Employee Voice survey
On 19 September 2024, the University will launch the Employee Voice survey 2024-2025 for all employees. The survey will be open until 31 October 2024. It is a short, anonymous survey and should not take more than ten minutes to complete but it will really help us to understand the day-to-day experience of everyone who works here.
About the survey
Employee Voice is the University’s commitment to encouraging and considering the views of our many communities. We have worked very closely with colleagues in the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), our survey specialists who have advised on questions and built the survey for us in a survey tool called formr. We have also sought advice from the Institute for Analytics and Data Science (IADS), consulted with colleagues via focus groups and worked with our recognised Campus Trade Unions to identify question themes.
We will use what you tell us to inform the areas we need to focus on going forward. The outcomes of the survey will feed into an action plan to improve employee experience at the University.
How to complete the survey
You will receive an email link to the survey from the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Maria Fasli, inviting you to complete the Employee Voice survey. The email will contain a link to take you directly into the survey so that you can input your responses to the questions.
Focus of survey
The survey is focused on the factors set out in the University Strategy which will help us create an enabling environment, where everyone feels valued and has a chance to develop and grow. ISER have built the survey for us in a tool called formr which sits on the University's server behind both the University's and ISER firewalls to ensure a high level of security.
The previous Employee Voice survey
We last ran an Employee Voice survey in 2019 just before the pandemic and a huge amount has changed during this time, we have lived through a pandemic and there have been a number of changes to our leadership team. We have however run a number of other surveys on different topics during the period of 2020-2023. These include flexible working, workload, the Race Equality Charter and Athena SWAN.
Who should complete the survey
The survey is available to all employees at the University on all contract types. The survey is also available to all those who work in subsidiaries of the University including UECS and Wivenhoe House
What's included in the survey
The survey will ask questions grouped into areas relating to your role, your team, the University and our community. When composing the questions, we have taken advice from the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) on how to phrase and structure each of the questions. We will also ask some equality monitoring questions to understand how different groups or areas feel.
Why take part
The survey provides you with an opportunity to voice your views and suggestions. It is only by hearing the views and suggestions of our community that we can implement meaningful change and make the University a great place to work.
Accessing the survey off campus
The survey is available online anywhere via your email link and is also compatible to complete on a mobile phone, so you don’t even need to be at a PC.
When the survey is open
The survey will be open for 6 weeks from 19 September to 31 October.
What happens to your responses
Your responses to the survey will be held confidentially and securely, aligned with data protection guidelines and 2018 Data Protection Act legislation. Survey responses will be held securely by the University for five years, in line with our Data Protection Policy. We will keep the results for five years to allow us to compare the results with future years. The data will be analysed by ISER and a top-level analysis will be shared with colleagues in December 2024. The data will then be split by department and shared with senior managers on a Tableau dashboard to allow for action planning. All reporting will be done using anonymised data and any identifiable data will be not be shared.
Monitoring questions
This survey is anonymous but we do need some details to help us understand how different groups or work areas feel - so that we can take further action. You will find these questions at the very beginning of the survey when we ask for some background information and at the end of the survey when we give you the option to complete five equality monitoring questions. Please be assured we will report results in a way that will not allow individuals to be identified.
