Unite / Amicus E-Bulletin, May 2008

Unite / Amicus the UK's biggest Union with 2 million members has published the results of a recent survey conducted by QoWL for a sample of its Higher Education employees.

Some key findings:

QoWL Core Scale

44% of Unite (Amicus) members agreed that they are satisfied with their overall Quality of Working Life, which is very close to the average for the university union sector benchmark.

Unite (Amicus) members report much less extreme stress (48%) compared to the benchmark group (59%).

Respondents reported much lower Job Careers Satisfaction (38%) and perceived Control at Work (37%) in comparison to the benchmark data (49% and 56% respectively).

QoWL Workplace Outcome Scale

83% of Unite (Amicus) staff felt in the last year that they had performed well in their job.
61% of employees agree or strongly agree that their relationships with colleagues are as good as they would wish them to be, compared to 67% of the benchmark sample.

47% of members agreed that their work was as interesting and varied as they would like, compared to 64% of the benchmark group

Only 12% of respondents thought their organisation communicated well with them, compared to 26% of the benchmark sample.

HSE Work-Related Stress Scale

Unite (Amicus) members reported a much higher sense of Control over how they work than the HSE benchmark sample.

Only 35% of respondents reported high satisfaction with Managerial support compared to 52% of the benchmark sample.

Compared to the HSE benchmark, members felt that Change was less well managed and communicated by the organisation.

The Peer Support factor showed a much lower level of satisfaction with relationships with colleagues than was found in the HSE benchmark data set.

Organisation Specific Questions

The majority of respondents agree with the statements: “My employer is supportive of me joining a trade union” and “My trade union is given adequate facility time to consult and represent me”.

20% of respondents said they had pursued a grievance.

39% of Unite (Amicus) members said they would be interested in receiving more information about how to achieve a better quality of working life. Read a copy of the full survey report