The results are in and 96% of our employees say they are proud to be a member of their team!
Check out our highlights video!
Last week we announced the results of our annual employee survey, which we are very proud to share with you. The survey held in December 2020, received the most responses ever at 287, a response rate of 77%, the highest number to date!
We were particularly delighted to see increases between our 2018 and 2020 surveys in the percentage of employees who agreed or strongly agreed with these statements.
Each year, we ask our staff to tell us how they feel about their work, those they work with, and about the organisation. The anonymous survey is an important tool to show us the areas where we need to strive to do better. The data also shows us, our employees, and future employees, what we do well and where we have improved.
Our survey comprises a series of statements to which employees indicate how strongly they agree or disagree. When asked if Five Rivers has clear values, 97% of employees either ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’, and 96% of employees share our organisation’s values. We’re delighted to hear this as our values; respect, adaptability, integrity, support, and excellence, are important to us and are the foundations of everything that we do.
We’re over the moon to see that less than 10% of employees disagreed with any of the statements made. The area showing the largest disagreement was “I am fairly rewarded for my work” with 8% of employees saying that they ‘strongly disagreed’ or ‘disagreed, however, this is significantly down from 21% in 2018. So, we are pleased to be moving in such a positive direction, and that the initiatives we put in place after the 2018 Survey, such as a review of annual leave and clarity around pay grades, are helping to change things.
Only 6.9% of employees disagreed with the statement ‘I feel appreciated for the work I do’ which is down from 15% in 2018. Although it’s difficult for us to see that there are people within the organisation that feel this way, we’re happy to see that these numbers are so low and have significantly decreased in the last two years. We hope that next year we will continue to see improvements in this area.
New for 2020, we added a series of social value questions. Because we are a social enterprise, the work that we do is important to us, but also our community, and society. We were interested to find out from employees ‘how much does the mission statement of ‘Turning Children’s Lives Around’ positively influence your actions.’ The results found that 85% of employees agree that our mission statement has influence over their professional lives, and over 50% of employees agree that the mission statement influences their personal lives and the role they play in the wider community.
We were really interested to find out if any of our team volunteer in their spare time. We were blown away to see that over 20% of the Five Rivers Family play an active role in their communities. From the list of voluntary roles, we have a Parish Counsellor, an NHS responder, a qualified Community Mediator, School Governor, several volunteers at youth clubs, charity trustees, and many other important community roles.
The next steps for us, following the survey, will be that each member of our Senior Management Team ‘SMT’ will reflect on the data and answers, and agree on ways of moving forward. We will then come up with an action plan to ensure that we continue to maintain our high standards and desire for excellence. We are inherently aware of the role we play in children’s lives, but we’re also very aware of the huge role we play in our employees’ lives. We need our team to be happy, and strong so that they can continue to deliver our mission statement and help turn children’s lives around.