The University of Newcastle today released its latest staff survey results.

The University is the second largest employer in the Hunter. The Your Voice survey is conducted by the University to gauge staff views across key areas. In 2010, 70 per cent of continuing staff took part in the survey.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nicholas Saunders, said that, overall, staff had rated the University more positively than in 2007.

"The 2010 Your Voice survey offers three important insights: solid advances in the past few years have improved our staff experience; we have work to do in a number of key areas; and we share similar achievements and challenges with the rest of the higher education sector.

"Key findings in 2010 included that 73 per cent of University staff expressed a feeling of strong commitment to the organisation and 80 per cent reported strong job satisfaction. Staff were also very positive about their colleagues, noting the talent and support of their team members."

In the comparison with 2007 Your Voice survey results, 90 per cent of the 42 indicators were reported more positively by staff this year. The 2010 findings for Newcastle were also benchmarked against data from 19 other Australian universities surveyed in 2009 or 2010.

"Our task now is to target the indicators where staff said improvements were needed, paying particular attention to areas where there is a gap between Newcastle's experience and that of the sector," Professor Saunders said.

"We will focus on improvements in the areas of: communication about organisational direction; our facilities; communication from the leadership team; co-operation across the University; and diversity, such as improved perception of equal opportunity for all staff."

"Looking across the sector, our pattern of findings is similar to that of other universities. Our staff feel positive about the same areas as their peers, and feel that improvements are needed on similar issues.

Working with staff, the University will develop action plans over the coming months to address areas for improvement.

Professor Saunders said promoting a positive staff experience was one of the University's seven priorities over the next five years.

"The University is fortunate to have such passionate and committed staff. They are the reason for our success. I thank them for their feedback through the survey and look forward to working with them over the coming months to make the University an even better place to work."

A summary of the 2010 Your Voice survey is available at http://www.newcastle.edu.au/yourvoice