Thank you to everyone who shared their feedback in the 2024 Employee Experience Survey and the follow up, shorter 2025 Pulse Survey. You told us what is working well and where we can do more to make working for the council better. Your feedback has helped shape practical actions across the organisation, with a focus on making day-to-day work easier, improving communication, supporting learning and development and helping teams make decisions more effectively.
Since the 2024 survey, Human Resources and Organisational Development (HROD), senior leaders and teams across the council have been taking forward actions based on what you said. Progress has also been checked through the shorter employee experience pulse survey carried out in October 2025, helping us understand what is improving and where further focus is needed.
Survey Snapshot
| Responses | 2024 survey | 2025 survey |
|---|---|---|
Number of survey responses | 587 | 1046 |
Response rate | 10% | 21% |
| Would recommend the council as an employer to family and friends | 60% rated the council as 7 or above | 71% rated the council as 7 or above |
Your feedback
When asked for your feedback (average out of 5) on the following areas, here are the overall ratings for each key area in 2024 and 2025.
| Key Area | 2024 Survey | 2025 Survey |
|---|---|---|
| Overall experience of working at the council | 3.53 | 3.80 |
| Senior Leadership | 2.96 | 3.34 |
| Flexible and Hybrid Working | 3.41 | 3.76 |
| Learning and Development | 3.27 | 3.59 |
Your feedback is making a difference
The 2024 survey gave us insight into employee experience across the council. The October 2025 pulse survey then gave us a helpful checkpoint, showing where action is starting to make a difference and where we need to keep listening and improving.
Themes for action
The 2024 survey comments, focus group feedback and the 2025 pulse survey responses have helped identify the main areas where action can make the biggest difference. These themes continue to guide improvement work across services.
- Workload
- Flexible and Hybrid Working
- Leadership
- Learning and Development
- Wellbeing
What has happened since the 2024 survey? An update on progress.
| You Said | We Did |
|---|---|
“Having lots of approvals or delegations at one level slows things down”- recruitment was a specific example.
| We simplified the process by reducing the number of approvals required to recruit to manager and finance approval. This is helping recruitment move more quickly and reducing unnecessary delays. |
| “Can senior leaders be more visible?” | The Executive Team and Heads of Service have been making time to meet the colleagues who deliver services in their teams and these visits are being highlighted regularly in Cascade. |
| “We need to engage more with all employees, including non-networked frontline staff.” | The communications team developed a new email subscription service so non-networked colleagues can receive council news updates. The ‘In Case You Missed’ email now goes to over 360 employees at least every two weeks. In case you missed it, you can sign up here Non-network email subscription service – My Council Works |
“Can there be more consistency in the quality of leadership”
| We took part in a pilot for shared leadership development with other councils and building on this will launch a new leadership development programme in December 2026. |
“It feels like opportunities for growing our own are reducing due to a preference for “job ready” candidates”
| Growing Our Own (GOO) is the way council creates opportunities for young people to join the council and build their skills for the future. From 2026 managers are producing and implementing a GOO plan and reporting this in their Workforce Plans. |
“Protected time to learn new digital technologies would be appreciated”
| Digital learning continues to be a priority supported by our Digital Champions, LEON eLearning and the Microsoft 365 Skills Hub. The Digital Skill Survey in March 2026 again highlighted the need for time to learn new technologies and we are working on this. |
| “The application of the Hybrid and Flexible Working Policy feels inconsistent and doesn’t reflect a flexible first tone” | The Hybrid and Flexible Working policy was reviewed in 2025 to be more consistent and flexible. |
| “There is no system to record quality conversations, so some training requests are not fed into a team or service development plan” | Managers’ annual GOO plans, referred to above, will include outcomes from Quality Conversations. Actions from these will be monitored with their workforce planning actions. |
Next steps
- The next Employee Experience Survey runs during September 2026. This will give everyone another opportunity to share what it is like to work for the council, tell us what has improved and highlight where we should focus next.
- This year, we want to hear from even more employees across all services and work locations, so we can strengthen our understanding of employee experience and make sure future actions reflect the views of as many colleagues as possible.
- Your feedback matters and continues to shape the actions we take to improve employee experience across the council.
