Improvements needed to 'Be Heard' survey, Gov admits

Tuesday 21 November 2023

Improvements need to be made to the Government’s £43k staff survey to encourage more responses, officials have admitted.

States Employment Board Vice-Chair Andy Jehan said that less than half of around 9,000 Government employees completed the 'Be Heard' survey earlier this year, and he hoped to see that number “double” in future.

The Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel yesterday quizzed the SEB on the successes and shortcomings of the survey.

General results indicated that one-in-three Government employees would "leave their job tomorrow if they had another to go to".

Detailed data showing staff attitudes have been released for the previous 2021 survey, but Express is still awaiting a response to a freedom of information request regarding last year's.

Constable Jehan defended that decision to keep the detailed breakdown secret for the time being, stating that the data still needed to be communicated to individual teams before it was made available to the public.

Pictured: Andy Jehan is the Constable of St John and Vice-Chair of the States Employment Board.

He said: "There will be transparency around which departments had better completion rates than others, but we need to go through the process of feeding back to those departments before feeding back to a wider audience.

"The results are encouraging, but we have a long way to go.

"We need to make sure that we maintain our position, if not improve it, and in some areas we really have to make sure we improve our position."

He said that 40% was a "reasonable response rate", but he would hope to see "double that" in future.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister and chair of the SEB, Deputy Kristina Moore, said that the use of paper-based surveys for those who did not have ready access to a computer "did not work as well as we'd hoped".

"We will try something different next year," Deputy Moore continued. "We need to seek a different way of engaging with those people."

Mark Grimley, the Government's Chief People and Transformation Officer, who recently announced his resignation, said that the timeline for releasing results and carrying out the anonymous survey could also be improved.

Releasing them in spring as opposed to summer would be better because of pressures on schools in summer terms, Mr Grimley said.

During the panel hearing, Constable Jehan also revealed that the Government was exploring annualised or term-time hours for members of staff on zero-hours contracts, with progress expected at the beginning of next year.

"This would give them surety, it would give us surety, and they would be able to enjoy pension schemes, etcetera," he explained.

Constable Jehan said discussions with the unions on the topic had been "very positive" and "the only frustration was regarding the time that it has taken to do this".