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The actions plans which have been created in response to the results of the second staff pulse survey of 2021 (from 28 September to 19 October) are now available to view.

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

Since then The University Leadership Team (ULT – which consists of the University Executive Group (UEG), Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellors, Heads of School and Divisional Directors) have reviewed the findings from the survey.

This feedback has now been turned into institutional and local level action plans, to help guide UEG to prioritise university-wide actions as well as to identify actions to improve UEG itself. Local teams within Schools and Divisions were given additional results from the staff survey specifically for their own areas, allowing leaders and managers to act on what people are saying and make improvements based on the results. They were also asked to make recommendations for key institutional actions.

UEG recognises that there is a pressing need to understand and improve levels of trust across the University, particularly trust in UEG and its members. UEG will be focusing on this issue as part of upcoming strategy days and an action plan will be developed and shared with all staff. This process will be aligned to Inclusive Sussex and Sussex’s People Strategy. However, it is clear that key actions will include making improvements to UEG communications and the transparency of decision-making and taking forward UEG members’ commitments to antiracism.

The local School/division actions also identify a wide range of priorities across the institution in relation to staff development, wellbeing, workload, equalities, and more. You can read all the action plans in full.

Institutional action has already been taken as a result of previous surveys, which includes:

• In response to an identified need to address reports of bullying and harassment, a report and support tool was launched in August 2021 and is enabling responses to cases – this continues as part of the University’s commitment to promoting an inclusive culture at Sussex and addressing unacceptable behaviours.
• Interim Vice-Chancellor David Maguire and Provost Rachel Mills met with all Sussex academic Schools in response to a need for UEG have better visibility and to increase transparency of UEG decision-making and so that staff understand how and why decisions are taken.
• Online information about UEG has been updated and expanded, Sussex’s first PVC Culture, Equalities and Inclusion David Ruebain was appointed and headlines of UEG business was included in selected ‘View from the VC’ emails to all staff.
• The external Governance Effectiveness Review report by Senate and Council has been endorsed.
• A number of Open Forums and ‘Town Hall’ events for staff have been held.

Head of School for Psychology and academic lead for the staff survey, Professor Robin Banerjee, said: “Thank you to everyone who took the time to provide valuable insights into how we can make Sussex a better working environment.

“We need to know what matters most to our staff, to give us clear priorities to work on. Your views are driving the actions for which UEG and ULT can be held to account.

“We know we have more to do on improving transparency of decision-making and how we communicate with our staff, but there is a real commitment to work on changing that.

“Our surveys are also critical to our equalities work, helping us to make measurable improvements in addressing any existing inequalities.”

Director of Human Resources (HR) Siobhan O’Reilly said: “We didn’t hear from as many people this time as we would have liked. While we can draw our own conclusions as to why not as many people took part as we had hoped, it would be good for us to understand this in a bit more detail. As this this is an opportunity to steer the future direction on initiatives at the University, we are keen to learn more about how we can best engage staff members in sharing their views.”

Progress on action plans will be monitored by the People, Culture, and Inclusion Committee, by UEG, and by each School and Division. Outcomes and priorities from the staff survey are being reviewed by Strategic Performance and Resources Committee (SPRC).

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