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PLEASE NOTE YOU ARE NOW IN AN ARCHIVE EDITION OF INTOUCH

Earlier this year we asked our learning providers to take part in a communications survey to gauge what tools people were using to communicate in their work role. Our Information Officer, Kevin Spencer, gives a brief summary of what you told us.

Background

The communications survey was undertaken across three regions in the Spring term and had a good uptake with 355 respondents from all three regions completing the survey.

A £50 Amazon Voucher was offered as a prize incentive by each RSC for completing the survey and Julie Donnelly from Vision West Notts was the lucky recipient in the East Midlands.

Tools that people are using

The first part of the survey looked at tools that people use in any part of their working lives.

Here are a few of the headlines:

• Not a lot of difference regionally between respondents’ use or preference of communication;
• 40% of respondents receive more than 30 emails a day at work;
• 36% of respondents have a work mobile phone, with about half of these devices being Smartphones;
• The majority of respondents didn’t use Web 2.0 tools for work;
• The most popular web 2.0 tools used were reading blogs, listening to podcasts, watching vid casts and reading wikis;
• Where respondents did use social media tools, popular ones like FaceBook, Linked In and Twitter easily ranked highest.

Changes in the last two years

The 2012 survey was based on a survey undertaken in December 2009 in the East Midlands region alone. It is therefore possible to compare some of the results to see what changes have happened over the last two and a half years.

The overall comparison of the two years showed a relatively similar picture. There were a few differences and these have been highlighted below.

• Respondents receiving emails in HTML format rose from 41% to 64%;
• The use of web 2.0 technologies has increased (see below) although most tools are still used by less than 50% of respondents (NB – examples were included in the survey this time, so this may have boosted positive responses, in particular for vidcasts);
• In the use of Social Networks the major rise was in use of Linked In rather than FaceBook;
• Attendance at face-to-face events was down slightly overall, but the rise in attendance at online events was greater than this. The number of respondents who “never” attend online events fell from 46% to 29%.

Percentage of East Midlands respondents using various web 2.0 technologies for work purposes

RSC Communications

The second part of the survey looked specifically at RSC communications.

Overall the feeling about the way the RSC communications with learning providers was very positive, with a lot of respondents saying they were really happy with the work of the RSCs.

Across the three regions 85% of respondents said the amount of contact was about right, 59% rated the RSC communications as “good” and 22% said it was “excellent”.

The newsletters also got a lot of praise and 98% of respondents in the East Midlands said they found this newsletter useful or very useful.

Future

Thanks to all those who participated in the survey. We will use your feedback to help improve the way in which communication with you. You can see the current selection of communication tools we use on our website.

We are also currently putting together a series of webinars to offer training in the web 2.0 technologies that a number of respondents showed an interest in finding out more about.

Comment

What do you find the most effective way of communicating at work?

Are web 2.0 technologies such as FaceBook and Twitter good ways to communicate?