Shelter Employee Engagement & Development Survey

The Shelter Employee Engagement & Development Survey (SeeDS) is a consultation service designed to help private and public animal shelters and other animal welfare organizations build more positive, inclusive and sustainable work cultures by surveying employees and making specific recommendations based on the results.

Do the staff at your organization feel their work is valued? Do they enjoy being at work? What are their perceptions of standard operating procedures? The answers to these questions have a huge impact on your operations and on the animals and families you serve.

If you’re unsure of the answers or think you’re just being influenced by the loudest voices, SeeDS can help. The survey won’t ask about your protocols for cleaning cat cages or preventing disease outbreaks. Instead, it will focus on how employees view the experience of working for your organization. They will report how they feel about teamwork, communication, supervision and more. After the results are tabulated, the SeeDS team will present you with findings and help develop a plan for improvement.

Bottom line: Your organization will be positioned to thrive, with less staff turnover and greater capacity for serving your community.

What exactly is the Shelter Employee Engagement & Development Survey?

SeeDS is an assessment tool designed to help private and public animal shelters run better by surveying employees and making specific recommendations based on survey results.

Developed in partnership between the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Dr. Steven Rogelberg) and the Humane Society of the United States, SeeDS is an assessment tool for evaluating aspects of an organization that are central to employee attitudes, perceptions and opinions, and which have direct implications for organizational effectiveness and well-being. The SeeDS team has gathered data from hundreds of animal welfare organizations and thousands of employees over 20 plus years. Organizations can compare their results to those of other organizations of comparable size and gain a sense of their own strengths and growth areas.

Examples of issues SeeDS addresses:

• Communication (both within and across departments)
• Supervision
• Teamwork
• Peer support
• Employee morale
• Job stress
• Training
• Inclusion (a new focus area)

The SeeDS process

The process starts with an initial phone or video call to discuss your organization with the UNC Charlotte SeeDS team. You provide input as to how you would like your data reported (e.g., by department). The online survey process lasts around two weeks. Employees can complete the survey from a home or work computer or even a cell phone.

“We did an initial SeeDS survey in 2020, having selected UNCC because of their history, scientific rigor, and ability to measure against an industry standard. We elected to conduct a follow-up survey six months after our initial one. The initial survey showed real insight into what our employees needed from the board, management, and their peers. Based on recommendations from the UNCC team, we created working groups to immediately address the findings. We saw huge improvement in employee satisfaction after our second survey, and it proved to all that we were on the right track to improve our shelter and employee environment.”

—Nicole Schafer, executive director, and Ann Hayashi, board member, Kauai Humane Society

The survey results will be used to generate a summary report, which defines what your organization is doing well and where improvements can be made. In addition, you will receive a one-hour phone consultation from a trained professional from UNC Charlotte to assist you in interpreting your organization’s results and determining specific actions to help you improve.

SeeDS Pricing

Pricing is based on the size of the organization (i.e., number of employees). Because the development costs of the SeeDS assessment tool were subsidized by the Humane Society of the United States and UNC Charlotte, you only pay the direct expenses associated with implementing the system in your organization. Visit the SeeDS website for current prices.

More Information

To get started or for questions about SeeDS, contact UNC Charlotte Organizational Science at seeds@charlotte.edu. Visit the SeeDs website for more details and to read testimonials from animal welfare organizations that have benefited from SeeDS.