Anonymity and other questions

Is Welbee really anonymous?
For Welbee Wellbeing
All responses are anonymous from your employer and cannot be identified by them, your leaders or colleagues.

We have designed our tools to give the best feedback while ensuring that individuals will not be identified unless they choose to identify themselves – we clearly signpost this for staff members providing feedback.

Although we do collect information on such things as job role (for example Teaching or Support staff) and time at school, this information is only reported when five or more staff members within that group take the survey. 

As a result, when looking at any area, it will not be possible to know any individual score. However, sharing more specific scores where sufficient staff have participated means school will be able to target any action to the right areas to better support their staff and reduce workload or wasted effort.

If insufficient staff from within any group take part then this score is simply not reported – the scores will still be part of the total score for all staff.

When leaving written feedback to the two questions that allow you to make comments, you should not identify yourself or others. Your school leadership team will be able to reply to any comments you make, if they choose to, though they will not know who they are writing to. Your anonymity will always be protected and it is one of the main reasons why using a third party to carry out your school survey should give you confidence that you can provide meaningful feedback.

The ability to respond to comments is important. It allows leaders to find out more information if needed, giving you an even greater voice and also means those who need it are likely to get better support. Remember that if you do receive a reply, the message has been sent to you without any knowledge of who will be receiving it. All that is known is it is going to a staff member and you have the choice whether or not you want to respond.

This is an anonymous two way conversation tool and allows you to give direct and anonymous feedback on specific questions or topics asked. Smaller groups of staff, as well as all staff, can be invited to take part and it is like a email conversation, without the leadership team knowing who is responding. 

When creating a conversation, there will always be at least eight people included, and it will not be possible to identify you. As for survey comments, you should ensure you do not identify yourself unless it is your choice to do so.

For Welbee Insights Surveys launched by Welbee Insights (surveys other than the Wlebee wellbeing surveys) surveys are by default anonymous, and the same protections apply as outlined above. Your employer can choose to run a non-anonymous survey, but if this is the case, they will communicate this to you. If you would like to know more or have any further questions on anonymity, please email support@welbee.co.uk Thank you.
Welbee Wellbeing helps school and MAT leaders to measure and systematically improve staff wellbeing using an evidence based approach.

In using Welbee they are indicating their desire and willingness to help create an environment where everyone is able to do their best work, They would like to identify those areas, that if tackled and supported, will have the biggest impact.

Improving your and other staff wellbeing is everyone’s business and senior leaders are also staff, whose wellbeing also needs to be looked after. By using Welbee your school will have the information that will help you all to do this.

Schools and trusts use Welbee Insights to get feedback from Staff, Students and Parents to help them make data-informed decisions.

One evidence based approach that can be adopted in measuring and improving staff wellbeing is to use the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards. This is the approach we recommend and that we use to underpin the staff wellbeing survey provided, together with the reporting of results.

These standards can be used to define the characteristics and culture of a school, where the risks from work related stress and poor staff wellbeing are being effectively managed and controlled. These cover the six key areas of work design, that if not properly managed, are associated with poor health and wellbeing, lower productivity, increased sickness absence and lower staff retention. By measuring your and other staff’s responses against these, you can determine how staff view their working environment and take action, where required, to improve it.

The six Management Standards are:

Demands – this includes anything that places a demand on a staff member, such as workload, work patterns, working hours, deadlines, their timetable, the time given for them to complete tasks, and the behaviour of students, colleagues and leaders.

Control – this is the level of autonomy a staff member feels they have, including; the say they have over what they do at work; how they do their work; the level of choice they have over what to do when taking a break; and the level of flexibility available to them.

Support – this includes the encouragement, sponsorship and resources they receive or have access to and are provided by the school, line management and colleagues.

Relationships – this includes the extent to which staff behaviour is appropriate, how well positive working is promoted to avoid conflict and how effectively and quickly unacceptable behaviour is dealt with.

Role – this includes how well people understand their role, what is expected of them, how it fits with the role of their department or function and the overall aim of the school and whether leaders ensure they do not have conflicting roles.

Change – how changes at school (large or small) are managed and communicated to all staff and stakeholders, including effective consultation and whether opportunities are given for staff to question leaders.

These Management Standards represent a set of conditions, that if present, are likely to reflect a high level of staff wellbeing and school performance.

The staff wellbeing survey you are undertaking is a key part of these standards. It allows your school or MAT to better understand the current working environment and take the necessary steps to improve it where necessary.

It is evidence built, independently evaluated for its psychometric qualities and recognised in the DfE’s Education Staff Wellbeing Charter (supporting information).
We have included questions above that we most typically receive. If you need further information about any of these or have different questions, please email us at support@welbee.co.uk. Thank you