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WELLBEING


A DIY guide to building a staff wellbeing survey


leaders. Ensure all staff understand the survey’s purpose and the process. Ideally assign time at work to complete it - it should take no more than 10 – 15 minutes. Brief line managers so they understand the importance of the process, can answer any questions or queries and encourage their staff to take part. Guarantee anonymity so staff feel comfortable


sharing their views – online surveys provide more assurance of anonymity than pen and paper. This is also why third party management can boost take up and generate more open responses. Any demonstration of a lack of integrity with feedback will have serious repercussions for future survey participation, engagement and staff trust.


R


egular columnist Mark Solomons, CEO of School Wellbeing Accelerator, argues this


month that schools that actively address wellbeing hold a significant advantage. Staff wellbeing is a hot topic and deservedly so.


With increasing challenges surrounding teacher recruitment, retention, absence and mental health, schools that actively address wellbeing hold a significant advantage. The recently launched Education Staff


Wellbeing Charter from the Department for Education (DfE), recognises the need for measurement and accountability with Commitment 11: ‘Hold ourselves accountable, including by measuring staff wellbeing….We will measure the wellbeing of staff using recognised tools and metrics and be transparent about results. We will monitor trends over time, and act in response to changes.’ So how can we ensure we have reliable


feedback to tackle areas of greatest need? An effective survey gathers data to evaluate


where the school, college or MAT stands, highlights areas of strength and areas for development and when repeated, provides evidence of improvement over time. However, DIY survey design and


implementation can be challenging. Here are the most important considerations:


1. Survey management Managing the process, organising the survey, collating and analysing the data and presenting the results to leadership, staff and governors requires expertise and time. Adding additional duties to leaders or staff with heavy workloads will increase stress levels – the opposite to what is hoped to be achieved!


2. Survey questions Question selection is crucial. The questions should focus on key areas for workplace wellbeing. School culture and environment have the greatest impact on staff and are areas that can be addressed and improved. Ideally the survey questions should be evidence based, otherwise the score’s meaning may be


unclear and results difficult to interpret. Avoid leading questions that guide people towards a particular answer, either by the words used or the way they are asked. The Health and Safety Executive’s Indicator


Tool includes the six primary stressors identified in the Management Standards and provides a broad indication of how staff rate performance in managing risks associated with workplace wellbeing and work related stress. The tool is evidence based, independently


evaluated for its psychometric qualities, recognised by the DfE’s Education Staff Wellbeing Charter and aligns with the Ofsted Leadership and Management Judgement that considers staff wellbeing – you can see why it is the tool that we use. It is less likely that scores from a DIY survey can


be reliably benchmarked against other schools as raw scores do not usually have equal weighting. For example, using a Likert scale* (1.Never… 5.Always), we may tend to think of 3 as ok, 5 excellent and less than 3 as needing attention. Yet in some areas measured, it is probable when comparing a score of 4 against other schools, there could still be significant headroom for growth, while a score in the low 3s in another area could really be in the top 10% - meaning you could waste time, energy and effort by focusing on it. The What Works Wellbeing Question Bank is


another free resource for survey questions – always select questions that are evidence based, clearly state what they are measuring and include benchmarks - you need to request these so include this in projected workload.


3. Encouraging participation Obtaining a high response rate is important to ensure the results are reflective of all staff views. While a response rate of over 50% is adequate and over 60% desirable, we ideally want to reach 70% good and even better - 80%+ excellent. Encourage participation rather than ‘force’


people to take part: publicise the survey, engage with staff, include supportive comments from the CEO, principal, headteacher and other senior


12 www.education-today.co.uk


4. Collating and analysing results This is a time consuming task and likely to be the most challenging part of the process. Difficulties in analysing the data often leads to subsequent actions which are adhoc or dismissed completely. Be transparent and share results with leaders, staff, governors, and other stakeholders, as quickly as possible after the survey closes. Communicating the results is key. Make it


visual, identify areas to celebrate first, alongside any quick wins. For longer term actions, discuss approaches with staff so they can share suggestions and be part of the solution. Taking this on as a senior team simply adds to stress levels - we often forget senior leaders are also staff! It is important to reference wider school data


and trends: absence statistics and reasons for absence; feedback from return to work and welfare interviews and the impact of cover, both on wellbeing and financially; retention statistics and feedback from stay and exit interviews; the use of Employee Assistance Schemes or other support provided, such as counselling; grievances; student behaviour; and school performance trends.


Moving forward Once actions have been identified, set goals with clear and measurable outcomes and schedule follow-up times for review. Include the actions in the school, college or MAT development plan – this signals the importance of wellbeing to staff, and helps build it into the culture – as something that just happens every day. Any schools, colleges and MATs looking for


support to simplify and systemise the process with a ready-made wellbeing evaluation and improvement tool, recognised by the DfE Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, please contact uwelbee.co.uk


* About the 5-point Likert scale A psychometric response scale in which responders specify their level of agreement to five answers. Example answers may be: (1) Never (2) Rarely (3) Sometimes (4) Often (5) Always


April 2022


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