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UCL Staff Survey 2017: Time for Action

By Benjamin Meunier, on 19 February 2018

The Staff Survey results are in! What happens next?

The Provost and Nigel Titchener-Hooker, the SMT Staff Survey Champion, hosted a Town Hall meeting for UCL staff on 13 February, where the high-level results of the Staff Survey were presented for UCL as a whole. The Provost identified 5 UCL priorities based on the survey:

  • Improve the physical environment
  • Performance Management
  • Workplace stress and Wellbeing
  • Aligning UCL 2034
  • Bullying / Sexual Harassment

Within Library Services, we had a 63% response rate, which is slightly higher than the UCL average, so I would like to thank all of you who took the time to complete the questionnaire. Only 31% of respondents believe that action will be taken on the survey (-12% compared with UCL as a whole), so there is work to do to ensure that we respond to the issues which emerge from this survey’s results… You can view the full set of scores for Library Services in the “How we’re doing” section on LibNet.

What happens next?

In order to make change happen, we have our Staff Survey Action Group, whose first meeting immediately followed the Town Hall. In our meeting, we tried to identify the main areas for improvement in Library Services, which will form the core of our Action Plan. We are also looking at areas to investigate and also areas of good practice to celebrate.

These are the key areas which we will be exploring as a group, to identify specific actions we can take to improve Library Services:

Areas for improvement

  • Leadership and Staff Engagement
  • Bullying and Harassment
  • Communication
  • Working environment
  • Management / Appraisals
  • Career development

 Areas for further investigation:

  • Low sense of work objectives being aligned to those of UCL
  • Low levels of being encouraged to show initiative and being proactive
  • Pay levels in comparison with similar roles in other organisations
  • Stress and impact on wellbeing

Areas identified for celebration:

  • Understanding how work contributes to the success of the department and of UCL
  • Sharing ideas to improve things
  • Freedom to work in a way that suits, and not needing to work excessive hours
  • Constructive feedback received between appraisals
  • Awareness of UCL’s benefits for staff and support for wellbeing issues / stress

The Action Plan is a formal document, which will need to be signed off by the Library SMT and will then be sent to UCL HR in late March, so that departments’ progress in implementing action plans can be monitored centrally. If you would like to share suggestions for actions, or have any queries about the Staff Survey results, please contact me or one of the members of the Library Services Staff Survey Action Group. Once they are approved, we will also share the Action Plan and the minutes of the Staff Survey Action Group meetings on LibNet (see links above).

For more information, and to watch a video recording of the Staff Survey Town Hall meeting, you can visit the UCL Staff Survey 2017 webpage.

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