Staff invited to share their experience of working for Imperial

Launching today, the 2017 Staff Survey provides an opportunity for all staff to contribute their views.

The College has appointed a leading external provider, ORC International, to deliver the survey and provide analysis of the results. All staff responses will be confidential and no one at Imperial will have access to individual answers.

Through the survey, Imperial plans to build on its commitment to being an outstanding place to work. This commitment is core to the College Strategy, and integral to maintaining and growing Imperial’s position in the world.

The results of the survey will be used to develop action plans to address the points raised, which will be shared with staff in August 2017. The College and departments are committed to implementing these action plans by February 2018.

Writing to staff today, Professor James Stirling, Imperial’s Provost, said: “Over the past few years, the College has introduced a number of initiatives and additional support options specifically for staff.

“But we can and should be doing even more to help and support our staff. To help plan future initiatives we need to hear from the staff community – from you. It doesn’t matter how long you have worked here, or where you work, or what job you do – your views are equally important to us.”

Below, we hear from managers in a few areas of the College about what they are hoping to achieve through the Staff Survey: 

Kelly Swaby, Campus Services Integration and Development Manager

I’m especially keen to hear what staff feel about our training and development provision, and whether it meets their needs. I’ll be involved in following up any feedback relating to this and team engagement for my division. 

We really do want to hear what people actually think – we can only look to improve if people tell us what they think and feel.

The staff survey is confidential, so this is an opportunity to share things that you might not otherwise.

People can often feel their voice isn’t heard – the staff survey is your opportunity to be heard.

Jon Tucker, Faculty Operating Officer for the Business School

I’m a keen supporter of the whole concept of asking all staff to speak up on what matters to them.

My experience of staff surveys both here at Imperial and in other sectors has convinced me they’re an extremely valuable tool to help a successful organisation understand what is important to people and to take action. Results will be available much faster this time and we’ll be using them to make a difference.

Completion rate is a very significant factor for a staff survey to influence an organisation. The more people speak up, the more impact the survey will have. The survey is totally confidential and I ask everyone to take part – if it matters to you, please say it.

Wendy Gould, Deputy Faculty Operations Officer for the Faculty of Medicine, and Chair of the Faculty's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee

As a faculty, we are very large and disparate, spread across multiple campuses. This means that it can be difficult for us to identify areas of both good practice and pockets of weakness.

We would like to encourage everyone to respond to the survey – we need people to be truthful and honest with us. We can’t begin to effect change without people making their voice heard. 

Since the last staff survey, we’ve made changes in a number of areas. We have standardised the recruitment shortlisting process for academic posts, and all of the faculty’s key senior management have been on unconscious bias training. We are  committed to achieving gender balance on our key faculty decision-making committees. We have launched the Faculty ‘Have your say’ initiative providing a conduit by which our staff can voice their opinions. Fifty-five Mental Health First Aiders have been trained to help support the College’s commitment to promoting good mental health.

We very much want to celebrate areas that are doing well, where staff feel supported and able to excel – but we also want to tackle areas where staff are less positive about their experience of working for the College.