2017 Staff Survey results are out

Thursday, 01 June 2017

Colleagues,

As you know, we have just undertaken our biggest staff engagement survey in recent years. We did it because understanding how we can be a good employer in all aspects of working life is important to us.

I want to begin by thanking all of you who took part. We had a 64% response rate (including sessional staff). Through this high level of participation, we can be very confident in the representative nature of the results.

What do we do well?

Overall engagement levels are 3.32 out 4. This means that we are classed as an ‘employer of choice’, ranking as 36 out of 61 universities on the benchmarking index.

You also told us, consistently across all areas and jobs roles, that diversity and inclusion was a real strength. The quality of line management was also strong and there were was a good level of awareness of the University’s Values for Working Together and Professional Behaviours.

There is plenty more to be proud of and I encourage you to read the full report for further details.

What do we need to do better?

You told us that we need to improve:

we manage change at the University
we communicate with each other, share information and listen to employee views
we look after the wellbeing of people who work at the University, particularly in relation to stress and work loads

There has been a lot of change recently. We know that we did not get this right in every respect, a fact endorsed by some of the feedback you have given in this survey. In particular, we have more to do if colleagues are to feel valued by the University.

I take all of this feedback very seriously. To understand better the issues, and how we can address them, we have arranged a number of focus groups in which staff can participate. These are based around the three ‘What we need to do better?’ themes. Please see below for more information.

What will happen next?

We commit to act on the feedback that you have given us and have some immediate plans to move this forward. There are a number of activities arranged over the coming weeks to help us to do this.

All staff briefings

I will lead staff briefings on the survey results so that we can share our feedback in more detail and hear your initial reaction. For information on dates and venues, click here

Focus groups

From week commencing 19 June to week commencing 17 July, we will run a number of focus groups on the top three areas for improvement, with sessions held at the Whiteknights and Greenlands campuses. More information on the focus groups and how to book a place is here.

School, Service and Function results

In the spirit of openness and full transparency, a full set of University-wide results, including those for your area of work, will be available from week commencing 19 June. To avoid clogging up in-boxes, these results will be stored in a central repository.

Details on how to access this data will be circulated nearer the time. Your Head of School/Service/Function will also, I am sure, want to tell you more about the next steps within your area of work.

Developing a plan of action

We need to take some time to listen to colleagues’ views, hence the next steps described above. The intention though is to develop a plan which is simple and manageable, at the same time as delivering tangible change.

I am very clear that the publication of the survey results is just the first step as we commit to further improvement as an institution. The important work starts now and involves all of us all working together as we seek to make the University of Reading an even better place to work in the future.

SIR DAVID BELL KCB

VICE-CHANCELLOR