How well do we communicate? Internal communications review February 2013

Methodology An electronic survey was developed and distributed initially through an to all staff. This was supplemented by a notice on the staff website - throughout January. At the time that the survey was live:: The University employed circa 1,770 individuals across the Organisation 39% of these are Academic staff, 6% are Senior staff and 55% are Support staff 56% of staff are female and 44% male. An overall response rate of 42% was achieved across all staff – a total of 741 completed surveys.

Who responded? The survey achieved 741 responses, from a wide cross section of departments. The charts below demonstrate the % breakdown of all respondents Base: 741

How do we communicate? is by far the most prevalent way of sharing information across the University, 99% of information is sent this way. The Staff Pages of the website are a good source of bulletin updates, 64% of respondents use this as a source of information. External websites (42%) are a popular way of receiving information about the University; this is most likely Press Releases and reading third party analysis of the University. Base: 741

Sending information through social media channels Using social media channels as a method of sending information is popular and well integrated, Twitter is the most popular outlet (39%) with Facebook following behind at 36.7%. Linkedin (7.2%) and Blogging through Wordpress, blogger etc (6.4%) are popular channels of communicating. An emerging tool is Yammer, a company specific, private, social network. There are currently 248 users from the University who access this. Base: 192

Receiving information through social media channels Facebook (40.2%) is more popular than Twitter (31.4%) when it comes to receiving information. LinkedIn is also more prominent at 12.5%. An interesting point within this is that blogging as a method to receive information is almost unused, An emerging tool is Yammer, a company specific, private, social network. There are currently 248 users from the University who access this. Base: 192

Staff Pages & Staff Portal This report focuses on two areas of the hud.ac.uk website. Staff pages Staff portal (

Use of the Staff Pages 87% of staff these access Staff Pages at least once a week. On a daily basis, news pages (33%) and the staff directory (21%) are used most frequently, support services (26%) are accessed less frequently. Employee benefits (59%) & academic calendar (38%) are accessed monthly. Support Staff in Schools and Services were least likely to access the Staff Pages on a daily basis, and more likely to access them on a weekly basis. Low base (23)

Use of Staff pages 63% of staff use the Staff Portal, with a majority 90% accessing it at least once a week. The staff pages are acting as a gateway to the information and resources that are supplied to staff. ‘Access’ is the key reason for using the Staff pages – with access to MyStudents, Timetabling, remote file access, Unilearn and being most popular.

Improving the staff pages Staff were asked for comments about the existing staff pages and portal. 84% of respondents said there was nothing they felt missing from either the staff pages or staff portal, the most common themes were: A mobile compliant version would be useful Starting to look old fashioned Starting to look confusing and too much information on one screen The events calendar is ‘irritating to use’ Can’t access it when outside the University A single sign-in to the Portal and other services would be useful “Staff pages are very difficult to use and have little useful info - plus no links to other parts of the University's website, so I bookmark a different page. The staff portal is very cluttered, plus very difficult to multitask - I prefer the desktop which allows me to have multiple programs up and running at the same time.”

Use of the Staff Portal 63% of staff say they use the Staff Portal. Academic staff members are most likely (82.7%) to use the Staff pages, followed by Research Staff (65.7%). 55% of Service based support staff claimed to not use the Staff Portal. 42.6% of School based support staff also claimed to not use the Staff Portal. Base: 741

Internal Communications satisfaction 91% would recommend the University as a place to study 86% would recommend the University as a place to work 59% feel confident they could talk about what is happening at the University to external contacts 83% are aware of the mission, values and vision of the University 47% feel they have the opportunity to share news and ideas with current students – 57% think they can do this with other staff 65% feel well informed about what is happening across the University

Internal Communications satisfaction On the whole, staff across the University are satisfied with communications. As can be expected, satisfaction with communication in Departments is higher than Organisation-wide communications. 27% are ‘Very satisfied’ with internal communications within their Department, 16% within the School/Service and 14% across the Organisation. Dissatisfaction is very low, with only 1% being ‘Very dissatisfied’ with internal communications across the University.

Improving internal communications Staff were asked to comment about internal communications; The most common themes were: It's great that the staff page is generic and the portal is personalised It is my fault that I do not use the portal more It works and is a good first stop for information and links to other work-related areas It is very useful when it is needed Would be nice to find things out from the University staff pages rather than The Examiner Have photos of staff alongside their profiles in the Staff Directory Considerate use of – ie keeping recipients relevant, leading to too much communication More transparency on departmental budgets Briefing/training sessions for social media for internal communications for staff “I think there is an over reliance on , its slow and really inefficient. There is an assumption that if an has been sent then the message has been 'appropriately communicated'. There are far more suitable communication methods such as social media or instant messaging (Lync). I think it would be good to try and encourage staff to use alternative communication methods, maybe a non- day?”