Staff surveys for universities, councils, the NHS and public services

Give everyone the floor.

Run your staff survey and regular pulses, see what each team is saying, agree what to change, and show staff what happened next. With dedicated support throughout.

  • Hosted on Microsoft Azure in the UK
  • No result shown for fewer than five people
  • Your data never trains AI
The Open Floor home page for a fictional university: three priority actions drawn from the results, overdue actions that need attention, and the latest engagement result of 68%.
A survey question on a phone: I am proud to work for the University, with five answer options from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

From what staff say to what you do about it

  1. Step 1

    Ask

    An annual survey and short pulses through the year.

  2. Step 2

    Understand

    Results for every area and team, with the comments behind them.

  3. Step 3

    Act

    A few actions, each with an owner and a date.

  4. Step 4

    Tell back

    Show staff what changed, then check it helped.

Inside Open Floor

Five things that set Open Floor apart

Real screens from Open Floor, shown with demonstration data for a fictional organisation.

Results

See where attention is needed

Compare every department and team on any question, split by grade, role or length of service. Every comment sits beside the score it explains, with names and identifying details taken out.

Or simply ask in your own words, such as "which team is lowest on workload, and what are people saying?" Then download a report for each area as PowerPoint, Word or PDF.

Results studio: answers to My workload is manageable for each directorate of a fictional university as five-point bars, with saved views down the side.

Benchmarks

Know where you stand, and how sure to be

Compare with similar organisations using results they have published or released, starting with UK universities and colleges. Every comparison shows how many organisations are behind it, which years it covers and how the question was matched.

Questions are compared only when they are worded and scored alike, and thin comparisons are labelled as indicative.

The Benchmarks page for a fictional university, comparing it with other universities on headline measures, follow-through, the twelve headings and question by question.

Action and follow-through

From a result, to an action, to telling staff

Every action has an owner, a date and a status, and links to the score that prompted it. Stalled actions get a nudge, and a short pulse checks whether the change helped. For ideas, browse what other organisations tried on the same issue.

When there is progress to share, Open Floor drafts a "you said, we did" update from the actions you have actually recorded.

Action planning for a fictional university: a School action, protected focus afternoons, with its owner, due date, status and progress, and a reminder that it has had no update for 52 days.

Follow-up conversations

Find out what sits behind a score

After the survey, anyone who wants to say more can have a short conversation with an AI interviewer, typed or spoken. It asks open, neutral questions and never about named people.

The person reads the summary, changes anything they want and approves it. Only the approved summary is kept, and HR checks it before any manager can read it.

Follow-up conversations: a summary approved by a member of staff, with two short answers about workload this term, each filed under a survey heading.

Your survey history

Bring your past results with you

Import historic survey results from platforms such as Hive, People Insight, Culture Amp and Qualtrics, from their spreadsheet or PDF exports. They sit alongside your new results, so you can follow every measure over time and see whether last year's actions made a difference.

We check each file with you as it comes in, so past and new results are compared only where the questions really match.

History and trends for a fictional university: five years of engagement results, 2022 to 2025 imported from the previous survey supplier's files and 2026 from Open Floor, rising from 59% to 68%.

Support

Help that does it with you, and support that knows your survey

Stuck on a task? Ask Help in your own words, such as "how do I send this pulse to just one department?" It finds the right guide, then either lights up each step for you to click, or does the steps for you, asking before every choice and listing exactly what it changed.

A dedicated contact for your organisation

From setup to results day, you have a dedicated contact who knows your survey and your organisation. We set up the platform with your HR team, bring across your past results, help you prepare managers before results go out, and act quickly when something needs changing.

The survey builder with the Help panel open, answering a question about sending a pulse to one School with numbered steps and buttons for Show me and Do it with me.

Running your survey programme

  • Surveys and pulses. Build from a tested question library or write your own. Senior leaders and managers can run pulses for their own areas, with HR approval where you want it.
  • Invitations staff recognise. Send from your own mailbox through Microsoft 365, with reminders to the areas that are lagging.
  • Many languages. Staff can answer and write comments in their own language. Comments are translated into English before anyone reads them.
  • Microsoft sign-in for running surveys. HR teams, leaders and managers use their work Microsoft account and see only the results their role allows. Staff answer through the link in their invitation, and do not need to sign in or have a Microsoft account.

Open Floor research, October 2026

After the survey

What UK universities and colleges actually do with what their staff tell them, and why so few staff believe it will make a difference.

We read the staff survey questionnaires, results, action plans and "you said, we did" updates that universities and colleges have published or released under the Freedom of Information Act. Then we coded every action they committed to: who owned it, when it was due, how success would be judged, and whether a result was ever reported.

Inside the report

  • How specific university action plans really are
  • How far results reach managers and teams
  • Why sector comparisons rarely compare like with like
  • Whether staff are told what changed
  • Five practices that close the gap

Free. Six pages. No sign-up needed.

Cover of the report After the survey, Open Floor research, October 2026.

Safe to speak up

People only say what they think when they trust the process. Each survey is declared anonymous or named before it opens, and staff are told which.

The survey welcome screen on a phone, promising that results are only shown for groups of five or more and that written comments are shown without names.

See Open Floor with your own questions

A 30-minute walkthrough, using your current survey as the starting point.