The 2021 Employee Engagement Survey will take place from March 8-26, and it is your opportunity to let County leaders what is going well and where we need to improve.

The last 12 months have been very challenging and it’s more important than ever to hear how you are doing. Employees who participated in previous surveys have helped us make King County a better place to work and a more effective service provider for our residents. 

The survey — which can be taken on your work computer or a mobile device — will take no more than 15 minutes and can be done during work time. Your responses are 100% anonymous and cannot be traced back to you.

There a few changes in this year’s survey that we want you to know about. Every year, the County’s Employee Engagement team recommends improvements to the data and survey process. Many of these improvement ideas come directly from employees. Their feedback helps us improve the employee experience and data quality, and to provide better analysis.

Here’s what is new in 2021:

• A dropdown menu with language translations in Amharic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese.
• All employees will take the survey electronically, saving 80 reams of paper – or roughly five trees each year.
• There is a new Belonging Index.
• There are questions about whether you primarily work from home or onsite.
• Data will be available sooner.
• Demographic questions are more specific, and the option for “prefer not to disclose” has been removed. As always, these questions are optional, and people who do not want to answer can skip them.

The most important elements of the survey will not change: the confidentiality and anonymity of participants, and our commitment to act on what employees tell us.

The 2021 Employee Engagement Survey will run from March 8-26, and all employees are eligible for the employee survey, except the following:

• Employees in Superior Court, District Court, Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and the Sheriff’s Office
• Employees who are interns or short term temporary (STT)
• Employees who have not worked at the county for at least 3 months prior to the survey period (for 2021, employees must have started before December 8, 2020 to be eligible).

Look for the survey in your King County email starting March 8 and don’t miss this great opportunity to have your say.