Oxford staff communications survey – results

In May 2022, staff were invited to take part in a survey about University communications. The results indicate areas that are working well and that can be improved upon, which are summarised here. 

There are things that are working well for staff 

The University Bulletin (and e-newsletters in general) received very positive feedback, as did Vice-Chancellor emails and department communications. Further, more than 80% of staff were able to recall communications from Hilary term on USS pensions, the COVID-19 health campaign and Return to Onsite Working guidance/Business Continuity Planning. 

There are areas where we can explore improvements 

Routes for staff feedback could be improved; staff are keen to have opportunities to give their views. We will explore feedback opportunities through University Bulletin in the first instance. 

It could be clearer what information is relevant to different staff groups; in our very diverse institution, not all information feels relevant to everyone. We will explore the possibility of storing all central and divisional newsletters in one place for ease of reference for staff. We will also look into making it easier to find updates on key strategic projects. 

Staff feel there is missing content; initial launches aren’t always followed up with further information, and they would like to hear from a range of members of staff. We will work with those leading major projects to ensure follow up information is shared with staff, and we will explore how to give more space to a broad range of colleagues. If you would like to nominate a colleague to be profiled in University communications, please email the Internal Communications team (internal.communications@admin.ox.ac.uk). 

Cascades and duplicated notices are an issue for some staff. We have already put in place improvements to sharing information from UAS; we’re also exploring how we can improve cascading information and mailing lists. In addition, we will look into creating more coordination tools to assist staff in understanding what is communicated centrally compared with via cascade. 

Some staff would like to read communications in hard copy in common rooms and other shared areas. We will explore the benefits of this compared with the financial, logistical and environmental basis for communicating on a ‘digital first’ basis since the pandemic. 


If you have any further feedback about University communications, please do contact our team. We read all emails received and we welcome feedback from staff. 

The Internal Communications team, Public Affairs Directorate, July 2022