What happens to survey results?
Feedback from colleagues through routes such as the colleague engagement survey is vital to understand what we’re doing well already, and where we could do things differently. Below are some examples of survey findings and the actions taken in response.
Connection to senior leaders
In the 2023 survey, colleagues reported wanting to feel more connected to our Senior Management Group (SMG), and to have a better understanding of decision-making at senior levels. Given our scale and the number of colleagues to reach, SMG has responded to this in a number of ways. In addition to regular town hall meetings run at College and Service level, senior colleagues have also been redoubling efforts to visit other parts of the University. Some recent examples include:
- The Principal recently visited the School of Physics and Astronomy, and has further School visits planned into the autumn.
- Professor Moira Fischbacher-Smith, Vice Principal of Teaching and Research, joined the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Learning & Teaching Symposium in September.
- Professor Chris Pearce, Vice Principal of Research and Knowledge Exchange, presented at and joined the panel for the Researcher Concordat action plan launch.
Supplementing in-person dialogue at sessions like those listed above is the ongoing SMG blog series ‘In Conversation’, available to view through the Internal Communications Portal. Recent interviews include Professor Sara Carter, Vice Principal and Head of the College of Social Sciences, Professor Jo Gill, Vice Principal and Head of the College of Arts and Humanities and Dr David Duncan, Chief Operating Officer and University Secretary and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Operations). Over the coming months all members of SMG will have the opportunity to speak to the University community in this way about their role, experiences, and strategic priorities.
To support all of the above, SMG has also refined its processes for reviewing updates that should be shared with their respective teams, for example: ensuring that at each meeting, confidential items and items for sharing widely are clearly identified. Additionally, opportunities for colleagues’ input on critical decisions continue, for example in the recruitment of our incoming Principal and Vice Chancellor, with a survey and townhalls in May for colleagues to share thoughts on the attributes and abilities necessary to lead the University to inform the search. As part of the selection process, candidates also met with a focus group of staff and students who provided strong feedback in favour of the appointment of Professor Andy Schofield.
Career Pathways for Professional Services staff
Feedback from the Colleague Engagement surveys highlighted that Professional Services colleagues felt they didn’t have similar opportunities for career growth at the university as our academic colleagues do. In the 2022 survey, the question “I believe I have the opportunity for personal development and growth at the University” has less positive responses from Professional Services job families: Management, Professional and Administrative; Operational; and Technical and Specialist staff. In addition, the responses to the open text question “What do we most need to change?” noted a need for more career development and progression opportunities for PS colleagues.
In direct response to this feedback, this year saw the launch of the Career Framework portal, which while open to all colleagues, particularly aims to support Professional Services colleagues to identify their career aspirations, have meaningful career conversations, and plan their development based on UofG career pathways, all to support a fulfilling career at the University of Glasgow. The Portal provides a comprehensive suite of tools and resources to help Professional Services colleagues progress in their career.
Importantly, the Career Framework portal is just the beginning. We are committed to expanding and enhancing the illustrative career family pathways and further embedding career conversations into our existing processes. This ongoing work will help ensure that career development continues to be a priority and that all colleagues have the support they need to achieve their professional goals.
Strategic direction
Data from our Colleague Engagement Surveys can play a pivotal role in strategy development by providing valuable insights into the lived experience of our people. It enables data-driven decision-making and policy development and allows us to prioritise initiatives that address important staff concerns.
In 2023, data from the 2022 Colleague Engagement Survey question “I understand how my work contributes to the success of the University Strategy” has supported the planning of a series of engagement sessions with colleagues from across all four Colleges and University Services areas run by Professor Frank Coton, Senior Vice Principal and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic). These sessions covered how people feel the University is progressing towards the aims and objectives set out in the Strategy and have helped feed into the direction of travel for the University.
Our community is a core element of our current strategy and our focus on our people will remain as we go forward in developing our future strategy.
