Newbattle Abbey College – Case Study
Understand staff sentiment, identify opportunities and empower employees to make improvements.
Background
Newbattle Abbey College is an educational institution dedicated to providing transformative learning opportunities for both adults and young people. As Scotland’s national adult education college, it specialises in delivering tailored access and progression courses designed to help individuals, particularly those with no prior qualifications, achieve their educational and career goals.
The college offers a range of programmes in areas such as social sciences, arts and humanities, and rural skills, often supporting their students into higher education. It also provides a range of programmes based on outdoor learning, utilising its unique surroundings and 125 acre estate, and is the credit-rating body for Forest and Outdoor Learning Awards and Adult Achievement Awards, which are delivered to hundreds of learners every year across Scotland.
Newbattle Abbey College is committed to inclusivity and is proud of its smaller class sizes and personalised teaching approach. With its innovative programmes, strong partnerships with universities and employers, and a focus on personal and professional growth, the College is as a forward-thinking organisation that helps learners unlock their potential.
Having created a new strategic plan with an increased focus on their purpose, vision and values, the College sought to reconnect with its workforce. The senior leadership wanted to understand employees’ perspectives on working at The College and assess how effectively the organisation lived its core values. Their goals were clear: establish a baseline for staff sentiment, identify opportunities for improvement, and empower employees to take forward any initiatives that would make it a better place for staff and students alike.
Challenges
Our Approach
Future Proof Learning partnered with the College to design and deliver a comprehensive solution:
Bespoke Survey Design: We collaborated closely with senior leadership to clarify their objectives and crafted a custom survey to align with organisational needs. Hosted on an independent platform, the survey assured employees of anonymity and encouraged honest feedback. The survey platform could be accessed by any device with the internet, and we also provided an offline paper version to ensure that everyone could respond.
Proactive Staff Engagement: To maximise participation and build trust with the College staff, we introduced ourselves at an all-staff meeting, clearly explaining the survey’s purpose and addressing any concerns or comments before the launch. By maintaining open lines of communication and transparency of our approach, we built rapport and encouraged active involvement.
Insightful Analysis and Actionable Outcomes: Once the survey closed, we presented key findings at a second all-staff meeting. This interactive session included a workshop where employees worked in mixed groups to contribute further ideas for improvement. Suggestions were classified as either “quick wins” or longer-term initiatives, and these were added to the detailed final report.
Empowering Independence: True to our philosophy of making a meaningful difference in the lives of our clients, we provided senior leadership and the Board with a comprehensive report of insights and recommendations, and this was then shared with the whole College staff. FPL’s role was not to implement solutions directly but to enable The College to take ownership of its next steps.
Results / Benefits Delivered
Having successfully completed the survey project, it was important for both us and the College that the staff were able to take forward improvements, and that they had the confidence to do so. The feedback we have had so far has been positive, and we look forward to hearing more about the College’s successes in the near future.
Elevated Staff Engagement: Employees appreciated having a voice and a platform to share their experiences. The process ignited fresh energy and a stronger sense of connection across the workforce.
Clear, Actionable Insights: The survey pinpointed key areas for growth, inspiring staff-led groups to tackle specific initiatives.
Resounding Approval: Leadership expressed satisfaction with the process, commending both the value of the survey and our approach to design, administration and delivery.
Culture of Continuous Improvement: With actionable recommendations and a practical roadmap, The College gained confidence to independently drive meaningful change. Staff groups were created within weeks of the project’s completion to begin seeing the suggested improvements through to fruition.
Client Feedback
FPL provided a trusted, impartial partner to help us devise and to administer the staff survey. We challenged David to create a simple yet meaningful survey tool that covered all the key areas. The task was to ensure maximum staff participation, in terms of both numbers of staff responding and in the fullness and honesty of responses. We also wanted a report that was sufficiently detailed and comprehensive to provide a clear baseline and point to the next steps and improvements, while remaining accessible to all.
It was an interesting session packed with resources and engaging discussions. A big thank you to Sunna Kristín Gissurardóttir and David Maltman for leading the day.
Investing in personal and professional development is key to creating an environment of growth and openness. Can’t wait to see all the ways the team acts on what they learnt.
”
Newbattle Abbey College
The outcome was a very useful and engaging survey tool that generated a response rate of over 70%. Staff responses in terms of free text comments were full and honest, providing very good feedback as well ass ensuring staff felt heard. The candid and comprehensive report, which was shared with all staff, also provided assurance to the Board of Directors. The results have been positive in terms both of staff engagement and immediate changes to make things better – changes that have been led by staff, who now feel more empowered.
”
Newbattle Abbey College
”
David was excellent to work with and responded well to the challenges and requests made of him.
Newbattle Abbey College
