FAQs

Employee engagement has many definitions but in general it refers to the connection colleagues feel with their jobs and the organisation they are part of. This survey focuses on five key themes of engagement: purpose (do you know the mission of the University and do you feel you contribute to it’s success through the work you do); enablement (have you got the tools and resources you need to do your job well); autonomy (do you feel you have some freedom in what you do and how you do it); reward and recognition (do you feel valued and recognised for your contribution) and leadership (how do you feel about leadership and management).  

By asking a range of questions across these themes, our survey aims to help identify where things are working well and where things could be better. 

Find out more at: www.engageforsuccess.org 

One way of measuring engagement is by carrying out a survey like this one. By asking a range of questions about the things that really influence your experience, we hope to find out more about what is working well and where there’s room to improve.  This survey complements our other colleague surveys, like our joiner, one year and leavers surveys and pulse surveys like the wellbeing survey carried out in April 2024.  Surveys can provide a useful snapshot in time and we hope the findings of this survey gives the opportunity for teams to have further conversations about the findings and action plans.  For example, if a particular issue becomes clear you may wish to carry out focus groups or further conversations about what’s going on and how to address it.  Your People, Talent Development and EDI Partners can all advise on how best to go about this. 

People Insight are employee engagement specialists. We have asked them to conduct the survey on our behalf.  They have extensive experience in running employee surveys with other organisations across the UK and internationally and currently work with 15 Russell Group universities.  They provide advice and insight to help shape our survey questions and carry out analysis of the responses, providing an online results and action planning dashboard to a range of colleagues across our University. 

Yes. Participating in the survey allows you to express your opinions and help make a difference in your workplace. We really hope you will complete it. 

The survey will take approximately 5 - 10 minutes to complete. There are instructions on how to take part and you simply select your response to each question.  There are three open text questions and a range of demographic questions which are voluntary.  We would encourage you to complete these so we can understand more about the experience for all colleagues. 

Absolutely. One of the benefits of an outside agency like People Insight administering the survey is that all your answers go to them, including whether or not you individually have completed it. At no point will anyone at The University of Manchester, including senior leaders and managers, be privy to individual responses. 

This means that you can be completely honest with your responses without them being tracked back to you personally. 

All personal responses to this survey will be kept completely confidential. People Insight will collect, report, and analyse the data. While we will be looking to produce reports based on the feedback from certain respondent groups – e.g. by different departments – to help us better understand where we need to take action, we will only be able to receive reports for groups where there are 10 or more respondents.

If there are fewer than 10 respondents, that team's survey results will not be reported on in isolation, to protect individual identities. This doesn’t mean that any responses will be ignored - all responses will be included at least in reports at the overall level, so your voice will still be heard.

We are supplying this information to People Insight from our people system ResourceLink to reduce the number of questions we have to ask you to complete in the survey itself.  All of the necessary data security and information governance assessments and checks have been made in sharing this data with People Insight.  

Typically, the data will be broken down by demographics such as department, length of service and a range of others. This will target action planning where most needed. As stated above, analysis will only be provided for demographic breakdowns with ten or more responses to ensure that individual responses remain confidential.

When you are writing the free text comments, you will see the following statement to help ensure you don’t identify yourself:

The University welcomes your comments. 

Please take this opportunity to be as open and honest as you can – while avoiding identifying either yourself or other individuals or by referring to specific circumstances. 

Please only make comments that you are happy to be shared with others as comments will show up in the dashboard of responses. Any confidential information will be blurred out before uploading to the dashboard.  

Access to the online dashboard will be provided to University colleagues who need to view it as part of their work in analysing and acting on survey results. Comments may be quoted in internal and external reports and publications.

To protect your privacy, we will not provide comments reports for any teams or groups where fewer than 10 people have responded.
Please be aware that this survey is not a formal route for raising complaints or grievances - these must be raised through official channels within the University for them to be addressed.

Sharing your thoughts about your work will help drive real change, and your thoughts are unique – we want to hear from everyone. The survey is one of the best ways we have to voice our opinions honestly and openly with the goal of improving our own work lives and the organisation overall.  Results reports will be shared openly and transparently with colleagues and People, Talent Development and EDI Partners, along with a nominee from each part of the University, will have access to local level results and an action planning dashboard, provided by People Insight.

If you have submitted your answers and would like to amend them, please contact support@peopleinsight.co.uk and let them know. They can either reset the whole survey for you or reset the survey without deleting any data so you can make any amends from the start of the survey.

Our online surveys have been developed following best practices in accessibility and web standard compliance. We follow WCAG 2.0 AA recommendations whenever possible during the development of the survey. The usability has been tested using most common readers such as Jaws, NVDA or MacOS Voiceover. However, due to the wide range of available screen readers and their frequent changes and updates, different interpretation of standards and different methods available for browsing a web page within said readers, we are unable to guarantee error free operation in all available readers and their versions.

Volunteers from our Disabled Staff Network have tested the survey for accessibility prior to it going live.

If you are experiencing any difficulty in completing the survey because of accessibility, please contact support@peopleinsight.co.uk

People Insight states: “The security of your information is important to us. All your data is private and confidential, and we take all reasonable steps to ensure that your information is handled securely and in accordance with our Privacy Policy https://peopleinsight.co.uk/privacy-policy/

All personal data held by the Company is held in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR and Data Subjects’ rights, as set out in our Data Protection Policy (attached). We will retain and use your information for only as long as necessary to provide you with our services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our legal rights. Formal processes and procedures are in place to securely dispose of devices that may contain client Data.”

