Staff Survey and Engagement

People Insight were commissioned to undertake the survey to measure employees' attitudes and beliefs concerning employee engagement issue including the merger. The survey was completed on 13 December 2023 and achieved a 60% response rate, up 11% from 2022.

• St George's engagement score was 65%.
• The average London HEI engagement score is 64%.

Key performance indicators

The 5 most positive responses

% indicates where staff have strongly agreed or agreed

The 5 most negative responses

% indicates where staff have strongly agreed or agreed

3 areas most impacting engagement at St George's

Diversity and inclusion

People of all backgrounds are respected and valued at St George's.

Wellbeing

St Georeg's does enough to support my health and wellbeing in the flexible working environment.

Leadership

Senior leaders provide a clear vision of the overall direction of St George's.

Next steps

Now we have the Pulse Survey 2023 results:

• department and institutes will be considering their own results and creating local plans
• the results and feedback from our Pulse Survey will inform our actions and activities to support our People strategy. We will consider developmental capability and best practices in our approach
• St George's values the input of our staff as we continue to plan for the merger. We want to ensure employees feel listened to and supported, and that we will carefully consider concerns or suggestions raised by staff.

View an infographic presenting the results of the 2023 Pulse Survey (PDF).

St George’s Pulse Survey results infographic:

Pulse Survey 2022 Results (PDF)

Pulse Survey 2022 Engagement and themed headlines (PDF)

Pulse Survey 2022 George’s weekly 1 February 

St George’s workplace Pulse Survey 2022

We aim to make St George’s a great place to work and study for everyone and hope you will take time to offer your perspectives when the Pulse Survey 2022 launches in December (1 – 22 December).  You can contribute your views on St George’s through our short online survey.

As the term “pulse” suggests,  we  carry out this survey regularly to gain employees' views of the overall work environment. This pulse survey aims to give a snapshot view of St George’s as a workplace. Responses will inform actions to help improve our work environment, working practices and support us to continue to improve the employee experience. 

People Insightwill be working with us to deliver the Pulse Survey 2022 via their online platform.  They delivered our full staff survey in 2019 and our 2021 Pulse Survey and have been working with organisations helping them design effective employee experience programmes for over 15 years. Their experienced University team work with over 40+ HEIs.

What happened as result of your feedback in Pulse Survey 2021

St George’s looked at the feedback given last year about working practices and, as a result, departments now have more autonomy in agreeing flexible working patterns to meet the needs of their departments. 

We are continuing to work with feedback from staff about the PDR process and form as we move into the next PDR window (January – March 2023) to improve the quality of the experience. The aim is that the PDR is a forum to recognise staff’s contribution, potential and career development needs.

Staff feedback also helps us to deliver culture change at St George’s with regard to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). For example, Disability Confidence for Managers was added to our leadership and management EDI offer. This course aims to support line managers in understanding and improving disability access and inclusion to staff with impairments, long-term health conditions and neurodivergence.

Time to have your say

Pulse Survey 2022 will take 10 minutes to complete and covers the following areas:

• Working practices
• Leadership
• Diversity and inclusion
• Wellbeing
• Engagement.

The Pulse Survey 2022 results will help St George’s look how the university is changing, identify areas for improvement and benchmark ourselves against other universities. Having a good response rate gives us evidence that will help us prioritise next steps. HR and your department/institute will work together to communicate results and enable managers and teams to lead on actions for change.  Our survey partner, People Insight, will arrange for a tree to be planted for every survey response received.

St George’s Pulse Survey 2021 will be running from the 2 to 22 December.

We aim to make our university a great place to work and study for everyone and hope you will take a moment to offer your perspectives when the Pulse Survey 2021 launches on the 2 December. We want to understand your experience of working at St George’s, identify common challenges, take action based on your feedback, embed a listening culture and shape a better employee experience for all.

