How Wigan and Leigh College improve engagement with pulse surveys

What’s the main purpose of Stribe within Wigan and Leigh College?

Jo: We use Stribe as an engagement tool to capture the employee voice, improve engagement with pulse surveys, and drive forward organisational development.

Stribe really come into its own during the pandemic. We saw a huge uplift in usage when everyone started working remotely because it gave our employees a route to talk and keep in touch during the pandemic. Since then we have used it heavily to measure and understand staff view on things we’re doing such as the return to work, what measures we should be putting in place, and if people felt safe. Those insights really helped us frame what we should be doing to support staff as we started the new academic year. We recently did a lot of pulse surveys around hybrid working and how we should manage that, which has led to that way of working being sustained as we move beyond the pandemic.

We also use Stribe to keep us informed on how we’re progressing with our strategic aims, we have built Stribe’s data into our strategic dashboard reports for this year, pulling the data directly from Stribe to allow us to manage and measure our progress on our key objectives. We have three targets that are linked directly to Stribe information: Sustainability, Staff Engagement and Wellbeing. Stribe really is creeping into the normality of what we do. Everything that comes up we think ‘can we use Stribe for that?’ and if we aren’t sure, we call the team at Stribe and you work with us and help us find a solution. You’ve been creative with us in terms of supporting the operational projects we work on as well as the employee engagement work we do.

Have you made any changes based on insights from Stribe?

Jo: Stribe was really helpful for us as we were planning our permanent move to hybrid working. We used it to assess what people thought about hybrid working in general by using simple Yes/No questions. Then we sent follow-up questions that were focused around understanding what people’s preferences would be and how we could make things better.

The detail of those questions helped us frame our offer and gave managers the insights they needed to balance what was right for their own teams. It was really important throughout these changes that we kept listening to staff, understanding what they thought, communicating back, and not shying away from explaining why things varied between teams if that was the case.  For our setting not every team is the same, certain groups of staff such as our teaching teams needed to be on-site, so it was really important we could look at the data from questions and understand exactly how our teams were thinking and feeling, something Stribe worked really well for.

What kind of impact have you seen since introducing Stribe?

Jo: In 2020 we entered the Top 100 Best Not For Profit Organisations To Work For at number 71, and were recognised as a ‘One Star – Very Good’ organisation for employee engagement. We took part in this process again in 2021 – after introducing Stribe – and levels of engagement increased significantly, we are now acknowledged as a ‘Three Star – World Class’ organisation for levels of engagement and are currently 52^nd in the Best Large Companies to Work For table. This is a huge leap in the achievement level, particularly during the period of the pandemic when many staff are facing challenges both personally and professionally, we believe that the use of Stribe has been fundamental to this progression and has had a direct impact on this result.

Other key stats during this time are that 95% of our new starters in the last 12 months have stayed with us unless they were in a fixed term arrangement. And, of all posts advertised in the last 6 months, 74% have been recruited to first time. Both these metrics highlight that the College is becoming an employer of choice.

The insights from Stribe have also helped us create a better workplace for our current staff too, we’ve reduced staff attrition rates by 3.7% and also achieved a 7.5% reduction in stress-related absence rates.

Have you got any favourite stories where Stribe has really worked in your team?

Jo: I had one of the managers ring me just after we launched shout-outs, she said she had read a shout-out sent to her and cried with happiness. That will always stick with me. Stribe is definitely impactful on an individual basis and an organisational one. 

How have you found tech to use?

Jo: Easy, without even needing to pause for a breath, I can say it’s so easy that even I can use! The great thing about Stribe as a company is, if we have an idea that doesn’t always fit with what Stribe was built for, you have helped us find a solution to make it work. We’ve also made suggestions for future development which we know are being listened to because you have already implemented some of them. We really don’t think we could’ve asked for a better response in terms of support from your team. What I also love is that everyone in our HR team have picked up their own little parts of Stribe, which is great because it means everyone in the team is using it.

Armed with insights from Stribe… what’s next for Wigan and Leigh College?

Jo: The biggest objective for us at the moment is bringing in the questions that will get us data for our strategic targets. Our new strategic plan came out in the last couple of weeks, which is what our targets are linked to, and runs for the next four years. So we’re working on building Stribe up so we’re getting the data that shows what we’re doing with staff and for staff during that time. The biggest thing with Stribe has been we will try and funnel as much as possible through it. We’re also using the resource section and have uploaded a lot of our resources around wellbeing, and policies and procedures, so it’s all accessible.

How did you convince stakeholders on the value of employee engagement and software like Stribe?  

Jo: We were part way through the employee engagement journey when we met with the Stribe team, and although we’re still doing it on a shoestring, we were doing it on even more of a shoestring then. Other than all-staff emails, the traditional focus groups, questionnaires, and the all-staff survey that runs every two years, we found that there were limited routes for staff who wanted to provide that more contemporary feedback.  Even though we hadn’t hit the pandemic it felt really important to have Stribe in place for staff as we moved to a different way of working.

Do you have any tips for people looking to do the same?

Jo: Focus on the potential impact, start by using examples from your own internal projects. Include even the smallest things, I often think they can make the biggest difference. For us, even before Stribe, the things that felt really simple and easy were always the things that worked really well. Also – don’t overcomplicate it, look at what you’ve done internally that was straightforward but achieved big impact. Then look at examples from other organisations who have used Stribe, you will always find someone on the same scale as you who reflects your own business. A good case-study to your seniors always helps. Showing the numbers and impacts behind what has been achieved and getting them excited that you could achieve similar things. They like the numbers and the proof, alongside the cost.

How have your employees enjoyed using Stribe?

Jo: The ones that use it find it easy and useful. They’ve told us they love getting the feedback from pulse questions via Stribe, which is great. They also use it to send us feedback! We have employees who regularly contribute and will use it to say ‘have you seen this?’ ‘have you tried that?’ ‘I’ve seen another college has done this’ rather than emailing one of the team, they’re using Stribe to do it which is really good. We’re also introducing Stribe as part of staff inductions too so they know that they can use it for those types of things. You will always get people who want to speak to you or catch you in the corridor, but people tend to be happy doing things on the app.

How have you found working with the team at Stribe?

Jo: It’s been easy, impactful and well worth it. You’re always on the end of the phone, live chat or email and always quick to provide a response. We really couldn’t ask for more.

What do you think is the key to a happy team?

Jo: Communication and honesty are top of the list. We’ve recently gone through a few changes in the last couple of weeks -, we’ve had a couple of people leave our team. We’ve talked about this quite a lot as a team. I know I can’t say to my team ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’ll be fine’ and then not address their worries. They have been involved at every step to get the job adverts approved, advertised and speak with agencies.  We’re doing it together, we’ve turned a problem into teamwork. We found a great candidate really quickly and the team is even stronger for having gone through that process together.

What would you say to someone who is on the fence about taking on Stribe?

Jo: Do it! It’s easy and it’s impactful, and you see quick results!

Like what you see? Hear more about how our pulse surveys can help your teams, book a call with the team here.