Explorance Employee Surveys Platform Selected to Support Newcastle University People Engagement Strategy

Montreal, Quebec – June 7, 2023 – Newcastle University has appointed Explorance following a competitive tender that sought a “secure, customisable, easy-to-use survey platform to collect and analyse data” from employees across its global campus community.

The University had identified that its need to administer well-designed surveys going forward exceeded the scale and capability of existing provisions. Specifically, they had a particular requirement for “data to be gathered through quick pulse surveys or as part of a continuous listening strategy, with a view to generating actionable insights and identifying opportunities for impact”.

“We explored an ‘always on’ approach to conversations and wanted a more agile, iterative, and flexible process for how we capture staff feedback,” explained Lisette Nicholson, Newcastle University’s Director of People Engagement and Culture.

“The large surveys we previously used were always a huge piece of work and, because analysis took so long to complete, often the moment in time for response was lost. We found we were doing more quantitative surveys and including just one or two free-text questions, and we knew that more insight could be generated from the analysis of qualitative feedback. So, the key to removing the barrier on the surveys that we wanted to do was finding a platform to do more heavy lifting on analysis and provide the important data analytics with it.”

Following a procurement exercise, which began last year, Explorance was awarded the tender in March. Implementation of the Explorance Blue employee insights solutions is now underway.

“Explorance met all our requirements, including technical requirements such as SAP integration,” said Sarah Anderson, Organisational Development Lead – Strategic Projects, in the University’s People Services team. “We were also really keen on the Explorance Blue dashboard as this would help us to share results and actions with teams and departments across the institution and push forward the creation of action plans by managers. Explorance BlueML, and its ability to analysis sentiment and free text, was where Explorance was hugely above the competition. What it does is truly exceptional.”

Lisette added: “Explorance’s passion for the product and their capability was really clear from the first demo. Explorance Blue brings an all-around more robust approach, it is easy to use and also user-friendly. Our headline plan for the year ahead is to break down the big survey into constituent parts and undertake a number of surveys on various themes, for example, around DEI and wellbeing. We want to make it as simple as possible for colleagues to talk about the things that matter to them, and to generate greater engagement, open dialogue, and be able to see an evolution of what they are telling us over time.”

This will include a series of “tracking questions” that are asked more often, Lisette said, which will be accompanied throughout the year by “deeper dives” on issues, including those tied to its vision as a values-driven organisation.

John Atherton, General Manager – Europe and Africa, at Explorance, commented: “We are delighted to be working with Newcastle University and are excited to get started ahead of issuing the first survey this summer. The Explorance Blue dashboard will help the University track engagement over time and highlight KPIs around satisfaction and engagement. We are receiving growing interest from a range of universities about how Explorance Blue surveys can help them to be more responsive to the needs of their people.”

About Newcastle University

Newcastle University is a Russell Group university in the North East of England with a thriving international community of some 27,750 students from over 130 countries worldwide. As a member of the Russell Group of research intensive universities we have a world-class reputation for research excellence in the fields of medicine, science and engineering, social sciences and the humanities. Newcastle is among the top 20 universities in the country and is also one of the top 20 universities targeted by graduate employers in the UK. For more information, visit ncl.ac.uk.

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 People Insight 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 25% 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.