Dear UCSF Community,

Thank you for participating in the 2026 Staff Engagement Survey. We had one of our strongest participation rates in recent years—a reflection of your commitment to one another, our patients, learners, and communities, and the missions that unite us.

As we reviewed the results, we saw both strengths and opportunities. Across UCSF and UCSF Health, employees continue to demonstrate a strong commitment to quality, teamwork, and service. These results reflect the dedication, professionalism, and resilience that define our community, particularly as we continue to navigate a complex and evolving environment.

At the same time, many of you told us that we need to do a better job connecting feedback to meaningful action. We hear your concerns about workload and staffing pressures, recognition, and communication, and we are committed to ensuring that your feedback informs decisions and improvements across our organization.

We Hear You

The survey results provide important guidance on where we must focus our efforts. To strengthen trust and engagement across our organization, the Chancellor's Cabinet and UCSF Health senior leadership have committed to improving how we listen, respond, and act on employee feedback. Our goal is to improve our Accountability Index by at least 10 basis points over the coming year. This measure reflects whether staff believe their feedback is heard, teams are engaged in meaningful action planning, and those efforts result in visible progress. 

Achieving this goal will require partnership across the organization among leaders, managers and supervisors, and staff. We each play an important role in contributing to action planning that will lead to tangible progress in our day-to-day work.

Learn More at the July 9 Town Hall

We invite you to join us at the UCSF Town Hall on Thursday, July 9, where we will share more details on the survey results, highlight some of our teams making meaningful progress, and discuss our goals and plans. You will hear more about our efforts to strengthen engagement, support our teams, and continuously improve our culture throughout the coming year.

At UCSF and UCSF Health, engagement is not defined by a survey or a score. It is how we create an environment where people can do their best work in service of our patients, learners, communities, and one another.

Thank you for your commitment and dedication to advancing our missions of patient care, research, education, and public service. Together, we can continue to strengthen UCSF as a place where people and purpose thrive and where every member of our community feels heard, valued, and empowered to contribute to our shared success.

Sincerely,

Sam Hawgood, MBBS
Chancellor
Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor

Suresh Gunasekaran
President and Chief Executive Officer
UCSF Health