A link to the University’s Privacy Statement is included in your survey email invitation.  All necessary Information Governance assessments and checks have been carried out and approved by our Information Governance Office.  

You will receive an email on Tuesday 25 March inviting you to take part in the survey. Just click the link and it will take you straight to the survey. You will receive regular reminders throughout the four weeks of the survey until you complete it.  

If you can't find your email you can also access the survey via a link on StaffNet. It will prompt you to input your staff ID number (found on your staff card or payslip). This is to verify that you are eligible to complete the survey and attribute your responses to the correct area of the University.

If you are having any problems accessing the survey please email: support@peopleinsight.co.uk

If you can’t find your email inviting you to take part (it will come from surveys@peopleinsight.co.uk) in your Outlook inbox, check to see if it has been delivered to your ‘Other’ inbox.

To check your Other inbox if you don’t already have it open, click on ‘View’ on the top menu bar of Outlook, then select ‘Show Focused Inbox’ and your ‘Focused’ and ‘Other’ inboxes will appear in your top menu bar.

You can also check your spam/junk folder.

If you can’t find your email you can still take part by following this link on StaffNet and entering your employee number.

If you are having any further problems accessing the survey please email: support@peopleinsight.co.uk

Anyone who joined the University on or before Monday 24 February 2025 can take part in the survey. Anyone joining after this point won’t be invited this time but will still get their new joiner survey after their first eight weeks of employment. This asks a range of questions about the recruitment and selection experience, reasons for joining our University and their welcome and induction experience. You’ll be invited to take part in the engagement survey next year.

Yes, you will still receive an email inviting you to take part.  

You should answer the questions in the survey based on your main role. 

On this occasion we are surveying substantive employees on permanent and fixed term contracts, so Graduate Teaching Assistants will not receive a survey. 

Yes you should complete every question, but the demographic questions at the end of the survey are optional and you can choose to skip one or more of them.  We would encourage you to complete as many as possible so we can hear all voices and experiences.  If you’re concerned that completing these questions might identify you in results reports, please be assured that teams with less than ten completed responses will not be reported on individually, although your responses will still count in the survey results reports.  If you have a concern about this please contact colleague.experience@manchester.ac.uk in confidence.

The survey invitation will come from People Insight from the email address: survey-invite@peopleinsight.co.uk

If you’re still not sure it’s a legitimate email, check the www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk and click on ‘Your Voice Matters’ to find out more information about the survey and access the survey link. If you would like to verify the legitimacy of your invitation email you can contact the survey team at the University by email: colleague.experience@manchester.ac.uk 

Survey results will be shared openly with colleagues on StaffNet. Our People, Talent Development and EDI Partners will be given access to an online dashboard of responses provided by People Insight.  We are also giving access to the dashboard to a number of local leaders so they can also access the data and insight.  All dashboard users will receive training, support and guidance to use the platform.  

Key themes from the survey will feed into our Manchester 2035 strategy and future plans around performance, culture and equality, diversity and inclusion.  Additionally, leaders will be empowered to take local actions where appropriate and will be asked to log these actions on an online dashboard provided by People Insight.  

Yes, you should still complete these surveys as well as the Colleague Engagement Survey if you are invited to do so.  Our joiner, one year and leaver surveys are run by a different survey provider, The People Experience Hub.

If you are leaving the University whilst the survey is live you may still receive an invitation to take part, it depends on when your leaving date was entered into our people system ResourceLink. If you do receive an invitation to take part you can do so, as well as completing your leaver survey.

Why is there a question asking about class background and how will you use the responses this question. 

We’ve added a new question in this survey about class background in the voluntary demographic question set. This question has been added in response to feedback from colleagues working in EDI, to help identify and address diversity and inclusion gaps and promote fair opportunities for career progression for all our people.  Here is some additional information about the different categories you can select your response from, if you choose to answer this question.  

Question: What was the occupation of your main household earner when you were aged about 14? 

• Modern professional and traditional professional occupations such as teacher, nurse, physiotherapist, social worker, musician, police officer (sergeant or above), software designer, accountant, solicitor, medical practitioner, scientist, civil/mechanical engineer. 
• Senior, middle, or junior managers or administrators such as finance manager, chief executive, large business owner, office manager, retail manager, bank manager, restaurant manager, warehouse manager. 
• Clerical and intermediate occupations such as secretary, personal assistant, call centre agent, clerical worker, nursery nurse. 
• Technical and craft occupations such as motor mechanic, plumber, printer, electrician, gardener, train driver.  
• Routine, semi-routine manual, and service occupations such as postal worker, machine operative, security guard, caretaker, farm worker, catering assistant, sales assistant, HGV driver, cleaner, porter, packer, labourer, waiter/waitress, bar staff. 
• Long-term unemployed (claimed Jobseeker’s Allowance or earlier unemployment benefit for more than a year).  
• Small business owners who employed fewer than 20 people such as corner shop owners, small plumbing companies, retail shop owner, single restaurant or cafe owner, taxi owner, garage owner. 
• Other such as retired, this question does not apply to me, I don’t know.  
• I prefer not to say.