We are a team of researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and at the University of California, San Francisco studying service sector work. You can find more information about the survey itself and how it will be used on the consent form on the first page of the survey. You can also read a copy of our consent form here. Learn more about our research here.

The survey takes most respondents less than 25 minutes to complete.

If you choose to participate in this survey, you’ll have the opportunity to enter a drawing for a $500 gift card.

We pool together respondents and randomly assign winners once the data collection period has completed. Data collection periods usually last about 2-3 months. If you are the lottery winner, we will notify you using the email or phone number you provide. Sometimes our e-mails are flagged by spam filters so be on the lookout for e-mails from @hks.harvard.edu, or Tango card.

You can skip questions and exit the survey at any time, and it will not be held against you.

We don’t believe there are any risks from participating in this research.

The Shift survey is not affiliated with any of the companies we ask about in our survey. We want to hear directly from workers about their experiences.

Yes, we de-identify our data so your response will not be connected to your e-mail or other personal identifying information. We have received approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for our research.

No, the Shift project publishes research in the aggregate or combined with other people  who have taken the survey, and your employer will not be able to connect our research or reports to you.

We use our survey to create a profile of company practices from workers across the United States. These data allow us to examine the experience of workers, like you, by company and by industry. Your response will be kept private, and your current or former employer will have no knowledge of your participation.

Make sure that your email is in proper email format and check to see if there are any irregular spaces before or after the email you entered. If you are still having trouble, you can directly message the Shift Project Facebook page, or e-mail shiftproject@hks.harvard.edu, and we will make sure that you are entered into the lottery.

We do not share your email or phone number with any outside sources. We occasionally recontact survey-takers for follow-up surveys.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at our institutional email (shiftproject@hks.harvard.edu) or contact the project manager directly at asotomario@hks.harvard.edu.