Our 2021 staff survey closed last week (12 February) and now People Insights, the third-party provider who ran the survey, is collating the data so we can begin work on developing action plans.

The survey ran from Monday 25 January 2021 to Friday 12 February 2021 and 48% of our target audience completed the confidential survey, which is in line with completion rates at other universities, and slightly above the response rate from the last survey in 2018.

Staff were encouraged to give an honest opinion of working at Sussex and share what they think could be done differently or better.

Although the response rate is lower than we would like, and the results of course cannot be assumed to represent the views of all staff, it is encouraging that over 2,000 members of staff have taken the opportunity to share their views. 

The next stage is to translate the results into meaningful action plans – both at local and institutional level – so that we can make improvements based on the results.

The next key dates are:

• Week beginning 8 March:  The University Leadership Team (ULT – which consists of the University Executive Group, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellors, Heads of School and Divisional Directors) will receive the institutional-level staff survey results, which will have already been carefully scrutinised and redacted where appropriate to ensure that they cannot be linked to individuals or small groups (< 10) of staff.
  
  
• Week beginning 15 March: The main findings from the survey will be shared with all staff. Heads of School and Divisional Directors will then share their local results with teams for discussion and local action planning. Local teams will also be asked to suggest institutional level priorities. Schools and Divisions will then be given a month to decide on their own local actions and also agree on feedback they want to give for institutional actions. This process will include specific consideration of the representativeness of the sample within each School and PS Division.
  
  
• Week beginning 3 May: University-level action plans will be shared with all staff. School and Divisions will also share their agreed local plans at that time.

Head of School for Psychology and academic lead for the staff survey, Professor Robin Banerjee, said: “Hearing from staff in this confidential way gives us all valuable insight into people’s experience of what it’s like to work here. This is particularly important as we continue to live and work through the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Now that we are running short pulse surveys twice a year, we will be able to hear more regularly from staff, enabling us to respond to issues as they emerge.

“The findings from staff surveys are also vital to our equalities work, helping us to develop our equalities action plans and make measurable improvements in addressing any existing inequalities.”

Director of Human Resources (HR) Siobhan O’Reilly said: “I’m pleased we have heard from more than 2,000 of our colleagues. This feedback is invaluable.

“We need to be able to provide this confidential way for staff to let us know what it feels like to work here at Sussex. It helps leaders and managers to understand what matters most to our staff. I hope next time we will be able to hear feedback from a greater proportion of our staff, and in that way gain even more comprehensive insights to inform our action plans.  

Progress of work with the staff survey will be monitored by the People, Culture, and Inclusion Committee and by the University’s Executive Group.

You can find out more about the staff survey.