How it all works.
Four pillars, sixteen measures.
- Leadership (four measures: Leadership Support, Leadership Communication, Resources and Role Expectations). Supervision that shows up, expectations that are stated, and decisions that make sense to staff.
- Community (four measures: Belonging, Psychological Safety, Teamwork and Organizational Culture). A staff culture where people can count on each other and everyone feels like they belong.
- Growth (four measures: Career Development, Feedback, Autonomy and Leadership). Opportunities to learn, become better professionals, take ownership of their actions, and become leaders.
- Wellbeing (four measures: Work-Life Balance, Engagement, Meaningful Work and Would Recommend). Engagement, balance, doing work that matters to staff and camp, and knowing if staff would recommend your camp as a place to work.
Each measure is asked through four questions (Would Recommend through one), 61 in all: sixteen per pillar, thirteen for Wellbeing. The deep dive asks every one of them. The Season Pulse asks one question per measure, sixteen in all.
Intention to return (“I plan to return to work here again next season”) is the outcome the four pillars are trying to explain. It is part of the retention questions, which a camp adds to any Pulse or deep dive (we recommend the end of the season), along with why staff are or aren’t coming back, what would most influence the decision, and whether they would like a leader to follow up. It is reported next to the pillars, never averaged into them.
Fathom Measures Development
- ▲ Every question maps to exactly one measure. No question counts twice, and no measure is scored from a question that also measures something else.
- ▲ One response scale. All 61 questions use the same five-point agreement scale, so all questions are comparable across the tool, and none asks staff to write anything. The retention questions add one more five-point question (whether they plan to return), a list of reasons to choose from, a list of what would most influence a decision to return or not (one per measure, so it ties back to the pillars), and an optional request for a follow-up.
- ▲ Every five-point question has a “Not sure / N/A” option. Choosing this response option removes the question from the measure and pillar scoring.
- ▲ Questions about who people are never affect scores. Role, seasons worked, and whether they live on site are asked once and filled in for staff each time they take the survey. These questions are only used for dashboard group comparisons and our aggregate research. Age, gender identity and race or ethnicity are asked once too, for Fathom’s own checks that the survey works the same for everyone; camps never see them. Information about your camp (for example its type, size, region and season length) comes from your camp’s profile, so staff are never asked to share it.
- ▲ No demographic weighting, attention checks, or trick questions. Only one question, about burnout, is reverse-scored (agreeing is the low end), and it is flipped before scoring.
How scoring works.
- All but one question has a possible score of 1 to 5.
- A measure score is the mean score of the questions for that measure.
- A pillar score is the mean of all the questions in the measures that make up the pillar, not a mean of the measure scores.
- The overall score on your dashboard averages the four pillar scores.
- All scores can also be viewed as the percent of staff answers that agreed or strongly agreed.
- The reasons staff choose and the retention questions are never averaged into a score.
Stage classifications.
| Score | Stage | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 4.50 – 5.00 | Thriving | Your staff think your camp is doing well across nearly all pillars and measures. |
| 4.00 – 4.49 | Performing | Your staff think your camp is doing well across many, but not all, pillars and measures. |
| 3.00 – 3.99 | Building | Your staff think your camp has room to improve. |
| Below 3.00 | Needs Attention | Your staff have identified more than one area your camp needs to improve. |
What we do with the responses.
We store your staff’s responses in Fathom’s secure database using a key, not their emails. This key allows your dashboard to see how staff’s responses change across the season. Nobody at your camp can turn the key into a staff email. You see group results only, and no group smaller than five staff appears on its own.
We use aggregated responses across all Fathom camps to establish a benchmark, so you can compare how your camp is doing to all other Fathom camps. It shows nothing until at least five camps have results, and each season’s final norms need at least ten. We also use the aggregated data to improve Fathom tools and share evidence-based insights with the field through our annual report and periodic articles.