How Cardinal CSD is Measuring Staff Happiness to Make a Difference
posted March 12, 2021
Cardinal Community School District has made staff mental health and happiness a priority in recent years, but we lacked a way to measure the success of our mental health initiatives and how our staff members were truly feeling.
Though we received positive feedback from staff members, we weren’t sure if their happiness and satisfaction at work were truly improving.
Enter HappyWork, a digital platform that collects daily happiness scores from our staff members anonymously via text.
“It’s our mission to help organizations improve employee happiness, inclusion and mental health through the amplification of employee voices,” explains Tony Sheffler, HappyWork founder & CEO. “We felt as though yearly surveys that only capture a point in time were not sufficient.”
With the HappyWork platform, we have real data to use to help guide our decisions and how they affect our staff, and, by association, our students.
“With daily happiness data, schools are able to positively impact any teacher having a low day or implement new initiatives across the entire district,” says Blair Walsh, HappyWork co-founder.
In one month of using the platform, we’ve already received constructive feedback from staff members about improvements that can be made in the day-to-day functions of each school building.
“The feedback we have received has been able to stay anonymous and is provided to the appropriate parties to make improvements,” Abbey Shelman, Cardinal shared elementary school counselor says.
We’ve also found that Cardinal staff members report happiness scores of 7.4 out of 10, on average. We aim to increase that by listening and responding to their feedback, providing support, and continuing to foster a positive environment.
“Staff are able to reach out anonymously about concerns, needing help, or anything they need to address,” explains Michelle Edwards, Cardinal middle school and high school professional school counselor. “The team has developed criteria for HappyWork staff to reach out to those who are scoring low as well.”
Staff members who report low scores are contacted confidentially and offered assistance by a HappyWork team member who can suggest resources within the district and community that may be helpful for them.
“HappyWork has revolutionized our happiness initiatives, complementing our current programs and allowing us to measure how they’re positively impacting our team,” says Superintendent Joel Pedersen.
And those positive impacts cause a ripple effect, improving student experiences.
“We know it is very important for educators to take care of themselves so they can best support students,” Mrs.Shelman says. “If the staff is happy, that will positively impact their daily interactions with students.”
