Moore Theological College

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The 165-year-old College provides theological education to students and uses a model of education that involves learning in community.

Voice Project has supported Moore Theological College in conducting their anonymous employee engagement surveys since 2017. In 2021, they won their first Best Workplace Award and a Change Champion Award.

When Lana Kularajah started as the College’s People and Culture Manager in 2017, the organisation was experiencing some disconnect across its workforce, consisting of a total of 100 staff across academic and professional roles.

“It had become a bit disjointed. The College had been through a restructure in the previous year, and people were still recovering from that,” Lana said.

Lana was tasked with strengthening the College culture - so she set to work with Voice Project to conduct their first survey to gather employee feedback.

Uncovering what matters

The College’s 2017 survey results identified several areas where staff wished to see improvements.

“Our Voice Project consultant was great at explaining the data and sharing insights on how one area of results can influence other areas. We had excellent customer service.” Lana said.

The staff feedback highlighted some challenges across the organisation. After holding focus groups to identify the areas that would make the biggest impact, Lana focused on implementing regular staff meetings to improve communication, boosting WHS practices and broadening learning and development opportunities.

“When the results of our second survey came in 2019, I was really happy because the areas we had implemented changes in showed improved scores.”

For example, scores for ‘cross-unit cooperation’ practices showed a turnaround – from scoring below sector benchmarks in 2017, to now scoring significantly above the benchmark. Staff satisfaction with this area had improved by 29%.

Growing from strength to strength

Lana said it had been useful to have a Voice Project consultant present the results to senior management after each survey. She says this provided a wider context to the results - and the focus areas that could drive the best outcomes.

“It’s been great because they were not just hearing the results from me. Voice Project could bring their experience with other organisations and offer an interesting external perspective.”

“Having run a staff survey internally in my previous job, I much prefer working with Voice Project to conduct a survey. The tools are excellent.”

The power of ongoing listening to employee feedback has become clear in the College’s latest survey results. Employees gave such positive feedback on the College’s workplace practices overall, that the organisation was recognised as exemplary, winning a 2021 Best Workplace Award.

Learn more about what the College did to build a strong workplace culture >>