Boland Survey User Guide

Registration and Submission

Welcome to the 2019 Boland Survey, administered by CCVO (Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations). This year, the Boland Survey has moved to a new and more accessible platform that was informed extensively by user feedback. This guide explains how to register and complete the survey on this new platform.

Data collected through the survey – on salaries, bonuses, compensation and benefit policies, contractor rates, plans for salary adjustments, and other human resource practices – is analyzed and summarized in in-depth reports. The detailed reports provide a comprehensive analysis of salaries, benefits, and human resource practices among Canadian nonprofits. This guide explains how to register for the survey and enter and submit organization data. A separate user guide to assist with using the new interactive reporting system will be made available in Fall 2019, with the release of the new reporting feature.

CONFIDENTIALITY

The survey platform is a web-based data submission system and is encrypted to ensure data security. You can submit your organizational data with the assurance that no specific participant data will be revealed and that only aggregated, anonymous statistics will be reported regardless of format.

DATA SUBMISSION TIMELINE

The 2019 Boland Survey opened for data collection in June 2019. We encourage participants to submit their data by August 31, 2019 to avoid any delays in accessing the interactive reporting system. Data submissions for the 2019 reporting cycle will be accepted until December 31, 2019.

REGISTRATION AND SUBSCRIPTION

Registration begins with creating your organization’s profile on the new survey platform (see image) by entering your email address and password at survey.bolandsurvey.com. When you receive the confirmation email, click on the registration link.

This will take you to a form where you will enter basic information about your organization, such as staff size and contact information. Once you have completed this form, submit by clicking “Register & Subscribe” at the bottom of the screen.

Payment of an annual subscription for your organization is now required at registration. Creating or logging into a PayPal account is required to complete payment. Once you have registered and paid your annual subscription fee, you can immediately return to survey.bolandsurvey.com and begin the survey. Please note: CCVO no longer accepts cheques or payments over the phone for the Boland Survey.

COMPLETING AND SAVING DATA

The survey consists of five sections: ORGANIZATION, HR POLICY, BENEFITS, EMPLOYEES, and CONTRACTORS. The left sidebar (see image) contains links to allow you to easily navigate between sections. In order to submit the survey, organizations must complete the first three sections (ORGANIZATION, HR POLICY, and BENEFITS), plus at least one page in the EMPLOYEE section.

The survey will no longer auto-save your data and you will need to click “save” at the bottom of the screen to ensure your information will be available when you return. You do not need to complete the survey in one session, but if you wish to leave you will need to save your data before logging off.

Each section now contains several tabs, as opposed to one long page. Data entry for each tab must be completed and saved before the survey can be submitted. In this example, several tabs, marked by a red ‘x’, still require data to be entered.

The missing data will be highlighted with red text (see image) so you can easily enter information in order to complete the tab. After you enter and save this data, the red “x” on the tab will change to a green check mark. Blue text helps with information about what is required to answer a question. In this example, the survey indicates how to calculate the required figure.

In some places you will see the question mark icon next to a given question. If you click this icon, a pop up will appear to give you additional instructions about the question.

REVIEWING AND MATCHING POSITIONS

The Boland Survey currently includes 96 positions. The position descriptions can be accessed directly from the EMPLOYEE or CONTRACTOR pages while in the survey. The survey positions are now searchable by area and/or keyword. A full list of positions is available in a PDF document here.

When you open the EMPLOYEE or CONTRACTOR pages you will see all the survey positions displayed in a spreadsheet format. You cannot enter data directly into this page–instead, you will need to click on a position code to open the Position Info form. A separate Position Info form will open for each position you wish to enter data for, and each must be submitted separately.

It is important to review the descriptions carefully to ensure the best match from the list with your organization’s related position. The 96 position descriptions have been developed to reflect positions available regardless of subsector. The responsibilities, accountability reports, and qualifications(when applicable)listed are intended to be representative of the position. Your organization’s position need not match all of the suggested responsibilities, but there be sufficient similarity based on the responsibilities and accountability reports before you enter any data into that Position Info form. You can click on VIEW under the description column to read the descriptions for each position while in the survey or refer to the document mentioned above.

As a rule of thumb, a position in your organization that matches at least 60% of the survey position should be considered a “Fair” match, whereas anything that matches 80% or higher should be considered a “Good” match. When rating the quality of your match, please do not use perceptions of the size or complexity of your organization relative to others. For example, in smaller organizations, payroll responsibilities may fall under the Senior Accounting Position and in larger organizations this responsibility may belong in Human Resources. In either case a match will be “Good” if it is substantially similar to the survey description in other respects.

Rate the quality of your match against the following scale. If the job matches the survey description reasonably well (i.e. it is aligned with 80% or more of the responsibilities), you should choose “Good.” If the job matches the survey description well (i.e. it matches 60% -80% of the responsibilities), you should choose “Fair.” Where your organization does not have a position that is a “fair” or”good” match for a particular position description listed in the database, you do not need to enter any data for it.

In many cases you will have only one incumbent in a position that matches the survey position. Should there be more than one incumbent, please report averaged data. If your matched position is occupied by a contracted employee rather than a regular staff member please enter the relevant data via the CONTRACTOR page of the survey.

If you start entering data for a position and decide it is not a match, please delete the data and set the match to blank (i.e the default position). Only report on those positions that you can find a match for. If you have a position that you cannot match, it is alright to leave them out of your data submission.

SUBMITTING DATA

Once all tabs in a section have been completed, review the information and, if ready, return to the first tab and click the SUBMIT button. This will change the section indicator from a red “x” to a green check mark.

Once all sections have been completed and submitted, the final submit button for all survey data will appear in the sidebar above the ORGANIZATION section title. Once you click submit, this button will change to indicate that your data has been submitted. The data you have entered will be available to view in these sections after submitted; however, any changes will require you to email us.

INTERACTIVE REPORTING SYSTEM

Beginning inOctober2019, and as data is submitted moving forward, CCVO will open access to the interactive reporting system. As in previous years, the information available will be based on the amount of data received for each region (Atlantic provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and the Prairies) and sub-region (e.g. Calgary/Southern Alberta). CCVO anticipates beginning to open access to data reports for some regions by the end of October 2019. A separate guide to using the interactive reporting system will be released when the first data sets are made available.Data submission is required before you will be able to access the interactive reporting system, please submit your information as early as possible to avoid delays.

QUESTIONS? CONTACT CCVO

If you require assistance while completing the survey, please contact Tracey Braun, CCVO’s Manager, Programs directly at bolandsurvey@calgarycvo.org or 403-910-5872.