At the University of Nottingham, we are proud of our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all that we do  and to improving the workplace culture for all staff.

We ask staff to complete the 2021 Athena Swan and EDI survey which aims to capture the experiences and perceptions of colleagues on a range of key areas including workload, ADCs, career development, promotion, flexible/ part-time working, workplace culture, EDI, and parental policies. This helps us measure the impact of our actions to enhance our workplace culture by advancing equality for all colleagues.

The survey will run from Monday 10 May to Friday 4 June 2021. It is expected that the survey will be completed in work time.

Take part in the survey here.

Feedback from the survey will also be used to direct our actions over the coming years, specifically in relation to our Athena Swan agenda and EDI Strategic Delivery Plan.

The Athena Swan Charter encourages and recognises work to address gender equality in higher education and research. The university successfully renewed its silver award in 2017/2018 and holds a number of departmental Athena Swan awards. These recognise the commitment of our Faculties and Schools to progressing gender equality through the development of local action plans.

Anonymous surveys will be emailed to all staff. Additional paper copies will be offered to O&F colleagues with limited access to computers.

Feedback from the 2017 Athena Swan survey directly led to, or informed a number of changes and new initiatives, including:

• The Appraisal and Development Conversations (ADC) process replaced the PDPR process, better meeting the needs of staff and managers.
• A range of improvements and new initiatives have been implemented to support parents and staff returning from parental leave. This includes the introduction of breastfeeding rooms, the introduction of our New Parents Pack, Information Booklet for Parents and an online library of resources relating to parental leave, an update to our policy on annual leave to enable staff to carry forward accrued annual leave to their return from maternity/parental leave, and a review and update of our Conference and Training Care Fund.
• A refresh of the Dignity Advisors Network has increased the size and diversity of the pool of advisors.
• A review of our promotions process focused on removing potential disadvantage for individuals with protected characteristics in applying and being successful for promotion.
• The LMA Staff Career Development Hub was launched which provides online resources, training and information around career pathways and career development activities.
• The Building a Culture for Success guide has been integrated into a number of university processes (eg recruitment, ADC, promotion etc) and sets out the expectations and behaviours that are expected of all staff working at the University.
• The introduction of our Let’s be clear about EDI webinars which aim to promote a university-wide conversation to help develop our understanding of what EDI means and how the university embeds this in everything we do.

Please complete the survey and help us to improve our workplace culture by advancing equality for all staff.

For more information including FAQs, please visit the Athena Swan survey SharePoint site.

For questions or queries, please contact Zoe Goodwin, HR Project Officer (zoe.goodwin@nottingham.ac.uk).