BU’s 2026 staff survey has now been circulated to staff. As recognised trade unions, we have been asked to encourage members to complete it. We cannot endorse the survey as currently designed.

We want to explain why.

This is not because we oppose staff surveys. Quite the opposite. A well-designed staff survey can be valuable. It can identify problems, surface patterns, and give staff a safer way to communicate concerns. But for that to work, staff need confidence that the survey is asking the right questions, that the process is independent and transparent, and that the results will not be used selectively.

We previously raised concerns about the process used to develop the survey. Those concerns included the selection of participants for preliminary discussion groups, the lack of clarity provided to participants in advance, and the extent to which staff and trade union input would meaningfully shape the final survey. We also made clear that we would not be comfortable with the process being described as having been developed in consultation with the trade unions unless there had been meaningful involvement.

Having now reviewed the survey itself, our concerns remain.

The survey is heavily framed around BU2035 and organisational change

A significant portion of the survey asks staff about BU2035, the University’s strategic pillars, transformation, change, and leadership communication.

Staff are asked whether they feel driven to play their part in delivering the BU2035 strategy, whether they feel proud of their role in delivering it, whether they feel excited about changes and transformations, and whether they understand how they can contribute to strategic goals.

Those are not neutral questions about staff experience. They are questions about alignment with an existing institutional strategy.

That matters because disagreement, concern, fatigue, or lack of confidence can easily be interpreted as a failure of understanding or engagement, rather than as evidence that the strategy, its implementation, or its impact on staff may need serious reconsideration.

A genuinely useful engagement survey should not only ask whether staff understand or support institutional change. It should also ask whether that change is fair, properly resourced, safe, realistic, transparent, and compatible with the conditions staff need to do their jobs well.

Understanding change is not the same as trusting it

The survey asks staff whether they understand the rationale behind recent restructuring and headcount reduction decisions, whether they understand how those decisions will affect them, and whether their line manager supports them to adapt to changes taking place at BU.

These questions are important, but they are incomplete.

Understanding a decision is not the same as believing it is justified. Understanding a restructure is not the same as trusting the process. Being supported to adapt is not the same as being protected from unreasonable workload, uncertainty, or harm.

The survey does not directly ask whether staff believe restructuring decisions have been fair, evidence-based, transparent, or properly assessed for their impact on workload, equality, wellbeing, and student experience.

Looks to us like the university doesn’t want to hear our concerns about these questions.

If staff are concerned about restructuring or headcount reductions, the survey should give them a clear and direct way to say so. It should not require them to squeeze those concerns into questions about whether they understand, adapt, or cope.

The survey risks individualising structural problems

A repeated pattern in the survey is that staff are asked whether they can navigate change, cope with demands, understand decisions, adapt to new conditions, or seek development opportunities.

Those questions may produce useful information, but they also risk placing responsibility on individuals and local managers for problems that may be structural.

The framing of questions to burden individuals with structural problems is a form of victim-blaming. It subtly tells the respondent that any issues they have with what is happening in the university is because of their own inadequacies, not the university’s.

For example, if workloads are unsustainable because of staffing reductions, the central issue is not whether individual staff can “cope”. If teams are struggling because change is happening too quickly, the central issue is not simply whether people can “navigate” that pace. If staff do not trust decisions, the central issue is not simply whether communication has been clear enough.

A stronger survey would ask direct questions about workload, staffing levels, unpaid overtime, morale, job security, psychological safety, trust in decision-making, and whether change is properly resourced.

There is too little on bullying, harassment, discrimination, disability, and safety

The survey includes a question about whether bullying, harassment, and discrimination are dealt with effectively at BU. A question, as in ONE.

That is laughably not enough.

Staff experiences in this area are complex and cannot be captured by one broad question. A meaningful survey should distinguish between whether staff have experienced problems, witnessed problems, reported problems, trusted the reporting process, felt protected from retaliation, or seen effective action taken.

There is also a lack of direct questioning about disability, reasonable adjustments, sickness absence pressures, equality impacts, and whether staff feel safe raising concerns.

For staff members, these are not peripheral issues. They are central to workplace safety, dignity, and fairness.

The survey gives limited space for concerns that do not fit the preferred framing

There are free-text boxes in the survey, and we would encourage members who choose to complete it to use those boxes fully. However, the closed questions matter because they shape the data that will be most easily counted, reported, and compared. We do not know what of the open questions we will see.

As the externally commissioned company running the survey and the university have both communicated, the raw data from the survey will not be available for independent analysis; we will be reliant upon the same entities to interpret the data they have shaped with these questions.

Where the closed questions focus heavily on strategy, communication, adaptation, and understanding change, the survey may fail to capture the full reality of staff experience.

For example, asking whether BU should “slow down”, “focus on implementing changes already started”, or “speed things up” frames the issue as one of pace. But staff concerns may not simply be about speed. They may be about direction, trust, governance, workload, fairness, or harm.

The survey should allow staff to challenge not only the pace of change, but the assumptions behind it.

We remain concerned about how the results may be interpreted

Survey results are only as useful as the questions asked and the framework used to interpret them.

If the survey finds that staff do not feel positive about BU2035, will that be interpreted as a problem with communication, or as a sign that staff have substantive concerns about the strategy?

If staff say they do not understand restructuring decisions, will that be interpreted as a need for clearer messaging, or as a sign that the rationale has not been made convincingly?

If staff say they are struggling to cope, will that be treated as an individual wellbeing issue, or as evidence of unsustainable workload and staffing pressures?

These distinctions matter.

A staff survey should not become a mechanism for validating decisions already made. It should be a genuine opportunity to hear what staff are experiencing, including where that feedback is difficult or uncomfortable.

Our position

We cannot endorse the survey as a robust measure of staff engagement.

We do not say that staff should not complete it. Members will make their own decisions. Some may wish to use the survey as one available route to register concerns, particularly through the free-text boxes.

However, we cannot encourage participation on the basis that this is a fully adequate or independent measure of staff experience.

If members do complete the survey, we encourage them to be clear, specific, and honest. Where the closed questions do not allow you to express your view properly, use the free-text boxes to explain what the question misses.

This could still be improved

Our position remains constructive.

A credible staff survey should include direct questions on:

• workload and staffing levels
• job security
• trust in senior decision-making
• transparency around restructuring
• equality impacts
• disability and reasonable adjustments
• bullying, harassment, discrimination, and retaliation
• confidence in HR and grievance processes
• psychological safety
• whether staff feel able to speak honestly without consequences
• whether institutional change is properly resourced
• whether staff believe the survey process itself is independent and safe

These are not unreasonable expectations. They are the kinds of questions needed if the University genuinely wants to understand staff experience.

Staff voice must be more than a data exercise

Staff engagement is not achieved by asking staff whether they understand decisions already made. It is achieved by listening to staff before, during, and after decisions are made, and by being willing to change course when the evidence shows harm.

For a survey to be trusted, especially in a university, the process must be transparent, methodologically sound, and capable of capturing uncomfortable truths.

At present, we do not believe this survey meets that standard.

We remain willing to work constructively with the University to develop better mechanisms for listening to staff. But we cannot endorse a process that, in our view, does not yet provide a sufficiently full or reliable picture of staff experience at BU.