Initial assessment

RSSB did an assessment of Company A’s strengths and challenges in managing mental health to identify key pain points. It included responses to RSSB’s mental health survey, sickness absence rates, usage of the Employee Assistance Programme, and other data. Additionally, we shadowed employees to learn more about their experiences at work. We also facilitated workshops with the project lead and the project’s steering group. The assessment revealed stress and pressure, bullying, sexism and racism, a lack of professional growth, and a lack of job security as pain points for Company A. 

Bespoke mental health survey

Following the initial assessment, Company A felt it would be beneficial to conduct a bespoke mental health survey. They wanted to explore some of the pain points that were raised in the assessment.  The new survey would, for instance, enable Company A to gather data on issues such bullying. Our survey, which informed the initial assessment, was three years old by this point. So, while it covered bullying, the question related specifically to employees’ experiences of bullying during their rail career, not at Company A. Company A was also keen to understand the prevalence of sexism and racism; data on this was not available from the 2020 survey results. The company felt a new survey would provide a solid baseline against which future activities, changes, and initiatives could be measured. 

Developing the bespoke survey

Using our survey as a starting point, Company A developed a set of questions to ask staff about their: 

  • wellbeing 
  • experience of common stress risk factors 
  • experience of psychosocial hazards 
  • help-seeking behaviour 
  • perceptions of the organisation 
  • professional growth 
  • experiences of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. 

The survey also had a free text question on what Company A could do to improve worker wellbeing. 

The survey was disseminated across the business. An online all-staff meeting was held to tell colleagues about the survey. As staff already had the time blocked out in their diary for the meeting, they were able to complete the survey during this time. 

More than 400 members of staff at Company A completed the survey. The project lead analysed the results. 

Outcome of bespoke survey 

The results of Company A’s 2023 survey reaffirmed the key issues that had been identified in our survey. They also substantiated the issues that had been reported anecdotally by staff during the workshops and shadowing. This meant that for the first time, the project lead was able to validate the issues they believed were present across the business.

The free text element of the survey allowed employees to express their views on issues and raise new topics that had not been looked at in the 2020 survey. Authenticity and credibility of leaders was one of the topics raised, with employees mentioning a lot of talk or no action. Another was tolerance of bullying and discrimination, with staff saying: ‘If someone experiences bullying there are no real consequences.’ 

According to the project lead, having this data has helped put mental health on the agenda for senior leaders. Before the project, there was little opportunity to discuss mental health-related issues with senior management. The survey results prompted Company A to provide a regular slot for health and wellbeing updates in its leadership forum. Mental health and wellbeing is also on the agenda for a future senior leadership team meeting. 

A vital lesson Company A learned throughout this process was that survey questions, when created from scratch, require careful consideration to ensure useful data is generated. In this case, the wording of certain questions was changed from our survey to tailor it to Company A’s requirements. In some instances, small changes for some questions changed the entire meaning of the question and the usefulness of the data.

Example question from the two surveys: why wording matters

Question 1 (original question): ‘During your career in the rail industry, have you experienced bullying/harassment?’

Question 2 (reworded question): ‘During your career in the rail industry, have you experienced bullying/harassment to yourself or others?’ If ‘yes’, ‘How often have you experienced this at Company A?’

The original and reworded questions are very similar. However, by expanding the question to indirect experience of bullying (others being bullied), asking Question 2 will make it impossible to understand who the victims of bullying are. We may also overestimate or underestimate the scale of bullying in an organisation.

Let’s imagine employee X is responding to the survey. He has never experienced bullying directly, but he has seen a colleague being bullied. He therefore answers ‘yes’ to Question 2. As we are not asking employee X for more information about this experience of bullying, we have no way of knowing whether it was to him, to someone else, or even to multiple people, making it impossible to find patterns in parts of the business. The question makes it impossible to tell the overall level of bullying and harassment to which staff are exposed.

As this example demonstrates, when designing a survey from scratch, or adapting an existing survey, it is crucial to consider the data you want to get from the survey and whether the question will provide this. It is important to ensure the question is not ambiguous but also that each question is asked separately.

Next steps

Company A will start addressing the results of their survey. They plan to work with their wellbeing ambassadors to select interventions to improve wellbeing based on the themes identified in the survey. After going through the process of developing a survey and measuring wellbeing, Company A now feels they have a solid baseline against which to measure future mental health initiatives. They feel more confident in their ability to effectively measure the impact of future interventions.