University College of Estate Management (UCEM) senior leadership are highly committed to listening to employees and taking action and have developed a six-monthly survey rhythm to achieve this.
University College of Estate Management (UCEM) began surveying their employees in 2013. Initially, the organisation used the Gallup Q12 format and conducted their surveys in-house. UCEM found that this approach was very demanding work wise for their team and decided to outsource the survey process.
Working with Agenda Consulting as their survey partner enables UCEM to:
UCEM’s survey approach is driven by their senior leaders’ commitment to gathering feedback and acting on it, wherever possible.
Employee engagement is a key metric on UCEM’s organisational performance dashboard. This helps to keep employee engagement high profile and means that progress and plans are regularly discussed at a senior level.
On top of their survey programme, UCEM uses further initiatives to capture employee voice and ensure that employees are consulted as part of decision making.
UCEM runs their pulse surveys in June and November each year. This fits well with the rhythms of the academic year, catching staff at a time when they are in-between academic and other activities.
Running two pulse surveys per year allows UCEM to:
For UCEM, it is vital that they show their employees that they are listening by linking their employee survey results with organisational plans.
When the survey results are reported, UCEM:
Actions taken are clearly communicated in a “you said, we did” structure, so as to be as transparent as possible for employees.
To have an engaged workforce means to have a happy, healthy environment where people enjoy coming to work. If our employees are happy and doing a great job, then our students will have the best experience that they can studying with UCEM. That’s what it’s all about.
