{"id":25892,"date":"2025-06-04T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T06:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/?p=25892"},"modified":"2025-06-03T17:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:56:30","slug":"dividing-lines-ucea-and-people-insight-reveal-sharp-differences-in-he-staff-sentiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/dividing-lines-ucea-and-people-insight-reveal-sharp-differences-in-he-staff-sentiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Dividing Lines: UCEA and People Insight Reveal Sharp Differences in HE Staff Sentiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1406\" data-end=\"1639\">A new collaborative study by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucea.ac.uk\/\">Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA)<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/peopleinsight.co.uk\/\">People Insight<\/a> has uncovered a widening divide in employee sentiment between academic and professional services staff within UK universities.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1641\" data-end=\"1913\">The report, <em data-start=\"1653\" data-end=\"1725\">A Tale of Two Perspectives: Bridging the Gap in HE Employee Experience<\/em>, captures the voices of more than 240,000 staff from over 75 higher education institutions \u2014 marking the most comprehensive analysis of employee feedback ever conducted within the sector.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1915\" data-end=\"2233\">Although some trends point to a positive shift since the height of the pandemic \u2014 including increased community spirit and career support \u2014 the removal of COVID-related support systems appears to have contributed to renewed isolation and unequal progress across different staff roles, particularly affecting academics.<\/p>\n<div><strong>Key findings include:<\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Only 43% of academic staff feel they can comfortably manage their workload, compared to 63% of professional services staff.<\/li>\n<li>Academic staff are far less likely to feel supported on wellbeing, with only 44% agreeing their university supports their health and wellbeing at work.<\/li>\n<li>While 87% of academic staff find their work interesting and challenging, only 55% feel valued for what they do.<\/li>\n<li>Satisfaction with total benefits among academic staff stands at just 38%, well below averages from other sectors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Professor Ken Sloan, Chair of the UCEA Employee Reference Group and Vice-Chancellor of Harper Adams University, said: \u201cThis report is both honest and timely. It provides the sector with a clear view of where we have made progress and where more targeted effort is needed. By surfacing the experience of academic and professional services staff side by side, it gives institutions the insight to support meaningful change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Tom Debenham, Managing Director at People Insight, added: \u201cHigher education institutions face growing financial and operational pressures. In this context, understanding employee experience, especially where it diverges, is more important than ever. Our report offers data-backed guidance to help universities design people strategies that are inclusive, fair and effective.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\nThe report includes practical, evidence-based recommendations for how HEIs can improve the experience of academic and professional services staff alike.<\/div>\n<div>\nCase studies from institutions such as Manchester Metropolitan University and a selection of post-1992 and Russell Group universities showcase how survey insights have been turned into action \u2014 driving improvements in engagement, leadership communication and employee wellbeing.<\/div>\n<div>\nThe report also introduces the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/peopleinsight.co.uk\/inspire-he\/\">Inspire HE rankings<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a new system recognising universities who excel in employee experience through effective employee listening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>A downloadable copy of the report is available at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/peopleinsight.co.uk\/employee-experience-in-higher-education\/\">peopleinsight.co.uk\/employee-experience-in-higher-education<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new collaborative study by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) and People Insight has uncovered a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_masonry":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0},"categories":[459],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25894,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892\/revisions\/25894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessmole.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}