My UCL Experience all-staff survey

Your views are immensely valuable in helping us understand how you feel about working at UCL right now and in identifying ways we can improve your experience of working at UCL. 

UCL’s overall engagement score for the survey was 67% which is 3% above the all-sector benchmark (64%) and in line with our benchmarking group (69%). The benchmarking group is made up of a number of other universities and other education and research organisations. The engagement score is a combined measure which represents the level to which employees feel positively connected to their organisation. 

Throughout the survey, there was a strong theme of pride in working for UCL (80%) and a sense that people felt they fit the roles that they work in (86%). There was also much to be celebrated in the strong connections that people across UCL have with their local line managers and colleagues.  

Overall engagement and wellbeing scores are broadly similar to the last UCL survey in 2017 (although, as it was a different survey, we cannot make direct comparisons.)  

Nevertheless, the survey results do highlight a marked difference in the wellbeing scores of our disabled community. Improving the experiences of our disabled staff will be an important area of focus in our action plans and we will work with our disabled community and networks to progress this. 

There were also other recurring themes which require further attention and action. We are hearing that staff feel that that we could improve our leaders’ connection and responses (32% satisfied); that we need to invest more in systems and processes to help people do their jobs (only 34% were satisfied with UCL’s tools), that we must look for more opportunities for people to feedback their views and be heard (39% satisfied), and that people could benefit from being set more meaningful goals (46% satisfied). 

Our priority is ensuring that we are able to respond thoughtfully to the themes raised and make progress on key issues. We will be moving into a planning phase for the next few weeks and are committed to identifying and acting on key areas.  

On an institutional level, we will be working with the People & Culture Committee to develop recommendations for how your UCL experience could be improved. On a local level, each Faculty, Office and Division will receive a more detailed breakdown of their local results. We will work with local action planning groups and through the new Staff Survey & Planning Committee to commit to positive actions that meet the specific needs of each area.  

Our focus will be on identifying aspects that are going well and could be replicated, and also aspects that may need more support and targeting. There are significant differences across UCL’s Faculties, Offices and Divisions about your needs and which areas may require additional attention. 

Working with these Committees and with local groups across the institution, we are focused on planning and committing to actions that improve your experiences. Progress on this work will be shared with you in June, along with the full results report from the survey. 

Many of these issues have been raised in the conversation to develop our new strategic plan and through other feedback channels, which means we have been able to form a detailed picture from multiple perspectives of the challenges faced by our staff. We encourage you to join in the conversation around our strategic plan for the next five years too. Our next Town Hall on 10 May, 14.30-16.30, will be looking at enablers for our academic mission.