Council gets 'poor' report from its staff

Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker. Photo / APN

The Hamilton City Council has received a "poor" scorecard from staff in the latest organisational survey - but it is no surprise to the council's boss.

Chief executive Barry Harris yesterday issued a warning on the results from the annual survey into how staff felt about the organisation.

"Our results were poor, and not surprising given the amount of change throughout the organisation, including budget cuts and increased performance expectations," he said in the CE Direct update sent to all staff.

Mr Harris said the senior leadership team had been briefed on the results of the annual survey yesterday and he planned to give the information to staff next week.

He would then go through them in more detail during staff briefings planned for Wednesday, June 13 and Friday, June 15.

The results come after city councillors were told last week that the council faced a high risk of not being able to attract and retain high-quality staff, which could lead to a brain drain and heavier staff workloads, which could lead to more mistakes.

Councillor Angela O'Leary said Mr Harris had assured her last week that the restructuring would end soon and he expected staff satisfaction to increase after that.

The latest survey appears to show no improvement on last year's results, which revealed there was a lack of confidence in management and less clarity about the council's vision and purpose.

The results follow the smaller Pulse Survey this year which showed about half of the council's units felt less engaged and enthusiastic about their work than they did a year earlier.