Inform staff
Overview:
This page provides guidance on letting staff know about your upcoming survey and achieving a high participation rate. Your goal is to gather and act on valuable data, and the higher the participation, the more effective this is likely to be.
Obtaining a high response rate helps ensure your results correctly reflect the situation across your trust or school.
Target Response Rate:
- 50% or below: Data is considered indicative and should be interpreted cautiously.
- Over 50%: Adequate response rate.
- Over 60%: Desirable response rate.
- Over 70%: Good response rate.
- Over 80%: Very good response rate and what you should aim to achieve.
The Importance of Clear Communication:
Effective communication is important in securing a good response rate. By clearly explaining the survey's purpose, importance, and participation process to all your staff, you'll encourage their involvement.
Communication Channels:
There are different channels you can use and below are some suggestions:
- Emails: Send an engaging email outlining the survey's purpose, significance, and participation details, including clear instructions (an example message is shown below). You can add your own voice and context. Working back from the launch date you might send this out two weeks before, having already mentioned this is coming in meetings or newsletters as a headline. You can follow up with brief reminders and headlines - for example the week and day before.
- Staff Briefings: Include opportunities in meetings or briefings to promote and discuss the survey. Address questions and any concerns, emphasising its importance and encouraging participation.
- Line Managers: Ask line managers to check in on launch day and to continue to encourage their team to take part.
- Posters: Use a poster to highlight the survey, displaying them in high-traffic areas (a poster you can download is included in this guide, at the bottom of this page).
- Other Trust / School Communication and Literature: Incorporate survey information into existing communications, newsletters, intranet sites, or handbooks, etc. This will promote a wider awareness and understanding.
Maximising Participation:
By using these communication methods together, you increase the chances of a higher response rate. Here are some additional tips:
- Emphasise the importance of staff feedback. Highlight how much you value their input and how it will contribute to improving the workplace.
- Guarantee anonymity. Assure staff that their responses are confidential and won't be linked to any individual.
- Explain what you will do afterwards. You should let staff know you will share results (at least in headline) and involve them in taking action (which you do then need to do).
- Make the survey accessible where possible. Offer participation during work time, and with clear instructions - for example give 15 minutes during a staff meeting (the survey will take around 10 minutes for most people and you should allow a little longer). Do this within the meeting, rather than finishing early and giving time at the end - staff are more likely to put off participating and do other work, compared with if you break off and come back together afterwards. The survey can be taken on any device.
- Provide a timeframe. Set a deadline for completing the survey to encourage timely participation.
- Express gratitude. Thank staff for their time and contribution.
You can find staff FAQs at this link - https://welbee.co.uk/staff-questions (this page addresses anonymity and other frequently asked questions).
Example Email To Use:
(Adapt the message with your voice and context as needed)
Dear [Colleague],
[School/Trust Name] is committed to protecting the health, safety and welfare of all staff and we acknowledge the importance of wellbeing and tackling the causes of stress in our workplace.
We would like your support in undertaking a staff survey, which is designed to find out how you feel about various aspects of our working conditions. We are asking you and your colleagues to take part, so we can be sure we are doing all we can to make this a better place to work. The survey is anonymous and the questions asked do not allow for any individual to be identified.
We have asked an expert third party, Welbee (welbee.co.uk) to run the survey for us.
You will receive an invitation from them with a link to allow you to take the survey online. You can use any device and please complete it as soon as you can (or enter details of the survey launch date or a time for them to take it at work) and before (enter date). If you are unable to see the survey invitation after launch, please check your spam/junk folder (delete one as appropriate).
Once the survey responses have been collated, summary results will be shared with you, and we will work with you to deliver appropriate action.
Please take the time to complete the survey. It will provide an indication of how well we are performing and where there may be opportunities for us to improve. Don’t rely on others to provide feedback, as wellbeing and stress is subjective and can affect people in different ways.
The survey should take around 10 minutes to complete. For each question click on the answer that most accurately reflects how you feel - think about the last six months, rather than any one-off event. There is also the opportunity for you to share comments about what you think is going well and how we might improve.
If you have any questions, please contact [enter contact name/phone number].
Thank you for participating.
Poster
⬇️ Click below to download a poster to promote the survey. Either choose from the independent or maintained sector.
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