HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOR-19-043 - Employee Culture Survey ResultsREPORT TO:Finance andorporateervicesommittee
DATE OF MEETING:September 30, 2019
SUBMITTED BY:Victoria Raab, General Manager, Corporate Services, 519-741-
2200 ext. 7935
PREPARED BY:Victoria Raab, General Manager, Corporate Services, 519-741-
2200 ext. 7935
WARD(S) INVOLVED:All
DATE OF REPORT:September 19, 2019
REPORT NO.:COR-19-043
SUBJECT:Employeeultureurveyesults
___________________________________________________________________________
RECOMMENDATION:For Discussion.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Kitchenerconducts an Employee Culture Survey approximately every three
years, with five surveys completed since 2007. These surveysmeasure employee
engagement andinform thePeople Plan, thestrategy for strengthening the cultureof
excellence that defines the City of Kitchener. The People Plan provides the foundation
for the corporate Strategic Plan by ensuring that an engaged workforce is aligned to our
corporate purpose and goals.
Past actions as a result of the employee culture survey have resulted in initiatives such
as a leadership development program, enhanced internal communication tools and
investments in health and wellness programming.
REPORT:
In June2019, the City of Kitchener conducted its fifth Employee CultureSurvey(ECS).
As with past surveys, an external service provider -- Metrics@Work --administered this
process. This offers severalkey benefits: employees can be confident in the privacyof
their responses, whichincreases participation;an objective third party ensures the
integrity of the process and statistically valid results; and, comparisons are possible
againstother municipalities using the Metrics@Work database.
The purpose of the ECS is to measure employment engagement by exploring ‘drivers’ of
engagement at the job, team, departmental and organizational levels. Drivers of
engagement include things like satisfaction with leadership,accountability and
recognition, team communication and coordination, health and safety, job stress and
*** This information is available in accessible formats upon request. ***
Please call 519-741-2345 or TTY 1-866-969-9994 for assistance.
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negative behaviours. These themes align with corporate priorities and best practices for
an engaged workforce.
The benefits of an engaged workforceto the corporationincludeincreased productivity
/efficiency, reduced turnover, safeworkspaces for employees and the public, reduced
negative behaviours, increased motivation and capacity to achieve corporate goals, and
talent attraction. Engaged employees inject their enthusiasm and energy into their work
and helpthe organization performat its best.
This translates into community benefits includinggreat customer service,
program/service improvement and/or efficiencies through innovation, maximizing value
for taxpayer dollars and greater trust in government.When employees are willing to go
above and beyond in their work, the community benefits.
2019 Employee Culture Survey Results
The City of Kitchener achieved a recordparticipation rate of 81.3 per cent, which means
that results can be interpreted witha high degree of confidence. As well, this provides
evidence that employees are engaged; staff are lesslikely to participatewhen their
engagement is low. This response rate is exceptionally high compared to Kitchener’s
culture survey history and the average of 70 per cent participation rates observed in other
municipalities in Metrics@Work’s database.
Kitchener’s 2019 survey measured 51 drivers of engagement at different levels in the
organization including job, team, division, department and organization. Organizational
drivers measure employees’ sense of purpose and job/team drivers measure the day-to-
day experience of employees in their place of work.
Key results
The following table highlights the top and bottom drivers for the City of Kitchener based
on a percentage score that represents the average level of agreement of all respondents.
Top five driversBottom five drivers
Take pride in working for the City (85.3%)Time to explore new ideas (65.3%)
Supervisor support physical safety (84.9%)Job stressful on personal life (63.4%)
Equipment & training to work safely (84.2%)Jobworkload manageability (61.5%)
Effective use of personal skills (82.8%)Opportunities for advancement (60.7%)
Supervisor trust (82.8%)Workload stress (53.9%)
The top results are a meaningful mix of job, team and organizational level drivers. They
indicate that employees feel that they are effectively using their skills in their work, they
work in safe and trusting teams, and they feel connected and proud to serve the City of
Kitchener. Thehigh scores for these results are noteworthy; to achieve results over 80
per cent is significant and Kitchener’s top 15 results are all over 80 per cent. A score of
85.3 per cent in organizational pride is extraordinarily high.
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Four of the bottom five drivers are thematically-related in the areaof stress/time/workload,
and the fifth is “opportunities for advancement”. According to Metrics@Work, these
bottom five drivers are typical bottom drivers for most municipal employersand they are
the hardest drivers to change. What is distinct about Kitchener’s bottom drivers is that
they range between 53 and 65 per cent which is considered a neutral to slightly positive
result. This indicates that even where there is opportunity for improvement, the City of
Kitchener is starting from a position of strength.
Changes in results since 2016
Of the 24 drivers comparable to 2016, 18 have improved, which exceeded expectations.
The top two increases are in satisfaction with the corporate leadership team as a whole,
and satisfaction with individual department heads.The strength of Kitchener’s past results
would typically produce a ‘ceiling effect’ which means that scores stop rising because
they are already very high.Therefore it is a significant accomplishment to achieve
improvements on so many drivers, and encouraging to see that the greatest
improvements are occurring in areas that have been given focus based on 2016 results.
There is only one statistically significant decline since 2016 in “Job: Workload Stress”,
which is also Kitchener’s lowest driver. This suggests that workplace stress is an area
that requires more attention for this organization. Further examination of this driver is
required to fully understand which of the many possible drivers beyond simply workload,
are driving this result.
Performance relative to other municipalities
Metrics@Works comparedKitchener results to up to 30 municipalities (mid-sized and
large urban cities in Ontario). There are 20 drivers that are comparable to other
municipalities, and Kitchener performed higher than average on all 20 drivers.
In 2019, the City of Kitchener set new high scores or ‘best practices’ for 10 drivers
compared to the municipal group. This is an outstanding result and builds on the success
of setting two new best practices in 2016.
Departmental LeadershipSatisfaction with Corporate Leadership
Team
City Support for Customer Service
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Division LeadershipSupport for New Ideas/Suggestions
CommunicationSupport for Work-life Balance
Team CooperationSupervisor Trust
Support for DiversitySatisfaction with Direct Supervisor
This demonstrates that the City of Kitchener has emerged as the benchmark municipality
for a highly engaged workforce with strong results in particular in leadership at all levels.
This is an important quality in building resilient, high performing organizations.
Next steps
To continue building on strong corporate results, staff will analyse employee engagement
at the corporate, department, division and team level. There are groupswithin the
organization that experience both higher and lower levels of engagement. To respond,
leadership will pursue a coordinated effort to improve results where appropriate.
The strength of the City of Kitchener’s culture is the outcomeof an intentional long-term
strategy to builda positive, purpose-driven workforce. Therefore, even though staff and
council can be proud of these results, staff willcontinue to champion culture in order to
fulfill our service commitments to council and the community. This includes the delivery
of a refreshed People Plan, which will reflect our core values and vision for a compelling
place to work. This enables the organization deliver value to the community by leveraging
our resources to achieve our best results.
ALIGNMENT WITH CITY OF KITCHENER STRATEGIC PLAN:
The recommendation of this report supports the achievement of the city’s strategic vision
through the delivery of core service.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
INFORM – This report has been posted to the City’s website with the agenda in advance
of the council / committee meeting.
ACKNOWLEDGED BY: Victoria Raab, General Manager, Corporate Services
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