17 February 2026 
Emma Walton-Pond, Communications Officer
Students feel the symptoms. Staff see the causes. Students experience the front of house. Teaching, support, organisation, the feeling that someone has really thought through the details. But the student experience is actually built backstage. That is where plans get communicated, priorities get set, blockers get cleared and managers work out how to deliver change without dropping the basics.
When that backstage work is going well, students may not notice it at all. They simply experience clarity. When it isn’t, they feel it as disorganisation, mixed messages and support that depends on who they ask. Employees notice the shift first because they are the ones doing the joining up.
In this blog, we share an at-a-glance comparison between 2025 Inspire HE Award staff indicators and NSS 2025 themes. This is not designed to prove cause and effect, but to highlight clear patterns, and translate them into practical questions leaders can use.
To compare employee experience and student experience, we looked at two important and relevant sets of signals:
A few caveats matter: this is a quick view across a matched subset where relevant staff communication items exist. We did not control for subject mix, disruption, course redesign, estate issues or other confounding factors. The value here is pattern‑spotting, not prediction; association, not causation.
1. Higher staff communication scores align with stronger NSS outcomes
Institutions that outperform the HE benchmark on communication and change support tend to see stronger NSS results in Academic Support and Organisation and Management.
2. Leadership and management sentiment shows the same pattern
Where leadership clarity and local management support are strong, NSS outcomes tend to be stronger too.
3. “Consistency predicts consistency” did not hold clearly in this dataset
We explored whether institutions with more mixed staff feedback also showed more variability across NSS themes. In this sample, that link did not appear strongly. The clearer takeaway is that specific staff experiences align with specific NSS themes, particularly communication, leadership clarity, Academic Support and Organisation and Management.
The safest way to phrase the first pattern is simple:
Where employees feel well‑informed and supported through change, students are more likely to report clearer organisation and stronger academic support.
That fits what these NSS themes capture:
In practice, “good communication” isn’t about more messages. It’s about fewer surprises.
It looks like:
Students read that as competence because it shows up as fewer bumps in their day‑to‑day experience.
A small example: when academics receive late changes to assessment policy, students feel it through unclear deadlines or inconsistent marking guidance. Staff call it lack of clarity. Students call it disorganisation. It’s the same issue, just at two different points in the journey.
Leadership and management sentiment shows a similar alignment — not as cause-and-effect, but as a shared signal of internal clarity.
When employees believe leaders communicate direction clearly and back managers to deliver, the institution often feels easier to navigate. Queries get resolved faster, decisions feel less random and support feels more consistent for students.
A simple pulse check for leadership teams is this:
Ask employees to describe the top three institutional priorities and one trade‑off leadership has made this year.
If answers scatter widely, students usually feel that scatter too … not as “leadership clarity”, but as inconsistency, delays or confusion.
To make this practical, keep it simple.
1. Choose a small set of protective indicators
Select 3–5 questions on communication and change support, plus a small set on leadership clarity and management confidence. Keep them stable year to year.
2. Look where action happens, not just where reporting happens
Provider averages hide the story.
Cut by:
3. Map the staff signals to NSS themes you most want to protect
Especially Academic Support and Organisation and Management. The aim is not to “manage NSS”. It’s to manage the conditions that shape student experience.
4. Act in ways employees can see
Visible action builds trust and momentum. Fix one friction‑heavy process. Clarify who decides what. Close the loop on what changed and why.
People can handle bad news. What they struggle with is ambiguity and silence.
5. Triangulate the view
Staff indicators + NSS + operational data (complaints themes, response times, assessment turnaround) = a far stronger signal than any data source alone.
6. Keep a realistic cadence
Most institutions get the strongest signal from an annual census plus 1–2 light‑touch pulses focused on communication, clarity and leadership.
When students experience disorganisation or inconsistent support, the root cause is often internal. Poor communication leads to rework. Rework leads to delays. Delays show up as confusion. Students call it disorganisation. Employees call it firefighting. It is the same issue from two angles.
That is why staff listening matters when the goal is student outcomes. It gives earlier signals. It highlights where the backstage experience is under strain. And it points to the actions that will make the biggest difference without pretending staff data can predict NSS on its own.
If you want to use staff listening as a practical early‑warning mechanism for NSS risk, start with regular staff surveys that capture employee sentiment and pinpoint where the backstage experience needs attention. Then use the results to drive focused action that students can feel in how the institution runs. When backstage runs smoothly, students feel it every day.