Internal communications
The Internal Communications team has made a number of changes to how communications are delivered to you based on feedback received in the Colleague Engagement survey. In response to feedback that it is helpful to have key messages delivered in a timely way, but to avoid overuse of email, we have switched from a longer fortnightly staff newsletter to an 'always on' style of publishing, where the Internal Communications Hub is updated often daily with news. This combined with the all-staff Bulletin emails means more regular, bitesize and timely provision of internal news.
The team has also been working on ensuring communications are being shared with colleagues for whom they are relevant, to respond to feedback from the survey that communications could be more personalised. We have changed our email distribution system, meaning that emails can be targeted to only relevant staff groups, meaning fewer all staff emails. The themes in the Internal Communications Hub also allow colleagues to view a selection of internal news stories most relevant to them.
Finally, survey feedback that colleagues like to hear about what’s happening across our community and to feel connected to colleagues from outside their immediate teams has informed the development of the UofG Community series highlighting different colleagues. Read some of the recent UofG Community stories.
Supporting colleagues with disabilities
Colleagues with disabilities highlighted that we could be doing more to support their health and wellbeing at work. We introduced a Reasonable Adjustments passport and a portal for disabled & neurodivergent colleagues which supports colleagues and managers to discuss, explore and implement reasonable adjustments to remove or overcome barriers.
Earlier actions from survey results
Commercial Services' offerings
Although it’s not the main focus of the survey, your feedback on parts of the University’s services has also been acted on. In the 2022 Colleague Engagement survey comments, some colleagues wrote about access to our Sport facilities under the question “What’s the best thing about working here?”. This feedback contributed to free 6 months’ membership of Sport being offered to all new employees of UofG.
Additionally, feedback from the survey on our catering units including pricing has been included in a piece of joint work between Commercial Services and the SRC to ensure there are lower cost options available (such as £2 soup, roll & butter from the JMS Hub Kitchen) and other offerings at different catering outlets across campus. This work is continuing, including developing the range of options at locations outside of Gilmorehill such as at the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability in Dumfries.
Colleagues can provide feedback directly to Commercial Services using the tablets available at catering outlets to share immediate feedback.
Wellbeing
In our 2021 colleague engagement survey your feedback told us that Wellbeing & Balance was one of the themes requiring further attention. While 45% of our colleagues reported “the University does enough to support my health and wellbeing at work”, this meant the remaining 55% of you were feeling less positive.
In response, and with further input from colleagues, we have created a Wellbeing strategy shaped by understanding what is important to our colleagues and what is expected in terms of wellbeing.
We have also developed a new online Health and Wellbeing Hub to bring all resources into one easily accessible central place. Accessible from the MyGlasgow Staff Portal, the Health and Wellbeing Hub provides colleagues with the information, resources and services to enhance their health and wellbeing and includes information and guidance for managers supporting the wellbeing of colleagues at work.
Living the University's values
In the 2021 survey, only 36% of colleagues agreed and nearly half of colleagues (45%) responded that they could neither agree nor disagree that “Colleagues truly live the University Values”. In response to this, more work has been done to make our organisational Values visible, and to embed them in our ways of working. Colleagues have been able to align their PDR objectives with up to two values as part of PDR, and this year’s cycle saw more information provided to support this alignment. Since the last survey, greater integration of the Values means they are now included as part of our recruitment processes, and we ask for demonstration of the Values being lived in awards nominations. The Values are also being made more visible around the University, such as being added to our login page and computer screen savers.
Work-life balance
In our 2018 survey, 49% of you expressed that you felt supported to have a good work life balance. In response, we’ve modernised our flexible working policy and have invested in technology platforms so that where possible, colleagues can work in a more flexible and agile manner. Moreover, our People First: Enabling New Ways of Working initiative continues and extends this work encouraging managers to engage their teams in dialogue about how best to make the most of the flexibility available.
Managing change
Also in 2018, only 22% reported that you felt change was managed effectively. Since then, new resources and training have been made available on managing change, and our Change Network is just one way where colleagues can get involved in the work of our Transformation team. By 2021, 45% of you felt the University managed change effectively.