EWU Employees Ace State Safety Survey

Eastern Washington University employees earned high marks for participation in an annual survey sent by the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, Office of Risk Management.

The safety survey goes out to employees of educational institutions and other state agencies. The results, which were made available earlier this year, serve as a helpful guide for improving safety.

Chad Johnson, manager of Environmental Health and Safety, thanked everyone who participated on behalf of his team, saying “We will incorporate this information into our training and inspections.”

For a fourth year out of seven, EWU had the highest percentage of employee responses of the state’s four-year educational institutions and, also, among 27 educational institutions that employ more than 500 people. (That overall category included 36,700 employees in 36 institutions.)

Out of 1,340 EWU employees contacted, 518 people, nearly 40 percent, completed the survey. That’s the highest percentage of participation the university has achieved over the past seven surveys.

The safety survey explored where people do their jobs – including working from home, in the field, or in a campus office, a category that applies to nearly 49 percent of EWU employees, along with hybrid work scenarios.

It also tracked the most common safety hazards for those workplaces, including air quality, chemical exposure, active threats, lack of ergonomics and other risks, also gauging whether people know how to respond to certain threatening situations and if they are aware of how to access safety-related information from the university.

EWU Environmental Health and Safety will use the survey results to focus on areas where employees have indicated concerns. To see the full survey results, click on this link.