Your Say Employee Survey: Frequently Asked Questions
About the survey
Why are we doing the survey?
We are running our second employee engagement survey so that that everyone has the chance to have their voice heard. We want to hear your views on what it’s like to work at Dogs Trust, your feedback will help us know if we’re doing enough to support, involve, and inspire our people.
It will also help us learn what is working well, where we can do better and how we are doing since running our last survey. The survey will provide us with baseline data from which we can implement appropriate plans to improve what we can do and how we do it.
How will this survey be different from the 2020 Mini Staff Survey?
The Your Say Survey will be like the MSS but will ask a broader range of questions. The MSS was run during the pandemic to assess our response to the crisis and focused on how we supported and communicated with each other during that time. Some of the questions we asked in 2020 will be repeated so we can track our progress.
The Your Say Survey will ask about:
- our culture and how we manage change
- your health, wellbeing, learning and development
- your experience of teamwork, communication, management, and leadership at Dogs Trust
When can we complete the survey?
The survey will launch on 1 March 2022, and close at 5pm on 22 March 2023. We won’t be able to extend the survey period, so this is your opportunity to provided us with your views on working at Dogs Trust.
Who is running the survey?
We have asked the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), an external, independent organisation to run the survey on our behalf. Our priority is to receive honest and accurate feedback, while maintaining your anonymity and confidentiality. By using IES to administer the survey, you can be confident that nobody at Dogs Trust will access or see your individual responses.
Who are the Institute for Employment Studies (IES)?
IES is an independent, apolitical, international centre of research and consultancy in employment policy and human resources (HR). They provide insights on employment and human resource management topics to help improve policy and practice and have run employee surveys for many different organisations.
The survey
Who is eligible to complete the survey?
The survey is open to all employees in the UK, Ireland and Bosnia, including anyone currently on probation, employed on a fixed-term contract, on long-term sickness or parental leave, or working your notice period.
How can we complete the survey?
There are two ways. Everyone at Dogs Trust will receive their own personal invitation to take part via an email to your Dogs Trust email address. You can simply click on a link to access the survey.
You will also see posters up around your workplace with a QR code. Scan the QR code with any mobile device to access the survey.
Will I be reminded to complete the survey?
To ensure that the survey is completely anonymous, the survey software does not track your individual responses. The link that you receive to the survey is generic and not unique to you, therefore no one will know how you have answered the survey questions. So, you can be confident to be entirely honest when having Your Say. Maintaining anonymity, however, means that the survey software does not know if you have completed it or not. Therefore, everyone will receive weekly reminders throughout the survey period encouraging them to complete the survey. If you have already had Your Say, simply ignore the email.
Is it possible to complete the survey more than once?
Yes, though we’d encourage you to only do it once, ideally via the link in the email you will receive. If you do complete the survey twice, IES won’t be able to remove the information as you are not identifiable.
The QR codes are mainly there to be used by operational employees who don’t have regular access to their emails or to computers.
How long will it take to complete?
The survey will take approx. 15 minutes to complete.
Can I save my responses to the survey and complete it later?
Yes, you will be able to save the survey as many times as you like and go back to complete it later.
Can we use mobile phones to do the survey?
Yes, you can use a mobile, tablet, laptop, computer, or any other device that has access to the internet. The survey will be mobile friendly.
Do we have to complete the survey?
Participation is voluntary, but it is important for as many people to complete the survey as possible. Last time 76% of us took part so we’d like to match or better that! Your feedback will help us identify the steps we need to take to be an even greater place to work. The more responses we get to the survey, the more confident we can be that the findings are representative of Dogs Trust as a whole. This means we can have more confidence in the data and make more informed decisions.
Personal data and survey responses
How will IES process and use my data?
You can read the Privacy Notice to understand how IES will process your data.
Will Dogs Trust see anyone’s survey responses?
No one at Dogs Trust will see any individual survey responses. You will submit your response directly to IES, via the survey software, and Dogs Trust will never see it. IES will combined the responses and analyse them anonymously. IES will provide Dogs Trust with an anonymous summary report showing aggregate data; you will not be identifiable in any of the reports provided to Dogs Trust.
Will my manager see my survey response?
No, your manager will not see your responses. Your manager and other leaders at Dogs Trust may receive reports containing results of the survey for specific areas of the organisation, but only if they include 10 or more responses combined. The team reports will also be shorter and based on some of the questions asked in the survey.
Will the survey ask for personal details?
You will be asked to provide some demographic details about yourself and your job role. The demographic data you provide will be used to analyse any differences or similarities in how our employees respond to the survey questions. IES will only analyse and report on demographic variables that have enough responses to ensure anonymity (10 or more).
Why do you need to know where I work?
To help us understand how people are feeling about working at Dogs Trust at a more local level, it is important to understand where people are based. This year we will be producing team reports for larger teams for information and action planning, so asking team members to confirm where they are based will ensure their anonymous feedback is combined into the right department, area, or centre’s report.
Who can we contact with questions about completing the survey?
Please contact IES at DogsTrustYourSay@employment-studies.co.uk who will respond to your query.
If you any other questions about the survey please speak to your manager, HR Business Partner or contact YourSay@dogstrust.org.uk
Results and Action Planning
When will survey results be available?
The survey closes on 22 March. IES will start work straight away on analysing the data. We expect to get the initial headline outcomes before Easter, with more detailed analysis from IES to follow. Once Owen and the Leadership Team and Your Say project team have reviewed the findings and worked with IES to fully understand the results, information will be shared with all colleagues. We hope to be able to start to share the top-level organisational results later in April, the directorate results will follow that before we share locally any team/departmental reports.
Will results be available per team or department?
Some areas/departments will receive their own streamline report. Reports will only be provided if 10 or more respondents have completed the survey and will focus on areas such as teamwork, management support and feedback, development, workload, and job satisfaction.
What will we do with the results and who is accountable for this?
Initially, Owen and the Leadership Team will review the outcomes of the Your Say Survey. They will look to see what we can do more of and what changes need to be made in future. Where relevant, senior managers will be involved in actions needed in specific areas of the charity.
Owen and the Leadership Team has overall accountability for defining what actions need to be taken, but we are all individually accountable for contributing to those actions and helping Dogs Trust become an even greater place to work.
How frequently will surveys be run?
We plan to run an employee Your Say Survey each year. We may also run smaller pulse surveys during the year to seek feedback on specific topics. We are also planning to run a volunteer survey to seek feedback from them on their volunteering experience at Dogs Trust.