The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) is a Web-based organizational climate survey administered annually by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The survey targets full- or part-time, permanently employed civilian personnel from more than 80 U.S. government agencies. Despite increases in the scope, publicity, and uses of FEVS data, its response rate has gradually declined over time. In an effort to gauge the causes for nonresponse, this paper discusses results from an experiment fielded during the 2017 FEVS in which a portion of sampled individuals was given the opportunity to opt out from the survey. Before effectively being added to …

This paper deals with adjustment for nonresponse in dyadic multi-actor survey designs. It presents a multi-dimensional approach to weighting that addresses the various analytical units represented in such data, so that sampling design weights are correctly accounted for and so that consistency between weights is achieved. This approach is demonstrated by using the primary respondents in the Divorce in Flanders study, which is a typical example of a dyadic multi-actor design. Five sets of weighting coefficients are made available whereby different subsets of data, according to different analytical units, are selected: the subset of the dyads, the subset of men …

We argue for renewed efforts to improve the external survey environment for official statistics. We introduce the concept of social marketing as one novel way of achieving this. We also propose measuring the survey-taking climate and the related changes on the societal level using a ‘survey climate barometer’. Finally, by presenting current and potential initiatives planned by Statistics Canada, we illustrate activities that national statistical institutes could implement with the goal of positively influencing their external survey environment.