Our staff survey helps us understand what matters to you and take action based on your feedback.
Staff Pulse Survey coming this autumn
Following our full staff survey held in autumn 2024, and ahead of our next full survey in autumn 2026, we are running a short Staff Pulse Survey in October and November 2025 to check in with staff about working life at the University during a period of change.
Feedback gathered in the mini survey will help us understand staff views right now, so that effective survey action plans can be developed to help improve the colleague experience. The survey will have six questions and should only take around two minutes to complete.
The responses to our previous survey in 2024 remain important. Feedback gathered in both surveys will be used in action planning, as the previous survey included more questions on a wide range of topics.
Survey timeline
- 13 October-2 November 2025 - survey open
- Early November 2025 - survey results presented to University leadership
- Mid November 2025 - survey results available for Faculties and Divisions to share with staff
- End of November 2025 - full results reports published on staff survey webpages
- January-March 2026 - results reviewed in detail, priority areas identified, and action planning begins.
There are a number of ways you can share your thoughts throughout the year. Take a look at other ways staff and students can have their say at Sussex.
Survey confidentiality
All survey responses are completely confidential. All responses are collected on the survey platform hosted by our external partner, People Insight. When the survey closes, results reports for the University, and Faculties and Divisions, based on the overall feedback will be shared with all staff. At no point is anyone at the University, including senior leaders and managers, able to view individual responses.
Find out more about survey confidentiality and data protection.
Results and action plans
You can view the results of our latest and previous surveys and find out about our ongoing action plans for the University and our Schools and Divisions following feedback from the last survey.
Case studies
Find out how Schools and Professional Service Divisions are using survey feedback to improve the staff experience at Sussex.
Support for managers and leaders
Explore guidance on survey results, communication and effective action planning in our survey toolkit for managers and leaders.
Why sharing your views is important
- Why do we hold staff surveys?
The survey is an important way for us to measure employee engagement at Sussex. Asking all staff directly about their working life at the University gives us a broad overview of the staff experience, offering an opportunity to hear feedback and take action. Some of the survey results tell us how we are performing against our People Strategy and Inclusive Sussex aims and other insights gathered contribute to shaping the future of the University.
- Why is employee engagement important?
Employee engagement is the connection staff feel with their jobs and their organisation. It reflects whether colleagues enjoy their role, feel able to develop in their jobs, and feel respected and recognised. Engaged staff tend to feel a sense of achievement from their job, understand the organisation’s strategy and believe in its mission and goals. Positive employee engagement benefits the individual and it benefits the organisation too. Having engaged staff helps an organisation in terms of increased productivity, less absence, and lower employee turnover. At Sussex, we aim to support and engage staff, enabling everyone to work to the best of their ability and thrive. This, in turn, helps to create a better experience for students.
- Will what I say make a difference?
Sharing your honest feedback about your work helps to drive real change, and your thoughts and views are unique – so we want to hear from everyone during our staff survey. The survey is a way to voice opinions openly and to help improve the staff experience at Sussex. You can read more about action plans underway as a result of survey responses and case studies from Schools and Divisions about how they have used survey data to bring about positive change for staff.
- Who are People Insight and why are they involved?
People Insight are employee engagement specialists and we are partnering with them to conduct staff surveys following a competitive tender process held in spring 2024. We also worked with People Insight for previous staff surveys between 2021 and 2022. People Insight have extensive experience in running employee surveys with other organisations across the UK and internationally. They are also higher education sector specialists, working with many UK universities, which means they have robust, reliable external benchmarking data.
Contact us
If you have any questions or feedback about the survey, contact the HR team at learninganddevelopment@sussex.ac.uk
