Less than half of employees think City of Vancouver well-run, survey shows
An employee survey commissioned by the City of Vancouver indicates less than half of those surveyed have confidence in the leadership of their employer.
Forty seven percent of employees surveyed in a poll conducted by the Hay Group said they think their employer is effectively managed and well-run.
Twenty seven percent said they had confidence in the leadership of city managers.
The employee survey identified four key areas for improvement—clear and promising direction; confidence in leadership; development opportunities; and work, structure, and practice, city manager Penny Ballem told council today (November 30).
According to the survey results, one factor out of 16 (stress and workload) was rated as favourably above the public sector norm, five factors were within 10 percent of the norm, and another 10 factors were further below the norm.
Another area identified as in need of improvement was conducting regular performance reviews—71 percent of those polled said they hadn’t had a formal performance review in the past year.
In response to the survey, Ballem said city management will focus initially on a leadership strategy and on implementing a performance management framework.
Fifty-two percent of City of Vancouver employees participated in the survey.
Ballem said the survey results are not unusual for a new government, and that they represent a lack of understanding of the city's direction among employees.
"In broad organizations [that] are just starting and where you have change going on, and where you have a strategic agenda, especially for government, that is challenging and broad and ambitious, it's not at all uncommon," she said.
“It’s really about identifying and clarifying the direction and how that relates to them—it’s not about this is the wrong direction,” she added.
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I’ve personally worked with some very good GVRD and COV engineers and some of the worst. Unlike in the private sector, it is too easy for an incompetent individual to rise to the top and to stay there to drag the entire department down at the COV. Politicians who oversee the professionals can’t see their incompetence and the work atmosphere becomes caustic.
One way to clean house at the COV is to contract all the engineering and to simply fire all the engineers working at the COV. The good engineers will be picked up by engineering firms here and the rest won’t.
That's a problem.
Geoff Meggs is another underhanded control freak who rules through intimidation. People do not give up their kingdom, as you say, for no reason and the repressive environment created by this mayor and his puppet masters will see others resign and the low morale at city hall will get worse before it gets better unless our leader Gregor cleans house and gets rid of some of his henchmen.