ETS first started working with CRUK running employee surveys from 2018 but, as with so many organisations, people plans had to be radically adjusted when the pandemic arrived.

With shops closed, large numbers of employees furloughed and a significant loss of fundraising income, CRUK decided to pivot swiftly to using more regular pulse check surveys with a much narrower focus. The question sets focused solely on areas such as wellbeing, job security and remote working. This turbulent period also meant a number of L&D initiatives and policy development needed had to be paused.

Following some restructuring CRUK returned to a ‘full census’ survey in 2022. With the revised listening strategy to incorporate a more agile approach that supplemented a full survey with periodic pulses, ETS worked closely with CRUK’s employee experience team to arrive at the right questions. The 2022 full survey exercise encompassed a revised design that was based on three key elements – engagement, enablement and empowerment.

Steven Arbuckle, Head of Diagnostics at ETS:

“CRUK recognised the land shift and wanted to ensure their survey would be action-focused, so the wording of questions was really important and something collectively we spent a lot of time on. Enablement was an area they were particularly keen to get a deep understanding of, amid changing working practices and employee expectations.”

A further addition to the re-launched survey programme was some demographic data capture, giving CRUK an unprecedented clarity over how different groups of people experience working there. This was particularly valuable given that equality, diversity & inclusion is such a major focus for CRUK.