Hospice Survey

Help, I still have questions!

​

Please email or call us if there is anything at all you’d like to discuss that you’ve not found the answer to within these FAQ pages. Birdsong’s Emma Howard leads on the Hospice Survey project and her details are below.

email: emma@birdsong.co.uk
office: 01858 525258
mobile: 07834 633451

​

What do I get in my Overall Results report?

​

The main output of the survey process, included in the core cost of your survey, is a graphical Overall Results report comparing your hospice’s responses with the All Hospices benchmark. The All Hospices benchmark is derived from the combined responses of all the hospices taking part in this year’s survey. The benchmark provided in your report will include just staff, just volunteers or both (reported together or separately), depending on which groups you include in your survey. You can find out more about Birdsong’s benchmarking here.

The Overall Results report also highlights your hospice’s top and bottom performance areas, giving you an ‘at-a-glance’ view of your best and worst areas of staff satisfaction. You will also receive an overall engagement indicator as part of the survey headlines section of your report.

​

​

When will I see my results?

 

If you are taking part in the main spring/summer period of the Hospice Survey, we will be sending your survey reports to you by 19th July 2024 at the latest. It is beneficial if you prepare a plan in advance about when and how you will share and circulate the survey results. The FAQs below may help you with this.
 

Otherwise, we will produce the reports as soon as possible following the close of your survey and we will have included your specific reporting dates in your Registration Confirmation email as well as in your ‘Survey Testing and Launch information’ email before the survey went live.

 

​

What about making sense of the results?

 

Birdsong provides you with clear graphical reports and each section of the report contains a brief description of what you are looking at. But we are always on hand to help you interpret these if you need.

​

​

The survey has closed, can I still request additional reports over and above my registration selections?

​

We are able to produce Previous Years Comparison reports at any later stage, as well as separate staff vs volunteer comparisons if you have had both groups taking the survey. However, for most sub analyses options, if you did not select it at the point of registration we cannot add it as a further breakdown category afterwards as we will not have the necessary respondent information available to us. Therefore please make us aware at the point of registration and/or testing if you think there might be an area you’d like the flexibility of adding at a later point.

​

​

Do you have any recommendations on how best to circulate the results?

 

To maintain staff confidence in the process, we recommend making the survey results available to your people at the earliest opportunity, highlighting the most significant findings – both positive and negative.
Though it can be tempting to ‘sugar-coat’ results, we recommend against this because it can lead to mistrust in the organisation as well as under-mining the survey process in future years. If your survey has highlighted that something is less than positive in your organisation, then acknowledging this and working on a solution is an important first step in moving forward.

To maximise the motivational impact of the survey, take some prompt action in response to the findings. If appropriate, ask staff for their views on which are the most important and/or urgent areas for improvement. Be honest about what you can and cannot change.

Identify the priority areas for improvement and a proposed action plan in consultation with staff.
You may not know what to do about some of the issues the survey has highlighted. Don’t be tempted into action for its own sake. There’s nothing wrong with saying that the organisation needs some time to work out where to go from here. If you need to do this, explain how staff (or volunteers) will be involved and informed during this period.

​

​

What should I do after the results have been circulated?

​

At Birdsong we believe that a staff survey is just the beginning of a journey to improve staff satisfaction and engagement. The next steps after a survey are typically to investigate the issues raised by staff and agree priorities for action.

By the very act of making the survey available to your staff and/or volunteers, your organisation has shown staff that it is willing to listen to, and value, their suggestions.

Feeding back on the things that will be changed as a result of the survey, and/or finding supportive ways to ‘continue the conversation’ will be a positive way of building on and developing this proactive approach. Welcoming the involvement of staff and/or volunteers in addressing challenging areas (in fact, especially for those areas that may be hardest to change) can also prove particularly beneficial and can help nurture a productive and supportive organisational culture.

Remember that the results of the analysis will not tell the organisation what to do, but they will provide valuable guidance and support to steer decision-making in the months and years that follow. 

​

​

How can we can help you further?

​

We have been running staff surveys across the UK voluntary sector since 2004 and some charities find it helpful to have further involvement from us after they receive their results. 

We can produce additional reports that further analyse and interpret your data, examples of this include:

​

• Findings report: an executive summary report highlighting key variances, trends, strengths and areas for further investigation.

• Verbatim Comments summary report: a written report summarising the comments and suggestions made by staff.

 

We can also work with you directly to help you in moving forward, examples of this include:

 

• Staff presentation/ workshops: a presentation of the survey results and key findings to staff. This can be combined with facilitated group discussions to identify priority areas for improvement.

• Helping support the charity to move through specific areas of cultural development.

• Working with and developing your senior management team. 

• Individual coaching, 1-1s for personal development, and leadership mentoring.

We can also recommend other trusted people to provide mental health first aid training, practical advice/sessions and training on improving staff physical and mental health and wellbeing, and more. Our recommendations are not made on a commission-basis; we simply have a desire for our charity clients to find the best people who can help.

​

If you have any further questions about your Hospice Survey, please do make contact with us via emma@birdsong.co.uk or by calling 01858 525258.

To return to the Hospice Survey page, where you can find other FAQs or register your hospice for the Hospice Survey, please click here.

​

​​