Iowa + Qualtrics

Iowa’s push for a single, centralized Employee Experience (EX) platform began in 2023, when Governor Reynolds pushed for a realignment of state government that saw a reduction in the number of cabinet-level departments to promote greater interdepartmental collaboration and save taxpayer dollars. Once this alignment was passed by the state legislature, Iowa leaders partnered with Qualtrics to facilitate this new effort and quickly released an initial statewide survey to better capture the culture and climate among state employees, largely related to the realignment project. But that short-term goal was just the beginning—Iowa had its sights set on building a mature EX program capable of driving engagement, retention, efficiency, and continuous improvement. 

“Acting on these insights enabled [employee satisfaction gains] reflecting the effectiveness of actionable feedback loops.” — Sara Kirk, PhD, Performance Results Facilitator, Iowa Department of Management

Iowa’s first EX surveys made clear that the state had some work to do with regards to engagement. Survey results showed opportunities for improvement in trust of leadership as well as manager communication, and Iowa leaders recognized this as a pathway for retention of top performers.

Those efforts began immediately based on the insights generated from employee feedback. Managers and supervisors used Qualtrics-generated dashboards to understand their performance gaps and build action plans, while remaining in alignment with the state-level vision. 

Iowa’s EX program is rooted in two annual, enterprise-wide employee feedback projects. They conduct an annual full engagement survey in July and an annual pulse survey in January to focus on their lowest scoring areas from the full engagement survey. They also do agency-specific ad hoc surveys, lifecycle surveys (three onboarding surveys and an exit survey), and candidate experience feedback collection.

The program delivered several immediate wins. One came at the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System (IPERS), where feedback identified a process gap related to returned payments—the process involved multiple teams and no one was clear where ultimate ownership should reside. As a result, IPERS conducted a lean event to design an improved process that focuses on standardization, automation, and the ability to use workflows to complete work in real time. Through this, they were able to better define roles and responsibilities and created standard operating procedures. IPERS is also auditing other processes, with the twin goals of building clarity and trust among employees while also delivering better experiences for customers. 

A second example involved the Iowa Department of Corrections domestic abuse prevention program, after feedback identified that different jurisdictions across the state used differing fee structures, intake, and monitoring processes. Once the discrepancies were clear, treatment prevention staff were empowered by state leaders to create new procedures, forms, standards, and a standardized fee structure to be implemented statewide. This resulted in the program providing more consistent and equal treatment for all participants, along with being a more cost effective and efficient program for the state. 

As Iowa’s government workers see their leaders taking action to address gaps like these, their job satisfaction has improved markedly. Trust in leadership rose 20% within six months, for example, while employee satisfaction related to manager communication increased by 14%. Survey participation is also strong, with 61% participation in Iowa’s 2025 pulse surveys, up from 54% the year prior.