I know staff wellbeing remains a priority and keeping to routine and some normality is going to be important for many of your staff. Will running a staff wellbeing survey now help?
You will have seen our Remote Working and Wellbeing Guide. This provides tips for staff to manage home working, when not supporting children remaining in school, and for leaders in managing from a distance. It also shares free technology that will help.
You and other school leaders are likely to be checking in on staff regularly to ask how they are given their new and uncertain situation. Will running a staff wellbeing survey now and when people are working remotely and in some form of isolation add to this with useful and useable feedback?
Schools we already work with or who had booked surveys prior to lockdown and to run during this term have made different decisions. Some have pushed back to carry out their survey once schools have re-opened, while others are taking the opportunity to seek feedback while so many staff are working from home. There is no right or wrong decision, though there are advantages to asking for anonymous feedback during this time.
Benefits to running your staff wellbeing survey now
- It provides a further opportunity for staff to feel they are being engaged and have even more of a voice.
- It will help increase understanding of how staff are feeling and responding to the current situation.
- It will help identify further areas of support you can give.
- It will give you the opportunity to seek and anonymously respond to comments that staff make and begin open conversations where needed. To share advice, address concerns, seek more information and ask for their solutions.
- Staff are spending more time at their laptop or with technology and are more likely to respond and share considered feedback.
- While school leaders remain incredibly busy, they may be able to create more proactive time to review results strategically and agree a plan of action.
The evidence created survey we use looks at the working environment and while the usual place of work has clearly changed for most people, it is just new and different.
While some survey questions may be less relevant, the overall survey remains highly valid and is an effective way of quickly and easily analysing feedback. Results will need to be viewed in the context of what is happening and we will provide remote support to do this with you.
In addition, because of the uniqueness of the current situation, we will run a second survey for you, at no added cost, when you are back in school and returning to a more normal way of operating. You may not need to do this, though it may provide added benefits and takes away any worries or risks you may feel about carrying out your survey now.
The survey also allows you to collect and respond to anonymous comments from staff – this is going to be incredibly valuable during lockdown, as you can continue with these conversations beyond the survey. This will give further and significant insight into staff feelings and behaviours.
To run your staff wellbeing survey you will simply need to register, agree a start date and provide your staff e-mail addresses – we will share how we keep data very secure. Once launched we recommend keeping it open for no longer than one week and expect a participation rate of at least 80%. We will share advice and information on how to achieve this.
The final part is to position the survey with staff and other than providing your staff e-mail addresses there is nothing more for you to do. We provide support for this too and below is a suggested message you can adapt (or you can write your own). We have included this in the article so you can use it if you run your own survey.
Suggested message to staff (click to open)
Dear
Your wellbeing is very important and I had already agreed we would run a recognised wellbeing survey with all staff during (last / the summer) term.
The current events have obviously brought significant change for all of us and I know how much you have had to do to adapt to new ways of working.
While it would be easy to postpone the survey until we return to school, we do not know when this will be, and your wellbeing remains a very high priority for me. We have put in place those things we think will help during this time and it will be really helpful to get your feedback on what is happening for you and what else we might do.
We have therefore decided to go ahead with the survey, even while the majority of staff are working remotely each day. The survey measures your working environment and although this has changed, it is still important to measure it. The survey is being run by Welbee, an external organisation with the right expertise to do this well. It is fully anonymous and once completed we will share the summary results with you.
Additionally, the survey will allow you to feedback comments and I would encourage you to take this opportunity to do so. I (and other leaders) will be able to respond to these comments if appropriate – this will also be anonymous and I will not know who the responses are being sent to. This is a very effective way for you to share any feelings, concerns, positive feedback and ideas.
The survey invitations will be sent directly from Welbee and will be in your inbox on the (insert survey start date). If you can’t see it, please check your spam folder. Taking part will only take 10 minutes and I’d be grateful if you would participate. Wellbeing and how people manage stress is subjective so don’t rely on others to feedback. The survey will remain open until the end of the day on (insert date)
If you have any questions about the survey then please let me know.
Thank you for your continuing support and work during what I know are challenging times for us all. Please look after yourself and stay safe.
Once the survey is closed you will have immediate access to the results through your on-line dashboard. This will give your scores, benchmarks, filtered results by staff role and time at school, comments, and much more. It also includes recommended actions to address any areas identified as well as strengths to celebrate.
You can see more on our home page of exactly what is included in a staff wellbeing survey..
If you would like advice about running a survey and why now might be a good time to do it then please get in touch.