Rice won’t take part in best-place-to-work survey

After being named one of Houston’s best places to work nine years in a row by the Houston Business Journal, Rice University had planned to participate in the survey for a 10th year.  However, late last week the university was notified about a new process for administering the survey and has decided not to participate after all.

The firm conducting the survey for the Houston Business Journal announced at the last minute that it was requiring participating organizations to provide email addresses of all their employees so that the survey can be sent to them directly. In previous years, there was no direct solicitation of employees by the outside firm and instead Rice provided a link to the survey and gave employees the option of participating or not.

Although the Houston Business Journal insists that the email addresses will be kept confidential and will not be used for other purposes, the university does not as a matter of policy share this information for external use and as a result decided not to participate in the 2015 survey.