Actions in response to your feedback

This pulse survey will complement the comprehensive staff survey, most recently conducted in 2019, and the Covid-19 survey in summer 2020. The unique operating environment through the Covid-19 restrictions has prompted learning and reflections to improve the experiences of students and staff at St George’s. There has been a range of action in response to your feedback, against the background of the challenging circumstances of the last 18 months, which has included the following:

Flexible working: 

• The Future Ways of Working phase of our return to site has led to a new updated Flexible Working Policy.

Staff wellbeing and mental health

• Staff wellbeing and mental health resources and information are now signposted and accessible through the creation of the Staff wellbeing and mental health webpages for staff alongside the launch of the Mental Health First Aiders.

Equality, diversity and inclusion:

• The Race equality review workstreams collaborated to develop the Race equality review report and corresponding action plan and this is now being progressed by the Race Equality Action and Engagement Group (REAEG).
• The Talk and Transform workshops introduced in 2020 are allowing us all to progress race equality conversations and actions here at St George’s.
• Our Staff Equality Networks take an action focused approach to driving change at St George’s in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Direct feedback from staff with disabilities has informed the development of Disability Confidence for Managers training (launching Spring 2022).
• The Dignity at Work policy had been updated.
• The Fair Recruitment Specialist Initiative has provided a pool of staff volunteers who identify as being from a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background to join interview panels.

Professional development

• In the new PDR cycle, career conversations are being supported by the PDR forms and PDR guidance, as well as the PDR training.
• More staff from across the university community are now involved in leading and participating in committees and workstreams and leading staff networks.
• We are enabling the growth of mentoring opportunities through the PhD/Postdoc mentoring pilot, the Aurora mentoring programme, Public Engagement mentoring and continued participation in B-MEntor Professional, a cross-institutional mentoring scheme for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff in Professional Services.
• The Professional and Technical Support Services Working Group (PTSSWG) is supporting and engaging staff with knowledge sharing, workstreams and career progression.
• The HR Excellence in Research Award six year action plan demonstrates our long-term commitment to the career development and working conditions of researchers.
• Through participation in the Aurora Leadership programme run by Advance HE we continue our support in developing a pool of future female leaders in HE.
• The new Heads of Section appointments in the Research Institutes this year and academic promotions, as well as professional services promotions announced in September, demonstrate St George’s commitment to talent development and career progression.

Time to have your say

This Pulse Survey 2021 aims to give a snapshot view of St George’s as a workplace. The survey, which will take 10 minutes to complete covers a number of areas relating to your employment and experience at the university, including:

• working practices
• leadership
• diversity and inclusion
• wellbeing
• engagement.

The Pulse Survey 2021 results will help St George’s look at our strengths, make improvements where change is needed and benchmark ourselves against other universities. Having a good response rate gives us evidence that will help us prioritise next steps.

Survey Partner

People Insight will be working with us to deliver the Pulse Survey 2021 via their online platform. They delivered our full staff survey in 2019 and have been working with organisations to help them design effective employee experience programmes for over 14 years. Their experienced University team work with over 40+ HEIs. People Insight will also arrange for a tree to be planted for every survey response received, in collaboration with Eden Reforestation Projects.

The Pulse Survey 2021 results presentation

Pulse Survey 2021 results presentation slide deck (PowerPoint)

The results of Covid-19 check-in survey which took place in in late June and early July this year, which included both individual and team feedback, are in. The aim of this survey was to understand how staff feel about what is working well, concerns and realities or collect additional ideas to ensure St George’s actions and plans continue to be helpful and effective. Thank you to everyone who completed the questionnaire and we will continue to check-in to ensure staff feel that their views are being heard and considered as we move forward.

• Covid-19 Check-in Questionnaire results (PDF)

Have your say! St George’s Staff Survey launches December

St George’s staff survey will be open from 2^nd -20^th December 2019. It is your opportunity to tell us how you feel about working at St George’s, voice your opinion, and influence organisational improvements. The survey is open to all staff, including Joint Faculty staff employed by Kingston University.  St George’s will be working with a new company People Insight to deliver the staff survey via their online platform.

