Demand
Includes areas such as workload, work patterns and the work environment.
Do you want to know where to focus your energy and time to improve wellbeing and resilience in your team? Are you looking for a tried and tested tool which measures and reports the areas impacting performance and reducing resilience? Would you like a system which helps you deliver the actions which will make real change to how you team feel and thrive at work?
In veterinary practice, the management of workplace stress and wellbeing is critical to ensuring the smooth running of the practice and the performance of the team. Everyone is potentially at risk from work-related stress; it can affect anyone, at any level within the practice.
A culture survey:
- Identifies the factors within your practice which affect team morale, wellbeing and culture
- Provides you with a clear and simple report giving you evidence of what’s working well in your practice, and the areas requiring attention
- Gives you a framework which takes you from reviewing the evidence through steps to implementing changes, all with team involvement and guidance from VDS Training
- Allows team members to give open, honest, anonymous feedback, handled by a trusted external partner
- Delivers a dynamic report, providing evidence for your HSE stress management policy.
How does it work?
What's included in the report?
Following the completion of the online questionnaire by members of your team, which includes questions that make up the HSE Management Standards (HSE, 2018b), we will generate a report which gives you results based on the six areas known to be causes of workplace stress:
Control
How much autonomy the team members have in the way they do their work.
Support
Encouragement and resources provided by the organisation, management and colleagues.
Relationships
Identifying positive working, ways to avoid conflict and deal with unacceptable behaviour.
Role
Understanding of role within practice and whether the managers ensure no conflicting roles.
Change
How organisational change is managed and communicated in the practice.
The report also includes a measure of individual wellbeing using the WHO-5 (WHO, 1998) along with a measure of organisation health using the UWES-3 scale (Schaufeli et al, 2017). The employee answers according to how they feel about these aspects of their work.
Vitality
Identifying how rested and energised team members feel and their enthusiasm for their role.
We appreciate that asking your employees for their honest views can feel like a daunting exercise! You are not alone and we will be there to support you in the process. Running a culture survey is the first step to open and honest communication, and encourages a focus on areas of success as well as areas for improvement. Running a culture survey allows you to: There is a legal responsibility to create safe places of work and to risk assess and minimise the risks of workplace stress. Workplace stress straddles several pieces of legislation (ACAS, 2004). Those of note are: This process enables you to fulfil this legal responsibility with evidence which demonstrates a proactive, action orientated approach to managing stressors.
Once you have got in touch with us to run a culture survey with your team, we will provide step by step guidance on the process and what information we need from you. Initially, we will take some details about the make-up of the practice teams, including branches, types of roles and number of people in each team. You will then receive a link to a bespoke practice culture survey for the practice from VDS Training together with guidance on completing the survey and information on how to communicate the benefits to your colleagues and encourage them to complete the questionnaire. VDS Training will monitor the responses received to your practice culture survey and will update you after around 10 days after the initial circulation so you can remind your team if necessary. Once all staff have completed the survey, VDS Training will analyse the responses and create a report for you. A VDS Training Consultant will then have a 20-minute telephone consultation with you to discuss the results and identify the next steps for your practice.
The cost of the survey is from £150 + VAT per report. This includes:
Looking for something more bespoke or further support for your team? Following a culture survey, we can support you by facilitating focus and discussion groups or running workshops to plan the implementation of your agreed post-survey actions. Get in touch to discuss your team’s requirements.