s a great way to obtain valuable information from our staff in a way they felt comfortable participating anonymously.

We were able to use the results of the feedback as both a tool for our management staff and Board to know how we are doing, and for our staff to create teams to address some of the areas we needed to improve on. This also made everyone feel like their input was taken seriously and part of the process to make changes within the operation. My only regret is that I didn’t do it when I first arrived at HSC so I had a starting point, and then could later see how the staff engagement and morale had been affected. We will definitely be using the tool again to take the temperature of employee satisfaction.

– Shelly Moore, President and CEO, Humane Society of Charlotte

BREAKING NEWS: The SeeDS program is expanding. Thanks to a new partnership with University of Utah, they’ll be increasing capacity and scalability through continued streamlining of processes, building new support materials, and developing new initiatives. They’re particularly excited about their plan to enroll cohorts of shelters at once to promote peer learning and support. We’ll keep you posted, and in the meantime, visit SeeDS to learn more.

Members of The Association get 10% off the SeeDS assessment, which is $100-$800 in value, depending on your number of employees. Make sure to let the SeeDS team know you’re a member, and the discount will be applied once the evaluation process is initiated.

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