Design of a bespoke employee engagement survey, tailored specifically to the university’s context and strategic objectives
Turning employee insight into meaningful action that strengthens engagement with the strategy
Creating a long-term benchmark for success
The challenge
A public university in the UK was embarking on a significant period of change, marked by the development and launch of a new multi-year strategy. The strategy introduced a renewed mission and vision, built around a set of clearly defined strategic pillars and supported by new organisational values.
Alongside this strategic shift, the university was implementing a series of transformation programmes designed to strengthen its future position. These initiatives included organisational restructuring and workforce reductions, creating uncertainty for many employees. At the same time, a newly appointed Vice-Chancellor and CEO had reshaped the executive leadership team, bringing in several new senior leaders to further accelerate the pace of change.
The university recognised the importance of understanding employee sentiment during this period and ensuring colleagues remained engaged, informed, and aligned to the new strategic direction.
The solution
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the employee experience, ENGAGE conducted a programme of interviews and focus groups with executive leaders, managers, and employees from across the university. This included employee representation from academic faculties, professional services, as well as trade union members, ensuring a broad range of perspectives were captured.
The qualitative insights gathered informed the design of a bespoke employee engagement survey, tailored specifically to the university’s context and strategic objectives. By incorporating the issues and themes raised by employees, the survey provided a meaningful and relevant assessment of engagement across the organisation.
Following survey completion, we undertook detailed analysis to identify the university’s key strengths, as well as the most critical areas for improvement. The findings highlighted the factors most likely to drive employee engagement and support successful delivery of the new strategy.
We worked closely with the Vice-Chancellor / CEO and the university leadership team – made up of executive leaders and local leaders from across the university – to discuss the survey insights in the room, provide advice and guidance as well as sharing best practice with them.
The insights generated formed the foundation of the university’s action planning process. To support ongoing use of the data, we also developed an interactive online reporting platform, enabling HR teams, leaders, and managers to explore results in detail, identify trends, and access insights relevant to their areas of responsibility.
The impact
The project provided the university with a clear, evidence-based understanding of employee engagement at a pivotal moment in its transformation journey.
The findings enabled leaders to prioritise targeted actions that would strengthen engagement with the new strategy while helping employees navigate a period of organisational change, restructuring, and workforce reductions.
The survey also established a robust baseline measure of employee engagement, creating a benchmark against which progress can be tracked over the coming years as the university’s strategic plans continue to be implemented.
Our client is a public university in the UK, employing approximately 1,500 people and serving more than 17,000 students. Its student community includes over 3,000 international students, reflecting a diverse and globally connected learning environment.
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