The survey results will help St George’s to recognise our strengths, make changes where needed and benchmark ourselves against other universities. Achieving a high response rate is key to prioritising next steps, and all staff are encouraged to take part. Further information on how to complete the survey will be sent at the end of November.

The Strategic Plan highlights that “Our ambitions will only be realised through our people, supported to fulfil their potential in a sustainable, collaborative and well-organised environment.” To achieve this, we recognise that effective staff engagement and development is vital to meeting our future goals and ambitions. The staff survey makes an essential contribution to this, and the development of a responsive, supportive and well managed institution.

What actions came out of the last staff survey?
St George’s last staff survey was in June 2016 followed by Pulse surveys in 2017 and 2018.  These provided valuable insights into staff views on a range of topics including culture, diversity and inclusion, leadership, staff development and engagement.

As a result of these St George’s has developed a number of staff development courses and organisational change projects. Examples include expanding our career development programme, including workshops on successful job applications, interview preparation and career resilience, and developing our wellbeing and mental health provision with Mental Health First Aid England over the last two years. We also commissioned the review of Personal Reviews (PRs) which will lead to further work in 2020 on improving PRs, and completed a mentoring review in 2018 which has led to the development of a new three year Mentoring and Coaching strategy (2018-2021).

To build on this positive work, take part in the 2019 staff survey and help make change happen. 

Engagement is “a workplace approach designed to ensure that employees are committed to their organisation’s goals and values, motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are able at the same time to enhance their own sense of wellbeing“
– Engage for Success.

David MacLeod says it “is about how we create the conditions in which employees offer more of their capability and potential“.

ORC International, the providers of St George’s 2016 staff survey, defines engagement as “say, stay, strive“:

• ‘Say’ refers to the pride and advocacy employees have for the organisation.
• Stay’ refers to the emotional commitment and attachment an individual feels toward the organisation.
• ‘Strive’ is about how motivated and inspired employees are to help the organisation achieve.

The main purpose of implementing a staff survey is to help us on our journey to make St George’s a really good place to work; where staff feel valued, as well as a genuine sense of pride and commitment.

Specifically, the data from the survey is assisting us to:

• assess current levels of staff engagement at St George’s
• identify key areas for action which will make a difference to the staff experience and St George’s services, including the student experience
• gather data to inform the development of St George’s behaviours and expectations of staff, as well as St George’s approach to recognising staff contribution.

Summary of results

• A total of 65% of staff took part in the survey (476 staff).
• 344 comments were left – approx. 72% of respondents.
• 69% of staff who responded are proud to work at St George’s.
• There were a high number of neutral responses.
• A number of employee experience themes emerged, including the future direction of St George’s, student experience, working together, people’s futures at St George’s, wellbeing and work/life balance, and communication.

Staff survey update

The Principal met with Sarita Godber, Director of HR and Organisational Development, to find out about the work happening following up on the staff survey in 2016. See the slides (PDF) from this presentation.

These surveys complement the comprehensive staff survey, last conducted in 2016, to give regular snapshots of views of St George’s as a workplace. Responses inform actions to help improve our work environment and practices.

The survey covers a number of areas relating to staff’s employment at the university:

• culture
• diversity and inclusion
• development
• leadership
• engagement.

The surveys are managed by an independent company, ORC International, and all responses are anonymous. Results of the surveys are shared with all staff in George’s Weekly and here on the website.

Survey results

The results are in for the workplace pulse survey which took place in June 2018. Just over a third of staff members (37%) took part. Your responses are helping to inform initiatives to improve our work environment, making the university a great place to work and study for everyone. Thank you to those who took part.

• Results of the workplace pulse survey #3

• Results of the workplace pulse survey #2

• Results of the workplace pulse survey #1.

The pulse focus groups took place in October and November 2017 to assess where St George’s is with regards to staff development and career progression following feedback in the first staff pulse survey.

The focus groups covered the following topics: 

• what St George’s does well and could to better in relation to staff development and continuous professional development (CPD)
• barriers to accessing staff development and CPD and to career progression
• approaches to support career progression and development at St George’s.

See the results of the workplace pulse survey focus groups.