Hospice Survey
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section
FAQs for those new to the Hospice Survey
Why run a staff satisfaction survey?
At Birdsong we believe that staff and volunteer surveys are a powerful way for an organisation to keep in touch with what their people are thinking and feeling. Whether you want to uncover the cause of low morale or increase staff engagement, or simply take a ‘temperature check’ across your teams, a Birdsong staff survey will give you the information you need to inform decision making and planning.
We conduct a thorough review of our benchmarked surveys every few years to ensure that we always keep our service as helpful and relevant as possible. Our most recent review (conducted in October 2019) found that the Birdsong Hospice Survey is valued more highly than ever within the hospice sector.
The review, carried out in collaboration with Hospice UK’s Strategic HR and Workforce Leads (SHaWL) network, found that participating hospices judge the Birdsong Survey as cost-effective, clear and easy to use. Hospices also highly rate the ability to compare survey results against other hospices taking part.
Can you tell me more about Birdsong?
Birdsong is an established and trusted provider of staff surveys. Each year we run surveys for over 60 different charities – large and small – helping them to improve their staff satisfaction and engagement. Our clients appreciate the personal service, quick turnarounds and clear reporting that Birdsong provides. They also value the complete anonymity we assure their survey respondents, as well as the key insight they get from comparing their results with our benchmark data.
Birdsong works with charities of all sizes to help improve staff satisfaction and retention. We can help you find out where your charity is doing well – and where it could be doing better. In addition to our annual Hospice Survey we can also provide bespoke solutions.
You can find out more about the Birdsong core team here.
What is the Hospice Survey?
The Hospice Survey is a set of carefully crafted questions designed to gather the honest opinions of your organisation's people. There is a questionnaire of 44 questions designed for paid staff, and also a slightly shorter version (of 32 questions) structured specifically for volunteers. You can choose if you would like Paid staff only, Volunteers only or a combination of both to take the survey. If you choose both groups, there are enough comparable questions to allow a meaningful staff vs volunteer comparison.
The set of standard questions all use the industry standard Likert opinion scale for respondents to click and record their responses. In addition to the 44 opinion questions, you can also add open questions to the survey for a small additional cost, so that respondents can enter narrative responses. Open questions can be useful because they allow for more detailed information from respondents or for you to raise specific topics that are important to your hospice. You cannot change the wording of the opinion questions in the survey to facilitate the benchmarking but you can choose the wording of your open questions.
Once everything is arranged, the survey questionnaire is completed via a web-based survey link, which you pass on to your people. Hard copy questionnaires can be provided for individuals who do not have access to the internet. A three-week period is an ideal length of time for the survey, but you may wish to give your people a longer period to complete it. As standard, all hospices receive an Overall Results report comparing their survey results with the All Hospices benchmark. The All Hospices benchmark each year is derived from the combined responses of all the hospices taking part in the main spring/summer period of the survey.
As well as an Overall Results report with the benchmark comparison, you can further analyse your results by choosing from other comparison reports such as Staff vs Volunteers, Managers vs Non-managers, Clinical roles vs Non-clinical roles, Length of service, Location, Departments. In addition, you can specify custom sub-analyses unique to your hospice. This could be, for example, to analyse the responses from different job types. We can also produce an additional in-depth Findings report that further analyses and interprets your data if you require this, at an extra cost. This is an executive summary report highlighting key variances, trends, strengths and areas for further investigation.
Can I see or take a trial of this survey?
Yes, you can open a trial version of the hospice survey by clicking here.
How does the benchmarking work?
As standard, all hospices receive an Overall Results report comparing their survey results with the All Hospices benchmark. The All Hospices benchmark is derived from the combined responses of all the hospices taking part in this summer’s survey.
We use the summarised data from multiple organisations to produce benchmark data. It is not possible to identify the responses from particular organisations or individual participants in any of our benchmarks.
We also have a ‘Top Performers’ benchmark which provides an additional comparison for hospices wanting to challenge themselves a little more. It is based on the survey results of the Top 40 performing Birdsong staff surveys of the last three years. If this is of interest to your hospice, a separate Top Performers report can be selected during the survey registration process or as a follow-on extra, after receiving the main results reports.
I am very interested in taking the survey this year or next year, please can you add me to your contact list?
If you would like us to add your name to our contact list so you can hear important updates about the Hospice Survey please email emma@birdsong.co.uk
There are other FAQ topics in this section that you might find helpful. Clicking a heading below will open up a new window.
Alternatively, if you are ready to proceed with your registration, please return to our main Hospice Survey page for information on how to register.
You might be new to the Hospice Survey or seeking a refresher about what the survey is and how it runs. You should find all the answers to your question on this page, but if there is something specific you need please make contact with us on 01858 525258 or by emailing emma@birdsong.co.uk.