2018-2019 State of the FI Community results

In January 2019, ACFO-ACAF issued our fourth annual State of the FI Community survey to learn FIs’ opinions on their departments’ performance on priorities including workplace satisfaction, professional development and work-life balance.

To protect this survey data for the viewing of registered FIs only, we ask that you do not share the documents below, this link or its password.

If you have a colleague who didn’t receive this information directly from ACFO, please encourage them to complete a membership form or to contact Membership Services (membership@acfo-acaf.com) to ensure their membership information is up to date.

Results

2018-2019 State of the FI Community complete survey analysis (PDF)

This comprehensive report identifies key highlights from the survey results as a whole and examines the results of each survey question in detail.

Departmental report card (PDF)

This document shows which three departments held the best survey results and which three held the worst results in 30 different categories

Departmental summaries

These four-page PDFs provide key highlights from 19 different departments’ survey results.

2017 State of the FI Community survey results

Password: Results2017

2016 State of the FI Community survey results

Password: MoreThanNumbers2016

2015 State of the FI Community survey results

Password: FICommunity2015

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn’t my department listed on the departmental report card or in the summary documents?

Departments were omitted from the list in order to guarantee the anonymity of their respondents and ensure the accuracy of the results. To include a department in these documents, a 20-response minimum and a confidence rating of 95% +/- 20% was required to guarantee anonymity and statistical accuracy.

If your department has more than 20 FIs, ensure it is included in next year’s analysis by sharing the survey with your colleagues and encouraging them to complete it.

Statistics Canada was listed on the departmental report card and the summary documents last year, but isn’t listed this year. Why not?

Statistics Canada did not reach the 20-response minimum in 2018-2019 required to ensure the anonymity and accuracy of the results. FIs in these departments can ensure their results are included in next year’s analysis by completing the survey and sharing it with their colleagues.

What is ACFO-ACAF doing with these results?

ACFO-ACAF has already leveraged the survey results to improve FIs’ everyday life in the workplace. Labour Relations Advisors and ACFO-ACAF board members have presented survey results at the departmental level in Labour-Management Consultations Committee meetings. Labour Relations Advisors have also used data to support grievances.

ACFO-ACAF President Dany Richard has met with several CFOs to discuss their department’s results and they have demonstrated clear desire towards improving workplace conditions for the FI Community. We have strategically and constructively targeted poor performing departments in order to assist them in improving their results, and we recognize top performing departments to encourage upward trending in these areas.

Demographics collected from the survey were also used in collective bargaining.

Finally, one of the most important uses for the survey is for you, the FI Community, as a resource to determine which departments offer you the best opportunities for success.

I or one of my colleagues never received the survey. Why is this?

ACFO-ACAF issued the survey by email between January 16 and February 11, 2019. If you were not a registered member at this time, you would not have received the survey.

If you were a registered member during this time and didn’t receive it, you may not have signed up with ACFO-ACAF or your contact information could be out of date. To make sure you continue important news from ACFO-ACAF please complete a membership form or contact Membership Services at membership@acfo-acaf.com.

How many FIs / departments participated in the survey?

More than 1,000 FIs from 53 different departments filled out the 2018-2019 survey.

Will ACFO-ACAF be doing more surveys in the future?

The FI State of the Community survey is an annual initiative. The 2019-2020 survey will be released in Winter 2020.

Is the survey confidential?

Yes, respondents’ identities are completely safe. The survey did not collect personal identifiers such as names or contact information. Furthermore, results were not analyzed at an individual response level and were only analyzed as a collective.

How reliable are the survey results?

The results are highly reliable and statistically significant.

The reliability of a survey is calculated using the response size and the population size. With a population size of 4,800 FIs and responses from 1,183 FIs, this gives us a confidence rating of 95% +/- 3%. Therefore, these results and the demographics collected can be used to represent the FI group as a whole.

At the departmental level, the results for the 19 departments listed above are statistically significant, but only moderately so, particularly for the smallest departments. This means their results can only be used very generally to describe the opinions and beliefs of FIs as a whole in that department.

For more precise results, encourage your colleagues to complete the survey. Every response counts.

What is a confidence rating?

A confidence rating measures how much assurance we can attribute to the accuracy of the survey results in representing a population. At the departmental level, its confidence rating represents how sure we can be that the survey results accurately reflect the opinions of FIs in that department.

As for the measurement itself, for a confidence rating of 95% +/- 20%, for example, if ACFO-ACAF conducted the survey 20 times, 19 out of 20 times (95%), we would expect the average answer of any given question to lie within +/- 20% of the average answer found when we conducted the survey.

Can I have more detailed results for my department?

For more details on the results of any departments listed in the report card and departmental analyses above, you may contact Madeline Rodriguez at mrodriguez@acfo-acaf.com.

ACF-ACAF is committed to ensuring the anonymity of its survey respondents, so if a department is not listed in the department report card or summary documents, we cannot provide further information on its results.

Who can I contact if I have questions requesting the survey?

For any questions or comments, you may contact Madeline Rodriguez at mrodriguez@acfo-acaf.com.