The first of this year’s staff pulse survey ran from Monday 25 January to Friday 12 February 2021.

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

The findings from the survey help leaders and managers to understand what matters most in their local areas, and importantly guide UEG to prioritise institutional level actions as well as to identify actions to improve UEG itself.

During March, The University Leadership Team (ULT – which consists of the University Executive Group (UEG), Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellors, Heads of School and Divisional Directors) received the institutional-level staff survey results. Local teams within Schools and Divisions were then given additional results from the staff survey specifically for their own areas and had time to engage with this feedback in order to decide on their local actions. They were also asked to make recommendations for key institutional actions.

These have now been turned into institutional and local level priorities and action plans, so that we can make improvements based on the results.

The institutional priorities are to:   

• Increase the visibility and profile of UEG across the institution
• Increase the transparency of UEG decision-making
• Address reports of bullying and harassment

The agreed institutional actions, incorporating key actions for UEG itself, are therefore:

• UEG members will attend school and PS divisional meetings to listen, respond to questions, and clarify the Executive’s role in the institution.
• Online information about UEG will be improved, including its membership and role within the formal governance of the University.
• A regular headline summary of UEG business will be published in weekly communication to all staff.
• We will introduce an anonymous online report and support tool to assist with rapidly responding to instances of bullying, harassment, and any other unacceptable behaviour within our community.

You can read more detail about the UEG & Institution-wide Action Plan and local action plans at School and Divisional level.

Work has already begun on putting some of these institutional actions in place, including preparing a plan for increased UEG visibility and transparency, and we are launching a new report and support tool in time for the start of the next academic year.

Head of School for Psychology and academic lead for the staff survey, Professor Robin Banerjee, said: “We have really appreciated the time taken by staff to provide valuable insights into how we can make Sussex a better working environment for us all.  We now have clear priorities to work on, which reflect the key concerns that people have told us matter most to them.

“The report and support tool will mean we can gain a better understanding of bullying and harassment, which in turn will help us to take meaningful steps to reduce incidents.

“We are also looking at how we can ensure that UEG have better visibility within the institution and that staff understand how and why decisions are taken.  We know we have to do much better to build trust and arrive at a shared understanding of the complex issues facing higher education and Sussex specifically. We, UEG, are taking the feedback about effective leadership and trust very seriously and we will be working on a longer term action plan aimed at building trust in the effectiveness of the leadership over time.”

Director of Human Resources (HR) Siobhan O’Reilly said: “I believe these are important and realistic goals which we can make significant progress on before our next pulse survey in September.

“These surveys are vital to our equalities work, helping us to make measurable improvements in addressing any existing inequalities. We are also going to be recruiting more dignity and respect champions, so we have increased representation of our staff, which will also support the reporting of bullying and harassment.”

Nearly half (48%) of our target audience, more than 2,000 members, 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.

Siobhan added: “I hope in the next survey we will be able to hear feedback from more of our people and gain even more comprehensive insights to inform our action plans. It ensures that the staff survey produces not just words, but actions for which UEG can be held to account.”

Progress in relation to our action plans will be monitored by the People, Culture, and Inclusion Committee, by UEG, and by each School and Division.