Local employers learn about wage and benefit survey

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Local employers will participate this summer in a five-county wage and benefit survey to collect information they can use to be more competitive in recruiting and retaining employees. Business representatives recently attended an informational meeting about the survey at Urbana University.

In response to employers who told her they needed local wage and benefit information, Marcia Bailey, director of the Champaign Economic Partnership (CEP), initiated a partnership of the five counties to commission the survey.

The survey will be led by Wendy C. Gradwohl, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Wittenberg University Department of Business. She explained the survey process at the informational meeting.

The other four counties in the survey are Clark, Logan, Madison and Union. Gradwohl has conducted wage and benefit surveys for Clark County on alternating years since 2007.

Businesses will complete the survey online, through Survey Monkey. Gradwohl will finalize the survey questions with the help of a focus group of human resource professionals from the five participating counties. A few attendees at the informational meeting volunteered for the focus group.

Gradwohl explained that questions will cover employee benefits and incentives, as well as employment policies such as drug screening and background checks. Gradwohl said that wage information will not be collected through the survey. Instead, the Dayton Development Coalition will provide wage data that is collected regularly by EMSI, a consulting firm that supports workforce and economic development efforts.

Survey responses will be aggregated to maintain participating businesses’ confidentiality. However, a section at the end of the survey will ask businesses what training needs they may have to better prepare employees. Responses to these questions will be identifiable so economic development agencies can reach out to the businesses and help them find or develop necessary workforce training.

Here’s the timetable for the survey:

-Beginning of June, the CEP and the other four participating county economic development agencies will email businesses survey instructions and a link to the survey.

-End of June, the survey will close.

-In July, Gradwohl will follow up with survey respondents who partially completed the survey and for clarification of responses if needed.

-In July and August, data will be analyzed and reports prepared.

-In September, survey results will be provided to employers that participated in the survey. Survey results will be broken down by county.

-In January 2018, survey results will be available by request to other organizations.

For more information, contact the CEP at 937-653-7200 or [email protected].

Wendy C. Gradwohl, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Wittenberg University Department of Business, informs local business representatives about an upcoming wage and benefit survey she will conduct for Champaign, Clark, Logan, Madison and Union counties. The informational meeting was held at Urbana University.
https://www.urbanacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2017/02/web1_wage-1.jpgWendy C. Gradwohl, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Wittenberg University Department of Business, informs local business representatives about an upcoming wage and benefit survey she will conduct for Champaign, Clark, Logan, Madison and Union counties. The informational meeting was held at Urbana University. Submitted photo

Submitted story

Information submitted by Champaign Economic Partnership via Gary Schenkel.

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