Employee Survey results

The 2010 Highland Council Employee Survey paints a positive picture of working life at the council. While identifying some areas for improvement, there is a general trend of an increase in levels of employee satisfaction with many aspects across the years. Although in some cases only very slight, the movement is in the desired direction – in many cases, 'more of the same' is required.

In particular, views on training and development opportunities, communications, senior management, pay and change within the Council have improved.

Overall, employees are three times as likely to say they are satisfied with their jobs as to say they are dissatisfied. While this figure has remained stable, views on many of the specific aspects of working at the Council have gradually improved over the years. Alongside the improvement in views on training and development, communications, senior management, pay and change, employees also feel noticeably more positive about other aspects such as workloads and levels of stress.

However, the recent period of economic downturn and uncertainty in the current economic climate coupled with increasing cuts in local authority budgets appears to have been at the forefront of employees minds in 2010: while the vast majority of attitudes expressed in the survey have revealed a positive trend on previous years, the proportion of staff who report being satisfied with job security has noticeably decreased. 

Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Resources Committee said:  “Given that the survey was undertaken against a backdrop of the ongoing job evaluation appeals process and increasing concerns around public sector redundancies and budget savings, the findings should be viewed as particularly positive, and received favourably. This period of change and instability, resulting in disquiet and concern among staff, is clearly something employees had on their mind when completing their surveys. However, while the results identify a number of areas requiring improvement, or of concern to staff, a number of measures have improved since the previous survey.” 

Consultation will take place with staff on the results and their views on what should be done to improve. Events will be held in key locations throughout Highland so that as many staff can participate as possible. These events will be led by members of the Senior Management Team.

Note:  The fifth Employee Survey was conducted during the week 22 – 26 February by independent company IPSOS MORI.   There was an overall response rate of 36.3% with 4,416 responses. The full results are available here.

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