image: ©Jacob Wackerhausen | iStock

There are many reasons people may feel concerned nowadays. From major international events, issues facing the country, or local issues that are important to nearby communities. Individuals reporting anxiety and mental health concerns have been increasing for several years in the UK (as reported by the charity Mind, in a 2023/2024 report). They aren’t showing any signs of reducing.

While the ‘big picture’ stuff, such as politics, may not often feature in the day-to-day considerations of many, concerns about affordability, public services such as education and healthcare, and personal opportunities do. Individuals who have additional physical health issues, or have financial or housing insecurity, or are in certain demographics – women, minority groups, and older people – are more likely to be impacted.

For employers, this is a challenge and, as ever with any challenge, an opportunity. Listening to and addressing concerns within an employer’s remit allows staff to perform well. But it can’t be ignored: media coverage emphasises the costs to the economy resulting from this issue, which means potentially significant costs for employers as well.

Being clear about big strategic changes – open, honest and trusted communications with staff to highlight impacts of change. It’s no surprise that for many staff the first things that will come to mind are going to be

• How will this affect me, my job, my career growth?
• What will happen to my team, my department?
• Have important project been changed/ cancelled?

Tracking what issues might be of concern to staff:

• Impact of changing flexible working policies/RTO.
• AI in the workplace, and job security.
• Increased cost of living.
• Need to learn new skills.
• Workload, etc.

Putting things in place to support staff when issues arise:

• Support materials and options for where to go for help.
• Mental health first aiders.
• Signpost to whistleblowing services.
• Look for opportunities to learn and improve from mistakes.

This all sounds very easy and obvious, but the biggest barrier can be the staff’s trust in leadership and the organisation’s strategy.

Managing this complex area is made easier by better information and understanding of priorities among staff within an organisation. This is an ongoing process, monitoring changes over time to highlight successes and communicate.

This information comes from many sources: managers having one-to-ones with team members, staff forums, etc., and informal channels (e.g., coffee conversations). However, a more rigorous and structured way to capture this is through survey feedback.

Survey Solutions helps several organisations with staff feedback solutions. Some of the ways we’ve supported include:

• Helping a company regularly track demographic group representation within its workforce, to monitor representation and the fairness of internal processes. This has an added benefit of one way they demonstrate compliance with
  best practices in employment for tender discussions.
• A UK regulator, tracking opinions across staff groups throughout the organisation, including a customised set of indicators, including ‘Senior Leadership’, ‘Diversity and Inclusion’, ‘Agile working’, along with ‘Engagement’.
• A healthcare organisation to manage consultant feedback, identifying specific needs to support effective and positive experiences for senior medical staff and patients.
• A medical services business, providing diagnostic services across the UK, understanding key topics of engagement, training, communications and workload.

What these organisations have in common, as well as others that we work of across commercial, government and not-for-profit sectors is a commitment to listen to the feedback gathered, share key findings with staff – celebrating success but not hiding where work is needed to improve, and taking action, accordingly, working with staff to implement change and actions that support a more effective working environment.

They also continue listening and improving – to reap the benefits that come with an engaged workforce, people who support each other, share common goals of success, and aim to deliver great experiences to service users, customers, and wider stakeholders. Staff retention, employer brand, good reputation and resilience flow from this focus on a strong team.

For Survey Solutions, exploring our clients’ requirements, ensuring that the projects we partner with are successful, deliver on objectives and that we provide insights and analysis of the most important and useful insights.

In addition to presenting the findings, allowing senior leaders to directly ask questions of the lead researcher, we provide easy-to-use yet sophisticated analysis tools for clients to dig into their data directly.

We welcome the opportunity to talk to existing or potential clients about what they hope to achieve and offer solutions or advice on how projects can be structured. If you would like to chat through ideas or get some suggestions on methodological strengths and weaknesses, feel free to get in touch.

Survey Solutions helps organisations check in with their staff and stakeholders through a range of survey approaches, from large annual surveys to smaller topic or pulse surveys. We can also help with easy 360 feedback collection and analysis when surveys are not the right approach.

• Designed to your specification by expert researchers.
• Questions relevant to your organisation.
• Full range of topics, leadership, wellbeing, diversity, communications, etc.
• Customised topics based on specific concerns.
• The whole process is delivered and managed for you.
• Analysis and reporting of results from our experts, and direct access to the data.
• Fully supported from start to finish, and beyond.