You said, we did: staff comms survey outcomes

Your feedback has helped us make a number of improvements to our staff communications, with more yet to come.

Back in April last year, we ran a survey to better understand how you use the Staff Portal and In Brief newsletter, how you like to get your news updates, and where you felt current communication methods were lacking.

More than 150 of you submitted your feedback. We then ran workshops in the summer to test user experience on the Staff Portal and identify issues. Thank you to those who took part.

All this has helped us to make some changes over the last few months to make it easier to stay up to date with University news.

What’s new?

• Channel explainers: Some of you felt the number of different communication channels was confusing, so we have published an overview of the main ones and tips on how to use them on a new Staff Communication Channels page.
• A-Z update: Broken links on the main A-Z glossary have been fixed, vague link titles made clearer, and some useful new ones are being added.
• Colleague stories: There was clear interest in hearing more about the achievements of our staff in all roles. We published a number of such articles in 2023, including a feature celebrating staff excellence and other positive staff stories. We also added a regular Colleague Spotlight feature to In Brief, introducing a colleague and their role and personal interests.
• In Brief made briefer: A few respondents said time pressures were the biggest thing preventing them from reading news updates. We have therefore made In Brief items shorter and snappier to help you get the month’s essential updates quickly.
• Offline options: Not all our colleagues work at computers, so we have started producing monthly staff news posters this academic year to display in rest areas for cleaners, catering and grounds staff and others, and to aid manager briefings. Let us know if this would help you or your team.
• Newsletter list: We have also created a list of internal newsletters you can sign up to in order to get updates on specific themes. Get in touch to get yours added.
• Readability: We know long, complex updates can be off-putting so we avoid large chunks of text wherever possible and use section headers to make articles clearer and more accessible.
• Feedback: In addition to the Q&A, we have introduced regular polls in all-staff talks to allow you to share your perspectives and to help Leadership gauge understanding of certain issues.
• Navigation: The ‘In Focus’ side bar on the right side of the homepage is now titled ‘Key information’. It contains links to handy and frequently used information pages so you can access them with one click. The search function on all our websites is currently being reviewed to make it easier to find information. This is a complex process and will take time, so we will update you on progress.

We will continue to make improvements to our channels to make them better serve staff. Wider website development work is also ongoing and will benefit staff communication pages.

Further feedback is always welcome by emailing communications@reading.ac.uk or speaking to Pete Bryant or Hayley Haggins in the Staff Engagement team.