Are Jewish Organizations Great Places to Work? Results from the Sixth Annual Employee Experience Survey

The Leading Edge Employee Experience Survey is intended to help individual organizations understand and improve how their employees experience work. The survey helps Jewish nonprofit leaders and managers identify organizational strengths as well as growth areas that can be addressed to improve workplace culture.

Since 2016, more than 45,000 employees working at nearly 400 organizations have received the survey. Organizations that take the survey for multiple years tend to see their numbers improve year over year as their interventions make their employees’ working lives demonstrably better.

Key Findings of the 2022 survey:

• People want to stay in this sector. A strong majority of employees surveyed (70%) want to stay in the Jewish nonprofit sector for two years or more.
• People (still) want well-being, trusted leaders, and inclusion. The top drivers of employee engagement remain what Leading Edge has seen in past years: feeling that the organization cares for employees’ well-being, confidence in leadership, feelings of belonging, and feeling that there is open and honest communication in the organization.
• Some employees are less likely to feel like they belong. LGBTQ+ employees and People of Color (particularly Black employees, both including Black Jews and Black employees who are not Jewish) are markedly less likely to feel like they belong in their organizations.
• There’s been a lot of turnover. One third (33%) of employees surveyed have been with their organizations for less than two years.
• Working with board members is common. More than one out of every four employees surveyed (27%) reports that they work with the board.
• Most employees go to work in person for at least part of their work week. Three quarters of employees surveyed (76%) reported that they work outside their homes for at least part of each week.
• People working in person (i.e., not remotely) trust their leaders more if they feel well prepared for physical security threats. For the first time, we asked employees working outside their homes about preparedness for physical security threats. Five out of six employees surveyed (72%) feel prepared to act in the event of a security threat, but those who don’t feel prepared are markedly less likely to have confidence in their organizational leadership.

Are Jewish Organizations Great Places to Work? Results from the Sixth Annual Employee Experience Survey (2022), November 1, 2022, Leading Edge