Still reeling from a workplace investigation that culminated in the departure of its chief executive earlier this year, the National Mental Health Commission (NMHC) has delivered a truly dreadful set of numbers on staff morale and engagement from its Australian Public Service Employee Census.
The statistics are so dismal it may well be the worst report ever filed for an agency. It is a fairly visceral reflection of how staff who are heavily invested in working in one of the most challenging parts of the health and welfare sector felt when their employer was rocked by a major governance crisis.
‘Betrayed’ and ‘despondent’ are probably the two words that encapsulate the staff reaction, which saw more than three-quarters (78%) pretty well vote their Senior Executive Service off the public sector island (the poll was taken between May and June 2023).
Asked to affirm or negate the statement “In my agency, the SES work as a team”, 81% negated it. For the statement “In my agency, the SES clearly articulate the direction and priorities for our agency” 70% negated it. And for the statement “In my agency, communication between SES and other employees is effective,” 81% responded negatively.
The variance of these numbers from the APS’s overall score was correspondingly 50%, 49%, and 50%. The poll results lay bare some of the obvious problems with policymakers selecting public service leaders (and thus their teams) who have insufficient appreciation for the policy or cultural fabric that makes up an agency.
For the Australian Public Service Commission and health minister, the parlous state of NMHC staff feelings is akin to what happens at a council or local government before it is put under direct administration of the state and its leaders put aside.
The NHMC has been stabilised since with an interim chief executive, and the key outputs of its reports are again moving after a rather spectacular change in reporting approach, but the strength of feeling after key communications contracts were outsourced to a private agency whose staff had previous strong links to the gambling industry and politics are incandescent.
For the statement “Internal communication within my agency is effective”, 78% were negative. For the statement “Change is managed well in my agency”, a whopping 86% were negative.
In response to the statement “I feel burned out by my work”, 66% either agreed or strongly” agreed, with an even split.
This is probably the worst result of all because it sounds the alarm that the workplace is, in all likelihood, harming its employees, and not just a few.
Again, these results were extracted at a time of peak crisis at the NMHC, but they show how quickly organisations attempting change without due diligence can disconnect from staff and fall off the rails.
Asked to rate their agency’s success in meeting its goals and objectives prior to the census, 65% rated this negatively, with 24% rating it “below average” and 41% “well below average”.
That 84% said “the people in my workgroup cooperate to get the job done” would have been of little or no comfort, given 57% said “I want to leave my position as soon as possible” and 20% said “I want to leave my position within the next 12 months”.
That’s 77% of staff polled heading for the exits, a potentially existential long-term problem for the agency.
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