Statistics show FE staff care deeply, but don’t believe their voice counts

When it comes to employees, further education doesn’t suffer from a shortage of enthusiasm or dedication. In fact, an analysis of FE staff survey responses from 4,394 employees across 13 FE institutions found that 93% care about the future of their organisation. That is an extraordinary level of commitment from a workforce operating amid persistent pressure on funding, pay, recruitment and retention.

But the same data reveals a much less reassuring figure: only 38% of FE staff believe meaningful action will actually be taken as a result of their survey.

This 55-point gap suggests that the sector is facing a credibility problem around employee voice.

In other words, the staff are speaking up. But the question is whether they believe anyone is listening and whether they can see what happens next.

When people care but doubt anything will change

Employee voice is sometimes treated as a measure of whether people have been given an opportunity to contribute. A survey is sent, a consultation is held or colleagues are invited to share ideas. But the existence of a channel does not automatically create a meaningful voice.

For voice to feel credible, staff need to see a connection between what they say and what happens as a result.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that leaders have to act on every suggestion given, or promise outcomes they cannot reasonably deliver. In FE, many of the pressures affecting working life are, after all, shaped by national policy, funding settlements and wider labour-market conditions. No individual college alone can resolve those issues.

But silence after consultation creates its own message. When staff share their experience and hear little (or nothing) in return, they may reasonably conclude that speaking up changes nothing. And if this happens repeatedly, even highly committed people may stop contributing their ideas, raising concerns or trusting future requests for feedback.

That is especially risky in a sector where staff knowledge matters so much. The people teaching learners, supporting students and running day-to-day services often see emerging problems and practical solutions before they appear in performance data.

When those perspectives disappear, leaders lose valuable insight as well as trust.

Closing the feedback loop is part of listening

If there’s one important thing to remember about employee listening, it’s that a staff survey should begin a conversation. A survey isn’t the end point, but the start.

Once the results are available, leaders need to explain what they heard, what they will prioritise and what will happen next. They should also be open about what cannot change immediately and why.

A credible response might say:

• This is what you told us.
• This is what we are going to address first.
• This is who is responsible for taking it forward.
• This is when we will update you.
• These are the issues we cannot resolve locally, but this is how we will represent them.

That final point is so important. Closing the feedback loop is not the same as claiming to have every answer. Honest explanation can build more trust than an unrealistic promise, particularly when leaders distinguish clearly between institutional decisions and sector-wide constraints.

Colleges can also make progress more visible. Staff should not have to remember what was promised six months earlier or search through an intranet to find an action plan. Regular, brief updates can show what has changed, what is underway and where an action has stalled.

Small changes really matter here. A practical improvement to workload, communication or a local process may not solve the largest challenges facing FE, but it goes a long way in demonstrating that feedback is being taken seriously.

Managers make employee voice feel real

The relationship between staff and their manager is another important part of the picture.

Across the same analysis, regular manager feedback sat 14 percentage points below the all-sector benchmark. This suggests that too many FE employees may not be receiving consistent feedback through everyday working relationships.

Managers help turn employee voice from a periodic exercise into an ongoing exchange by creating opportunities for staff to raise concerns, test ideas and understand how decisions have been made.

However, this only works when managers have the time, confidence and support to respond well. A manager who gathers feedback but has no authority, information or route for escalating it can quickly become another broken link in the process.

Senior leaders should therefore consider whether managers know:

• How to discuss survey findings with their teams
• Which actions they can take locally
• How to escalate issues outside their control
• How and when to update staff on progress
• How to explain difficult decisions with honesty

Far from being simply an optional extra, supporting managers in this role is the key to creating a listening culture that makes a real difference.

Focus action where college’s have influence

FE leaders cannot remove every source of pressure, but they can avoid allowing national challenges to obscure opportunities for local action.

The wider analysis points towards areas including recognition, development, manager feedback and confidence that voice leads to action. These are not simple issues, but they give colleges practical places to start.

Leaders can ask whether good work is noticed consistently, whether staff understand the development opportunities available to them and whether survey actions are specific enough to be owned and tracked.

A small number of visible, well-chosen commitments will usually do more for credibility than an ambitious action plan that quietly loses momentum.

Colleges should also involve staff in choosing priorities. Survey results can show where an issue exists, but conversations with the people closest to it help explain why it exists and what a workable response might look like.

This creates a better cycle: listen, understand, act, report back and listen again.

Some voices need to be heard beyond one institution

These findings also raise a wider question: how can more people across FE be encouraged to make their voices count?

Some of the strongest concerns raised by staff cannot be resolved within a single institution. Pay, funding, workforce capacity and the status of FE require people across the sector to share evidence, exchange perspectives and speak collectively about the conditions affecting their work.

Institutional and sector-wide employee voice should reinforce one another.

Within a college, staff need clear opportunities to influence the decisions leaders can control. Across FE, they also need forums where shared challenges can be discussed, brought to wider attention and represented to those shaping policy.

Both depend on people seeing what happens after they contribute. Colleges should explain what followed their staff survey. At a sector level, people should be able to see how shared experiences and evidence are informing debate, influencing priorities or strengthening the case for change.

Encouraging people to speak up is really just the start of the journey. Voice becomes meaningful when people can see that their contribution has been heard and carried forward.

From collecting feedback to earning trust

The contrast between 93% of FE staff caring about their institution’s future and only 38% believing survey action will follow is stark. But it also points to an opportunity.

FE has a deeply committed workforce. Colleges do not need to manufacture that commitment. They simply need to protect it by making listening more credible.

That means acting where action is possible, explaining where it is not, equipping managers to keep conversations moving and reporting progress with consistency. It also means ensuring that issues requiring wider change reach the platforms, networks and decision-makers able to amplify them.

Staff should continue to make their voices heard, within their organisations and across the wider sector and leaders have to demonstrate why doing so is worthwhile.

By Jane Tidswell, Head of HE and FE at People Insight