The insights and actions from Gloucestershire College’s survey are leading to improved employee well-being and enhanced colleague collaboration, connection and belonging.
In a commendable move to create a happier and even higher-performing workplace culture following two years of pandemic-related disruption, Gloucestershire College is determinedly focussing on the future. The Little Survey Company explored staff views of working at the College to discover where improvements can be made to ensure everyone thrives.
Carly Rosser-Mayo, Director of HR said:
"The Little Survey Company worked with the College on our staff survey this year, helping us explore the views of staff. Anna and Amanda were very professional and a pleasure to work with. They helped us gain some valuable insight into improvements that could be made at the College to enhance staff well-being and engagement. We look forward to working with the Little Survey Company again in the future."
With a mission to provide students with the skills, qualifications and support to achieve their career aspirations; and local employers with the technically and professionally skilled candidates to meet their growth plans, the dedicated staff at Gloucestershire College face a variety of challenges on returning to a new normal after the pandemic.
Like many large employers, the College is feeling the workforce impact of the pandemic and the pressures of the recent increases in the cost of living, which are particularly acute due to the restrictions of nationally driven public sector pay scales. Within this wider economic context, the Executive Team continue to focus upon employee support and engagement as part of the overarching strategic plans.
The Executive Team recognised it would be valuable to gather and listen to honest staff feedback and bring contributions from the whole College together to develop new ways of working to meet the shared goals. They chose to use an external, objective company who could guarantee that feedback would be managed with absolute confidentiality.
The Little Survey Company developed a bespoke survey to reveal staff views about their experience of working at Gloucestershire College; exploring what was working well, where there was room for improvement and what mattered most to the people who are the College.
There was an enthusiastic response to the survey, with a high volume of thoughtfully composed free text responses reporting a highly-engaged culture built around meaningful, rewarding work and strong, supportive working relationships.
Alongside the multitude of positives, several actionable themes emerged from our analysis of the comments. These insights enabled the Executive Team to make visible,
people-focused changes, impacting upon employee well-being, college-wide collaboration and both personal and organisational long-term success.
The Executive Team benefited from this reliable data to inform their decisions around where to focus limited resources for the greatest return on investment in terms of boosting employee well-being, engagement and retention, and ultimately improving organisational performance.
Gloucestershire College is a publicly funded, further and higher education college, catering primarily for the 16–18 age group. It also offers higher education up to foundation degree level, NVQ Level 4 and higher apprenticeships. There are approximately 4,000 full-time and 10,000 part-time students enrolled at Gloucestershire College, and a staff of approximately 730. The College vision is to provide learning that works; to transform lives and support business.
