Our staff survey and action plan

Our staff survey is an opportunity for all staff to give feedback about working life here at NICE. We use the information gathered each year to put together an action plan for the next 12 months and beyond.

How it works

The survey is open to all staff, including agency staff who’ve been at NICE for longer than 12 weeks.

The results are presented to the executive team. Then, representatives from HR, internal communications, facilities, UNISON, and our health and wellbeing strategy group contribute to our action plan. This action plan is then endorsed by the executive team before going to a public board meeting. Once approved, the work to deliver the plan begins…

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We asked for your views on a range of topics in our latest staff survey

The survey

This year, we asked you about:

our organisation
our strategy, values and behaviours
your work-life balance and wellbeing
COVID-19 and homeworking
communication
your job
your team
management and leadership
appraisal: my contribution
training, learning and development
equal opportunities and dignity at work
any final feedback.

We asked for your views on a range of topics in our latest staff survey

A great response!

This year saw our highest ever response rate, with a fantastic 88% of you taking the time to complete the survey.

The response to this year's staff survey was our highest ever!

And the results? We’re pleased to report that they are good overall. Which is particularly impressive given the context of the last 18 months, as acknowledged by our board.

We have reason to celebrate; we’ve achieved a lot in challenging times, particularly in terms of employee engagement. Staff feel the same level of pride, advocacy and commitment to doing their best for NICE as they did the last time we ran the survey, back in 2019. The majority of the results in this area were recorded as either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ scores.

A cartoon of 2 men and 2 women, each holding up large 'thumbs up' emojis.

The response to this year's staff survey was our highest ever!

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Work-life balance was a concern raised by staff in our latest survey

More to do

But there will be no resting on our laurels. There’s work still to be done.

Staff raised several areas of concern in their survey feedback, including:

work-life balance
health and wellbeing
career framework and opportunities for career development
communications
equal opportunities
dignity at work
strategy
values and behaviours.

Our action plan is focussed on addressing all these areas.

Work-life balance was a concern raised by staff in our latest survey

A different way of working

We’ve already started working on some of the issues raised. And we’re particularly focussed on increasing opportunities for real, dynamic 2-way communications with our staff.

Just some of the initiatives we’ve already introduced include:

running regular listening events to make sure we’re always considering your views on things that affect you, in line with our shared values (particularly around being respectful and feeling empowered)
planning a refresh of our freedom to speak up guardians programme
planning the introduction of a reciprocal mentoring programme
relaunching our staff networks.

We all have a part to play

Nicole Gee, our interim chief people officer, is the executive team lead for our action plan. But it’s important to remember that this is a plan for the whole organisation. So, every individual (senior or otherwise), every team and every directorate has a part to play in delivering it.

Across NICE, we’d encourage everyone to feel empowered to look at things like workload, where tasks can be deprioritised, and how information is effectively communicated.

Each of our directorates has received its’ own directorate-specific results. And each directorate is already having conversations about how to improve locally and develop its’ own action plans. We’d encourage everyone to get involved in those discussions to help improve things for your team, and for the wider organisation.