Employee survey frequently asked questions

In line with our Corporate Workforce Strategy, we need to ensure that the people who work for the council feel valued, engaged and motivated. The main way we can measure and monitor this is by asking you for your feedback via a staff survey. This will provide staff with a voice and identify how you feel about working for Walsall Council, what you enjoy, which areas require some improvement and understand your aspirations whilst at work.

Surveys will be sent to employees, casual staff, agency workers and IR35s on or soon after 23 February 2026.

Employees, casual staff and IR35s with a walsall.gov.uk email address, or with a personal email addresses registered on OneSource, will be sent an email containing a link to an online version of the survey. Staff without an email address will receive their survey via post to their home address.

Agency staff will be sent the survey either by email or post by their employment agency.

Pre-paid return envelopes will be provided.

Walsall Council has commissioned MEL Research, an independent research agency to administer the survey on our behalf.

MEL Research is a social research company based in Birmingham. MEL Research is a full member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and are bound by the MRS Code of Conduct.

All surveys will be sent directly to MEL Research. The electronic survey is hosted by MEL Research using a software package with a fully secure web-link that directs all responses through to the MEL network. As such, it is not possible for your responses to be retrospectively retrieved in any way on your local computer or drive.

Paper surveys will be sent with a freepost return envelope so that employees can post their completed survey directly to MEL Research.  

The research will allow the council to assess its workforce’s journey through the monitoring of trends since the first survey in 2017 and last in 2023. In doing so it will ensure that key actions are identified and developed that best meets its workforce needs both now and over the coming years. You can look back at previous survey results and outcomes on our employee survey webpages:

• Employee survey 2017
• Employee survey 2021
• Employee survey 2023

Once developed and approved, actions will ultimately be delivered and assist the ongoing development of the Workforce Strategy. Findings from the survey will also be used to inform the Organisational Development strategy and inform the direction of learning and development opportunities for the wider organisation.

Once the survey is closed MEL Research will produce a written report of results which we will make available to staff later in the year. The report will show results at organisation level. In order to pull out trends in views, analysis by other sub-categories such as directorate, gender, age and ethnicity will also be completed.

The results will inform a subsequent period of staff engagement in 2024, followed by action planning to identify and implement priorities for change and improvement.

MEL Research is bound by the Market Research Society Code of Conduct to ensure that all survey responses remain confidential. At no time are individual responses attributable to a member of staff, either in any data or reports provided to Walsall Council.

For the purpose of administering the survey, for employees, casual staff and those inside IR35 only, Walsall Council has provided MEL Research with your first name, work or personal email (postal address if no email), plus your directorate and service area. Your personal information will not in any way be linked to your survey responses. MEL Research will only use your personal information for the purpose of administering the survey. Once the project is complete MEL Research will delete all personal information. 

For employees, casual staff and those inside IR35, the survey you have been sent (in the post or online) carries an ID number which is unique to you. The ID number is purely so that MEL Research can manage reminders which will be sent to those who have not responded by a certain date. At no time will anybody outside of MEL Research know who has and hasn’t responded to the survey and your ID number will not be used to link your survey responses to your contact information.

ID numbers are not used on surveys sent to agency staff because we do not hold / have permission to use your personal data and therefore cannot generate a unique survey link. Whilst you may receive an email inviting you to compete the survey, the link is generic and not unique to you.

When analysing the results we are looking to pull out trends in views, not to highlight those of individuals or small groups of staff. To ensure confidentiality, teams or sub-categories of less than 10 staff will be incorporated within larger staff groups as part of the higher level analysis. 

Any open text comments provided will be proof-read by MEL Research, who will, in line with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct, make every effort to remove any identifiable information. Please note that comments may be reported back as they are written, so please avoid including identifiable information. Any comments submitted may be included in the report of findings.

The section ‘About You’ includes some personal / sensitive questions about you. Although these questions are voluntary, your answers are important as they will help us better understand the results of the survey by allowing us to identify any trends or differing views amongst groups of employees. When analysing the results we are looking to pull out trends in views, not to highlight those of individuals or small groups of staff. To ensure confidentiality, teams or sub-categories of less than 10 staff will be incorporated within larger staff groups as part of the higher level analysis.

The survey will remain live until 5pm on Friday 27 March 2026.  

Postal surveys should be received by Tuesday 31 March 2026. 

Completion of the survey is voluntary, but we would like as many people as possible to take part. The higher the response rate, the more representative and meaningful the results will be.

The survey is your opportunity to tell us what YOU think - whatever you have to say about the council, positive or negative, we want to hear it. If you do not complete the survey your views will not be represented.

If you require the survey in larger print or an alternative format please call the MEL helpline 0800 073 0348 or email employeesurvey@walsall.gov.uk

Alternatively, you can contact the MEL Research helpline and one of their trained interviewers can conduct the survey verbally with you over the phone (see Who do I contact if I need help or have a query?).

There are a few ways you can do this:

• Contact the free and confidential MEL Research helpline on 0800 073 0348.
• You can speak to your line manager
• or email employeesurvey@walsall.gov.uk

If you are a council employee, casual staff or are IR35, the link embedded in the email that you receive is unique to you. This allows MEL Research to know who has completed the survey, and therefore, help to target reminders to those employees that have yet to complete it. As such, employees, casual staff and IR35s are asked not to send the link to other colleagues, because it should only be completed by the person it has been sent to. 

On rare occasions the ‘click here’ link may not work. This may be due to the Internet Browser and particular set-up of a person’s computer. Try opening the link in Chrome. If you still have problems please contact the free and confidential MEL Research helpline (see Who do I contact if I need help or have a query?) and an alternative link can be sent.

The electronic version of the survey contains routing on certain questions meaning that not every question will appear for everyone. This is because certain questions are only asked to people who have answered an earlier question in a particular way. By doing this, only the questions that are relevant to you are asked. 

We recommend that you complete the online survey in one sitting if possible, but you can suspend the survey at any time and return at a later point as many times as you wish. 

Your survey responses are saved each time you exit the survey, so you can pick up where you left off. It is also possible to use the buttons provided to navigate backwards through the survey to review / amend or check any of your responses. 

Yes. The link from the invitation email will open on most mobile devices. 

To account for the smaller screen size, statements that appear grouped under one question will appear on separate screens if being viewed on a mobile device. Therefore it will be important to pay attention to the statement in the grey box, rather than the black text at the top of the screen. It is this statement in the grey box that you will need to respond to. 

The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. The majority of the questions involve simply ticking a box.

If you are an employee, casual staff or IR35, you can request for your email to be resent. Please contact the free and confidential MEL helpline (see 'Who do I contact if I need help or have a query?') 

If you work for an agency contact your employment agency or email employeesurvey@walsall.gov.uk 

If you are an employee, casual staff or IR35 and do not have a walsall.gov.uk email address or a personal email address registered on OneSource, then you will be sent the survey in the post (to your home address). 

To request an email to be resent or another copy of the questionnaire posted to you, please contact the free and confidential MEL helpline (see Who do I contact if I need help or have a query?). 

If you work for an agency or outside IR35 you can access the survey here <URL> 

If you work for an agency contact your employment agency or email employeesurvey@walsall.gov.uk

Only staff who were working for the council on or before 26 January 2026 are included in the survey. If you started after this date they you will not receive a survey. 

At no point will any person outside of MEL Research know who did and did not complete the survey. This information is held by MEL Research only, and is only for the purposes of directing reminder emails and letters. Your personal information will never be linked to your survey responses. 

No. You will only be sent one survey to complete. When completing the survey you should think about the role you work the most hours in.