Thursday, September 05, 2013

Dissatisfaction among public servants

This survey has just been reported on Radio Live. Perhaps the best slant that could be put on it is the response rate of just under one third. Perhaps those who are more positive don't say so:

"The study showed that, in general, public service staff do not feel recognised or rewarded for putting in extra effort or for performing well. Dr Plimmer says the reported rates of bullying are high although the number of workers experiencing sustained and frequent bullying are relatively low.
He said survey respondents are ambivalent about their managers and view them as often basing decisions on politics rather than facts, as weak at taking prudent risks and poor at developing staff."

Wouldn't it be interesting to know whether those who think their managers are politically biased are themselves left or right, or a mix? And also whether these findings have any historic comparison. Were public servants happier under a Labour government?

Update: I asked the head researcher if there were comparable earlier surveys. None exactly the same exists but there are plans to repeat this in a few years plus put the same questions to private sector employees.

1 comment:

Paulus said...

Surely under the Clark Government statistics show a considerable increase in core Public servants, particularly in Wellington.
This is being slowly corrected currently.