Loughborough UCU is able to share some information about recent and current staff assessments of what it is like to work at the University. The material comes from two sources: firstly, exit surveys and interviews conducted with staff who left the University between May and October 2024 (these details have kindly been shared with us by management and HR); secondly, the open meeting that we ourselves organised on 28 February, following closure of the Cost Reduction Scheme.
Exit Surveys and Interviews
The first thing to say is that this data should be treated cautiously, given that only 12.7 percent of leavers during this six-month period completed the exit survey, with a tiny fraction of those – seven colleagues in all – opting to follow up with an exit interview. The response rate was comparable across job families.
Despite the relatively small evidence sample, however, some conclusions can still be drawn. The first is that, on the basis of the exit survey in particular, the University was judged a good place to work. None of the questions asked received a response that was les than 50% positive: the lowest number was 52.6% expressing satisfaction with the pay and benefits packages offered here, while the highest was 75.4% answering in the affirmative that ‘I was able to be my true self.’
Most of the reasons given for leaving were benign or neutral: retirement or personal circumstances, for example, or the opportunities for career enhancement available elsewhere. Thirteen leavers, however, did cite issues with working relationships. In the discursive comments themselves, there were some echoes of LUCU themes: e.g. concerns over the level of training undertaken by middle and senior management, or dismay at a lack of ‘openness and compassion’ in some working relationships on campus.
Open Meeting of 28th February
No workplace is static, of course, and it is significant that the exit interviews mentioned here took place before well before the impact of the Cost Reduction Scheme, launched last summer, could be assessed. Mindful that many staff members may be facing especially challenging workloads in the wake of this programme, LUCU convened the open meeting to capture opinion from right across campus.
At the meeting, staff discussed issues such as:
- insufficient communication about and preparation for the significant localised impact of exits
- a lack of meaningful review, redistribution or deletion of tasks associated following exits
- leadership vacuums following the departure of line managers
- School-wide workload allocation percentages being arbitrarily adjusted in WAMS, but not corresponding to actual changes
- individuals taking reduced hours but with no commensurate reduction in workload
- insufficient capacity to handle upcoming strategic change projects.
Since the meeting, we have followed up on these concerns with the University’s senior management, and we will continue to address them. A key aim is to improve how the University monitors the effects of programmes such as the Cost Reduction Scheme which have profound effects upon remaining staff.