Vice-Chancellor Professor Nick Jennings commented: “Our aim at Loughborough is to inspire, empower and enrich the lives of our staff and students. We’re an ambitious organisation and one that is keen to create a strong sense of community and team spirit, which is why I strongly encourage you to participate in the Staff Experience Survey.
“The survey is an opportunity for you to use your voice, enabling us to continue working to create an inclusive, fair and respectful culture at Loughborough, where we can continue to achieve our full potential and ultimately, Create Better Futures. Together.”
The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete and will ask questions around the subjects of wellbeing, recognition, leadership, development, EDI, and overall job satisfaction.
Further information about the survey can be found below.
Why are we running a survey?
The survey is an important mechanism for us to measure how satisfied you are working at the University. The feedback we receive from the survey will help us to focus on the things that are most important to staff and prioritise areas for improvement. The data will also be used to improve working conditions and practices and, ultimately, the student experience we provide.
How will the results of the survey be shared?
The section results will be shared with Deans and Directors of Schools and Departments so they can work with managers and other colleagues within their area to recognise the strengths and areas of good practice as well as identify areas that may need to be improved.
We’ll also be able to benchmark our results on some of the questions against 38 UK universities, providing additional insight into how our experience compares to other institutions.
That is why it’s important that as many colleagues as possible take part in the survey, as that way we will have a more accurate representation of the staff voice with more robust and reliable data.
How do I take part?
The survey will run from Monday 14 November – Friday 2 December. On the day the survey begins, you will receive an email from this email address: survey-invite@peopleinsight.co.uk. It will ask you to click on the link within it, which will launch the survey for you to complete. We want to reassure you that this will be a legitimate email; the reason you will receive it from an external email address is because the survey is being managed by an external provider called People Insight.
For those who do not use work email, special arrangements have been put in place to enable you to access the survey. If this applies to you, your manager will be in touch with you to give you further details.
And as a thank you for taking part, a tree will be planted by Eden Reforestation Projects for every individual who completes the survey. This organisation works with local communities to restore rainforests on a massive scale thereby creating jobs, protecting ecosystems, and helping mitigate climate change. So far, they have produced, planted and protected 977 million trees, across 280 project sites in 10 countries.
How do I know my answers will be anonymous?
The survey is run independently by People Insight to the highest standards of quality and accuracy, and your responses will be sent directly to them. They collate the results to produce a report for the University that shows the key findings at both an institutional level and a departmental level. No individual results or answers to the survey will be shared at an individual level, and results will be gathered in a way that makes it impossible to identify an individual.
How has participation feedback helped the staff experience at Loughborough?
The last time an all-staff engagement survey was conducted at Loughborough University was in 2016. Since then, a number of initiatives have progressed as a result of the findings:
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Support: From investing in our Occupational Health and Wellbeing Service and an Employee Assistance Programme to championing Staff Networks and reviewing key procedures such as the grievance and dispute resolution process, the University has placed staff wellbeing at its focus.
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Training and development: The Organisation Development team has launched a dedicated online ‘Hub’ which includes information about all the training and development opportunities available to staff.
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Communication: The introduction of a monthly Vice-Chancellor’s e-newsletter and weekly staff e-newsletters provides the latest news, events and key information.
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Workload: Project Enable has been established to create capacity across areas of the University to help deliver the ambitions within our new University Strategy.
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Dynamic working: Following the Covid-19 pandemic, changes were implemented to our working practices which enabled flexibility of working arrangements and locations.
We hope that this year’s survey will also provide us with rich insight that will allow us to continue improving your experience working at the University.
How can I find out more information?
If you have any queries about the Staff Experience Survey, please contact Anne Wilkinson at A.A.Wilkinson@lboro.ac.uk.