Contacting HR

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Exit Survey Policy

Scope and purpose

1. UCL is a world-renowned centre of excellence for education and research and as such considers its staff to be its most valuable resource. UCL requests that all employees who have resigned from their post complete an online exit survey. The purpose of the exit survey is:

to identify why employees are leaving for monitoring purposes and to identify any trends;
to better understand the different experiences of working at UCL in order to identify any areas for improvement and future change
to improve the recruitment and retention of high calibre employees.

Process

2. Reports will be downloaded on a weekly basis of all employees who are leaving UCL. The HR Policy and Planning team will send an email to those employees who have resigned informing them of the purpose of the exit survey, including links to the web page.

3. Currently UCL do not automatically contact employees who have left for other reasons, including those who have been dismissed. Other employees are welcome to access the online survey if they wish. Any such employee should contact the HR Policy and Planning team by emailing Mark Rice.

4. For those employees who do not have a UCL email/access to the website a paper copy of the survey will be made available. Further reminders will be sent, including information in the formal confirmation of leaving letter sent from the HR Operations team.

5. HR contact details will also be given should any employee prefer a confidential face to face exit interview or who wish to complete a paper copy.

6. Employees who resign within a year of starting their position at UCL are specifically encouraged to undertake an exit interview. The interview will be based around the same questions asked through the online survey and will be undertaken by HR.

Gathering Departmental Information

7. It is important that all employees who resign are encouraged first and foremost to complete the central online survey for consistency of information across faculties and divisions and to gather as wide a picture as possible of the range of experiences.

8. In addition a department may wish to gather more locally based information and feedback about an employee's experience; what works well and where improvements can be made. It may be helpful for someone other than the direct line manager to undertake this. A framework covering suggested question areas can be found below, though this may be expanded as appropriate.

Area	Purpose
The role	Identify what they most liked/disliked about the role. Could this have been structured differently to be more effective?
Job description	Did this accurately reflect what they had been required to do?
Goals and targets	Did they understand how their role fitted into departmental, faculty/divisional and UCL goals?
Communications	Did they receive a good induction? Did they get clear relevant information about what was happening across UCL and the faculty/division? Did they know who to speak to, to get things actioned? Were there opportunities or barriers to feed information or ideas upwards or across UCL?
Working relationships manager direct reports colleagues key contacts in other faculties/ divisions	Did they feel supported in their various working relationships? Was there any inappropriate behaviour or bullying / harassment that they received or observed? Did they work in an effective team? Are there any barriers to effective working relationships that need to be addressed?
Appraisal and development	Did they receive regular appraisal and supervision? Did they feel their appraisal was an honest and constructive reflection of their performance? Did they have clear and stretching objectives set? Was the process linked to their professional and personal development?
Career aspirations	Are they in a better position now to achieve their long term career aspirations than when they started at UCL?
Reward	Did they feel adequately rewarded (pay, pensions, benefits etc) for the work they undertook? Are there any other benefits that they would like to see UCL offer? Ideas should be fed back to Claire Gibbens, HR Policy & Planning
Work-life balance	Were they able to achieve a reasonable work-life balance? If not how could improvements be made? Was their workload manageable?
Working environment	Did they have the necessary resources and facilities to undertake their work?
Employment experience	Overall, how was their experience of working at UCL? How did this compare to other organisations they may have worked for?
Reasons for leaving	Why are they leaving and was there anything UCL could reasonably have done to aid their retention?
Other matters the employee wilshed to raise	An opportunity to cover any aspects not already covered that are important for us to know.

HR Policy and Planning
January 2010