Report to Council Staff Opinion Survey

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Report to CouncilStaff Opinion Survey

• HR Director
• 6 March 2009

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Why we ran the survey

• The purpose of the survey was to
• Find out what really matters to staff, whats
  working well, and what we could do better.
• Identify changes we could make to improve staff
  satisfaction.
• Establish a baseline for future surveys to enable
  us to measure change over time.
• The 2008 staff survey was the first survey of all
  University
• staff since the 2001 organisational wellbeing
  survey, so it
• had been some time since the views of all staff
  had been
• sought in this way.

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• Response rates
• The overall response rate to the survey was 61
  response rates by job group are shown below

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• Key positive issues (taken from the Summary
  Report)
• Most respondents said that they are interested in
  the University, to them it is not just a
• job, and it is a good place to work (93) and
  that the University respects equally people of
• different nationality/ethnicity (95), religion
  (98) and sexual orientation (98).
• Most respondents felt that their Department
  delivers a good quality service to students and
• service users (90).
• Most respondents said that they enjoy their work
  (93) their work offers them the
• opportunity to use their abilities (88) and
  initiative (91) and that they are able to
  decide
• on their own how to go about doing their work
  (91).
• Most respondents have a clear understanding about
  their role within the University (89),
• and about the expected standards of performance
  (91) and behaviour (97).
• Most respondents said that their line
  manager/supervisor is approachable (90), open
  and
• honest with them (87), respects and values them
  (87), is available when needed (82),
• and supportive in a personal crisis (90). They
  also felt that they had sufficient authority to
• make decisions (85).
• Most respondents feel that the University offers
  access to good pension schemes (96), and
• think that holiday entitlement (93) and the
  sick pay scheme are good (95).

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• Key areas for improvement (taken from the Summary
  Report)
• Many respondents feel that more could be done to
  help them prepare for and cope with
• change (74).
• Many respondents feel that different parts of the
  University do not communicate effectively
• with each other (65) and that communication
  between senior management and staff is
• ineffective (48). Many also felt that
  co-operation between Departments is not good
  (56).
• Many respondents said that their development
  opportunities have not helped them do their
• job more effectively (55), that there are
  limited opportunities for them for career
• progression in the University (38) and that
  more could be done to retain the Universitys
• most talented people (52).
• Many respondents feel that they have had to put
  in a lot of extra time over the last 12
• months to meet the demands of their workload
  (56), and they do not have time to carry out
• all their work (49). Many also felt that too
  many approvals are needed for routine decisions
• and that they are required to do unimportant
  tasks which prevent them from completing more
• important ones (45).

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• To Summarise
• Key Positive Issues
• Job satisfaction
• Diversity and equality
• Quality of service
• My role
• My immediate manager/supervisor
• Benefits (holiday, pensions, sick pay)
• Key Areas for Improvement
• Workload and work demands
• Managing change
• Communication between departments
• Staff development and career progression

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• Process from receipt of results through to
  production of action plans
• A Steering Group was set up to oversee the
  process for developing action plans at
• two levels
• a) Strategic level action plans
• A subgroup of SMG was set up to address those
  strategic issues, which affect the University as
  a whole, which emerged from the staff survey
  results. This group is developing an action plan
  which will be available shortly.
• Functional action plans
• On receipt of the summary report, we
  identified members of staff who were leading on
  each of the functional areas in the survey (i.e.
  Diversity and Equality, Work Related stress,
  etc). A number of meetings of the functional
  leads were held during Summer 2008 to discuss the
  formulation of action plans and any overlaps
  between areas. Functional action plans were then
  developed, and reviewed by the Employee
  Engagement Steering Group in December 2008. The
  plans are now being finalised, following feedback
  from the Steering Group, and will be available
  shortly to all staff.

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• Process from receipt of results through to
  production of action plans
• continued
• b) Departmental action plans
• Departments with more than ten survey respondents
  received a departmental report during
  October/November 2008, following briefings to
  HoDs on departmental action planning in Sept/Oct
  08. Smaller departments were not able to receive
  a report for reasons of preserving anonymity.
  Having received their report, departments were
  asked to produce an action plan to address the
  key issues raised by the survey for that
  department. HoDs consulted with staff and in
  some departments focus groups, facilitated by
  Professional Organisational Development, were
  held. The deadline for departmental action plans
  was 13 February 2009, and the Employee Engagement
  Steering Group will review the plans in April
  2009.

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• Some examples of actions included in the
  Functional Action Plans
• 1. Leadership
• improve leadership capability through provision
  of in-house leadership programmes (currently
  being piloted)
• provide bite-size sessions for managers on a
  range of topics, to encourage the sharing of best
  practice
• 2. Communications
• Improve knowledge of the work of SMG, by
  revamping the SMG web pages, holding QA sessions
  with SMG members open for all staff to attend,
  making summaries of discussions available and
  publishing profiles of SMG in the University
  Magazine.
• Improve communications between departments, by,
  for example, sharing best practice via internal
  communications between HoDs

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• 3. Harassment Bullying
• Review of the Harassment Policy
• Review the publicity materials relating to
  sources of support and
• advice for staff experiencing bullying and
  harassment
• Review of the provision of training on dealing
  with harassment and bullying
• 4. Performance Review
• Review the effectiveness of the current
  performance review process
• Review and expand the current performance review
  training programmes

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• 5. Staff Development
• Induction review induction processes with a view
  to ensuring that all staff have clarity about the
  requirements of their roles
• Development needs provide clearly defined aims,
  outcomes and suitability descriptions for all
  development programmes and activities, to ensure
  that staff access the right intervention to meet
  their development need.
• 6. Rewards
• Introduce voluntary benefits for staff (Reward
  Extra) implemented
• Introduce generic role profiles and career
  pathways for support staff to facilitate career
  progression

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• 7. Work Life Balance
• Introduce a revised policy on flexible working,
  extending the right to request flexible working
  to all staff.
• Introduce a policy on home and remote working, as
  part of the flexible working options available to
  staff
• Further work is being undertaken on the following
  action plans
• Physical Environment (Keith Lilley, Director of
  Facilities Management)
• Health, Safety and Welfare, and Work-related
  Stress (Tom Fleming, Director of Health and
  Safety)
• These action plans will be made available as soon
  as they are complete.

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• Staff Survey Web address
• Further information on the staff survey is
  available from
• www.york.ac.uk/staffsurvey
• Staff Survey Summary Report address
• http//www.york.ac.uk/admin/hr/staffsurvey/documen
  ts/
• summary_report.pdf