Explorance Chosen to Enhance Staff Engagement in Scottish Further and Higher Education with APUC Framework Agreement

Montreal, Quebec – October 18, 2023 – Explorance, the leader in Feedback Analytics, has been appointed to a multi-supplier Scottish education sector framework agreement for the provision of Staff Engagement Surveys. 

Having completed a competitive invitation to the tender process with the APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities & Colleges), Explorance has earned a place on the resulting framework to serve APUC member institutions drawn from the Scottish Higher and Further Education sector for an initial three-year period.

Through the tender, APUC sought responses from organisations which can deliver Staff Engagement Surveys to the HE/FE sector through either a fully managed service delivered by them or through the provision of an adequate system and platform that facilitates internal execution of surveys by the institutions themselves.

Explorance was appointed to both lots as follows:

• A self-managed service that mainly focuses on the functionality of the platform, with most of the surveys being designed and executed by the institutions themselves. Additional value-added features were also sought, such as the ability to carry out unlimited surveys, access to survey templates and ongoing dashboard support that will help optimise the quality of the provision.
• The procurement of an outsourced and project-managed service provision. In this case, a close working relationship (and open dialogue) between the contractors and institutions will be fostered throughout the term of the contract. The service will be comprehensive and detailed in scope, with an end-to-end approach including objective setting, strategy building and action planning.

In the past 18 months, Explorance has received growing interest from universities in the UK and beyond on listening to the Voice of Employees – and specifically how its survey platform can help them be more responsive to the needs of their people and enable them to better measure staff feedback and engagement.

Earlier the year, for example, Explorance’s employee surveys platform was selected to support Newcastle University’s people engagement strategy following a rigorous tender that sought a “secure, customisable, easy-to-use survey platform to collect and analyse data” from employees across its global campus community.

Now, under the APUC Staff Engagement Surveys framework agreement, this work is set to become even more prevalent in academic institutions.

John Atherton, VP Sales EMEA at Explorance, said: “We are delighted to be appointed to the APUC framework agreement for the provision of Staff Engagement Surveys to the Scottish Higher and Further Education sector, which demonstrates our expertise and value both technically and commercially.

“Universities are becoming more interested in the principle of continuous listening. Individual institutions are seeking improved ways to collect and analyse data provided by employees. For some, these are annual surveys that allow them to track employee engagement and advocacy or cyclical surveys to capture key data and insight at significant points during the employee lifecycle. For others, it is iterative ‘pulse’ checks that inform HR practices regarding specific people initiatives and change management. And, for many, it is all of the above.

“A common thread is a need for robust data, which is often missing in existing approaches to the voice of employees, and the ability to receive and respond to that in real-time. We anticipate that this APUC award will lead to new opportunities for us to work with institutions in Scotland, primarily in HE but potentially in FE too.

In the UK, Explorance supports over 25 universities: Aberdeen, Anglia Ruskin, Bath Spa, Birkbeck – University of London, Brighton, Bristol, Buckingham, Cardiff, Cardiff Metropolitan, Coventry, Durham, Glasgow Caledonian, Keele, Kingston, Leeds, Liverpool John Moores, Loughborough, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham Trent, Northumbria, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Westminster, Worcester, and the University of Law.

About APUC

Established initially in response to the McClelland Report, APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges) Limited is the procurement Centre of Expertise for all of Scotland’s Universities and Colleges. APUC’s vision is to maximise the contribution that advanced procurement makes to Scotland’s investment in Further and Higher Education by working in partnership with institutions to support and enable sustainable innovation in procurement and shared service optimization.

About Explorance

Founded in 2003, Explorance supports more than 20 million people in their individual journeys of purpose, growth, and impact. As the leading provider of Feedback Analytics Solutions, Explorance empowers organizations with actionable decision-making by measuring students’ and employees’ needs, expectations, skills, knowledge, and competencies. Explorance facilitates continuous improvement and accelerates the insight-to-action cycle leading to personal growth and organizational agility. Headquartered in Montreal with business units in Chicago, Chennai, Melbourne, Amman, and London. Explorance works with 25% of the Fortune 100 and 30% of the top Higher Education institutions, including 8 of the world’s top 10 business schools. The company has clients in more than 50 countries.