Employee Engagement Survey Awards 2022
We had an amazing time at this year’s Strategic Conversation celebrating the Students’ Unions / Associations and their leaders making our movement the best place to work. It was wonderful to recognise all the great achievements within our movement and see everyone ready to network and learn from each other through the workshops arranged for the event.
Thank you to all the unions/associations that participated this year by submitting their case studies. It was truly wonderful to see all the amazing things you are doing to engage your staff and student staff. Engagement means giving the best each day at work, it’s commitment to the organisation’s goals and values and feeling motivated to contribute to its success.
The benefits of engagement are profound; it can lead to higher levels of job satisfaction, wellbeing, recruitment, and retention. It drives performance and impacts at individual and organisational level. In 2022, 38 students’ unions and associations surveyed their staff and student-staff via the Employee Engagement Survey.
This year we wanted to celebrate and recognise these organisations, their efforts and progress, so we opened three additional categories for participants to submit evidence to. The categories were: Best Workforce Wellbeing Strategy, Most Impactful Approach to Learning and Development, and Most Impactful Communications Strategy.
The recognised organisations
Best Workforce Wellbeing Strategy: this award sought to recognise where an organisation demonstrated compelling evidence that their strategy for health and wellbeing (including flexible working) not only works but is innovative and demonstrates a keen desire to meet individual employee needs.
This award was given to University of Westminster Students’ Union; they identified change necessary over a medium-term period, embedding their approach over cycles of performance. They are also trialling the 4-day working week, which is a sector-leading initiative.
Most Impactful Approach to Learning and Development: This category looked at students’ unions and associations making every effort to enable their employees to gain the skills and knowledge they need, not only to do their jobs well, but to develop the skills that the organisation needs in the future and to achieve their own career development goals.
The awarded organisation was University of Exeter Students’ Guild. They provided evidence of a strong, structured approach to Learning & Development and recognised the efforts around supporting colleagues on their individual journeys. This organisation also demonstrated innovative approaches not seen widely across the movement, including leadership training for new staff.
Most Impactful Communications Strategy: This award recognised the students’ union that has developed and implemented an internal communications strategy that not only delivers key messages with impact, but that demonstrates open and honest communication information sharing in an engaging way within the organisation and to its staff team.
This award went to Northumbria University Students’ Union. They clearly articulated their journey as an organisation as well as what their ambitions to work on are for the future. They also provided real staff examples that evidenced how they’ve come up with a strategy that allows them to have open and honest communication within their teams.
Congratulations to all unions and associations recognised and thank you to all unions who provided submissions for these awards. We look forward to seeing more of what you are doing this year and enhance engagement through our Employee Engagement Survey.
