Surveying employees and implementing changes based on survey results is a powerful way to create a better workplace culture. This article for eJewish Philanthropy, co-authored by Alena Akselrod of Leading Edge with Andy Paller of the JCC Association of North America, explains how the JCC Association is using Leading Edge's Employee Experience Survey to level up their benchmarking and improve the workplace experience across the JCC movement.

Given the JCC movement’s outsized labor force — particularly as JCCs of North America’s leaders juggle a deep commitment to their professionals, employees’ new expectations about working hours and locations and a tightening labor market — workplace culture increasingly is a critically important matter, not only in JCCs, but in organizations throughout the professional world, where culture often is neglected and undervalued.

For more than a decade, JCC Association of North America has surveyed JCC professionals as part of its JCC Excellence: Benchmarking surveys. The data collected, in addition to exploring interactions with JCC members, was designed to explore the quality of professionals’ own experiences in the workplace and identify the key drivers of staff satisfaction. To help JCCs across North America develop a truly strong, attractive culture, JCC Association leaders set about to deepen its existing relationship with Leading Edge. From its newest partnership with Leading Edge, JCC Association has garnered solid data about JCCs’ employees, the factors that most influence their happiness and sense of belonging at work, and their desire to remain employed at their JCC.