Te Pūrengi – Decision or Action
Tō Reo, Your Voice – survey findings February - March 2024
Meeting date: 26 March 2024
Written date: 15 March 2024
Sponsor: Laura Dixon
Prepared by: 9(2)(a)
What are you updating Te Pūrengi on?
Providing high level organisational results from our fourth ‘Tō Reo, Your Voice’ survey. ‘Tō Reo, Your Voice' is our Employee Experience and Engagement
survey that we have been running since 2021. Typical y, we run this twice a year however the September 2023 round was paused due to an overlap with
operating model consultation. The previous survey was in March-April 2023.
Our current survey was open from 26 February to 8 March and all permanent, fixed term employees and contractors (>6 months) were eligible to participate.
80% of people participated (892 of 1112 eligible), compared with 79% participation in the March 2023 survey, and 74% in 2022. In total, 12,681 verbatim
comments were made, showing that people have a lot of feedback to share and providing us with rich data on their perceptions and experiences.
Our overall engagement score was 6.7, which is the lowest it has been over the last four years of Tō Reo surveys (-0.9 since 2023). Four key focus areas are
recommended to uplift engagement and address key concerns raised.
Why should Te Pūrengi consider this?
As our executive leaders, Te Pūrengi can influence MfE’s culture and direct organisational efforts to improve engagement. The results of the survey highlight
the areas that matter to our people, teams and the organisation. Te Pūrengi plays a key role in communicating the results of this survey across the
organisation and within your business groups and setting clear expectations for collective action.
Tō Reo, Your Voice – people experience/engagement survey outcomes
Te Pūrengi meeting: 26 March 2024
The way leaders respond to feedback affects how people wil feel about giving feedback in the future. It is vital that people feel heard and see that meaningful
action is taken as a result of their feedback.
Tō Reo, Your Voice – people experience/engagement survey outcomes
Te Pūrengi meeting: 26 March 2024
Recommendations or actions sought:
•
Note
o Overall results - including the high response rate (80%) and decline in overall engagement (-0.9 since 2023).
o Key strengths to celebrate and build on: Autonomy, flexibility and remote work, manager and peer relationships, and the ability to contribute
to meaningful work
o Key recommended focus areas related to:
Transformation and change
Clarity around strategy and direction
Wellbeing
Learning and growth
o Next steps including cascade of sharing organisation-wide high level results (Te Mīmiro 27 March, GMs forum 28 March, high level results
shared with all 11 April) and manager specific results (all leaders have dashboards available from 2 April)
•
Agree
o That P&C will commission work to explore further additional support around cultural safety for kaimahi Māori
o Any actions you will take as an executive leadership team including at a minimum, ensuring that all papers discussed at Te Pūrengi are viewed
through the lens of the four recommended focus areas.
o To communicate organisation-wide results at a high level within business groups (material will be provided)
o All managers need to Review, Respond and make a plan to take Action on their own team’s results by the end of April
Advise whether Te Pūrengi would like a fol ow up session to discuss actions further and commit to plans
Tō Reo, Your Voice – people experience/engagement survey outcomes
Te Pūrengi meeting: 26 March 2024
Tō Reo
Your Voice
Engagement survey outcomes
Round 4: 26 February to 8 March 2024
High level insights and recommendations
prepared for Te Pūrengi and Te Mīmiro
03 | Key strengths and opportunities 2024
Key strengths:
Key opportunities:
• Autonomy, flexibility and ability to work
• Transformation & Change
remotely
• Clarity around strategy and direction
• Support from managers and peers
• Wellbeing
• The ability to contribute to meaningful work
• Learning and growth
The following slides will dive into these areas further.
06
04 | Focus Area 3 - Wellbeing
Wellbeing is recommended as a focus area for MfE due to the current
change environment and the volume of comments raising concerns
9(2)(ba)(i)
around the impact on personal wel being due to:
• Uncertainty around the operating model review
• High workloads
9(2)(ba)(i)
• Lack of push back from senior leadership on unrealistic workload
demands – mainly short turn around requiring pivot and
overnight/weekend work
This is feedback we keep receiving however have not yet been
successful in making a positive shift. The results (and research) show
Recommended actions:
we must continue to focus on wel being and be aware of the impact
of wel being on people’s productivity and engagement.
As per slide 8 - Explore ways to reduce uncertainty: What can we
give our people to alleviate some of the unknown? Is there a broad
7.8
timeline we can give them or an outline of the process we are
7.4
7.6
6.6
7.1
7
7.3
6.6
6.3
currently going through to expect?
Consider how to support with high workloads:
Support the design and implementation of an organisation-
wide prioritisation tool to support leaders making decisions (led
by the Planning & Performance team)
Provide greater rigor and delegation to T3 to prioritise to
Any competing demands in my role are
I am satisfied with my level of
Senior leaders at Ministry for the
ensure our people can work sustainably and effectively with
easily manageable.
involvement in decisions that affect me.
Environment show that employee
wellbeing is important to them.
clear priorities
MfE 2024
MfE 2023
Peakon Benchmark
T2 and T3 operating model behaviours to stop/hold work and
reevaluate deadlines, including unrealistic deadlines
Peakon Benchmark = The average score of al organisations using Peakon.
12
04 | Focus Area 3 - Wellbeing
What good looks like
What could be improved
Example comments from those who rated this highly:
Example comments from those who rated this lower:
9(2)(ba)(i)
9(2)(ba)(i)
13
06 | Summary of key recommendations
The
four recommended focus areas and suggested actions to uplift engagement and address concerns raised are:
Out of scope
Out of scope
Wellbeing
Out of scope
Explore ways to
reduce uncertainty
Consider how to
support with high
workloads:
Support the design and
implementation of an organisation-
wide prioritisation tool to support
leaders making decisions
Provide greater rigor and delegation
to T3 to prioritise to ensure our
people can work sustainably and
effectively with clear priorities
T2 and T3 operating model
behaviours to stop/hold work and
reevaluate deadlines, including
unrealistic deadlines
In addition to the above, we recommend providing proactive communication to
Māori kaimahi regarding MfE commitments and
further exploring actions that would
support their Cultural Safety.
17
Tō Reo - Your Voice
Appendix A
Additional data including business group
breakdown and insights by survey segments
1.5 Our recommended focus areas
Focus area 3 is Wellbeing
I am satisfied with my level
of involvement in decisions
that affect me
Any competing
demands in my role
are easily
manageable
Senior leaders at
MfE show that
employee wellbeing
is important to
them
9(2)(ba)(i)
According to Job Demands-Resources theory (Demerouti et al., 2001), when people feel
there are too many demands and not enough resources to deal with them, this leads to
stress and eventual y burnout. Demands can take the form of, for example, workload or
9(2)(ba)(i)
time pressure.
14
02 | Overview of other dashboards
2.1 Health & Wellbeing
Out of scope
Drivers measure how satisfied employees are with an
organisation’s efforts to help them
cope with stress and
stay
mentally, socially, and physically healthy.
The key drivers are Mental wellbeing, Organisational support, Physical
wel being, and Social wel being.
Out of scope
Out of scope
16
2.1 Health and Wellbeing
Comments from the survey:
9(2)(ba)(i)
The lowest scored drivers
The highest scored drivers
17
2.3 Customised Questions – Te Ao Māori
MfE Overal
Question
Score
2024
I feel cultural y safe at work.
7.9
I believe the Ministry embraces and actively encourages the learning of Te Ao Māori.
7.5
I feel there is support and resource available to develop and grow my understanding and practice of tikanga and te reo Māori.
6.9
I know where and how to seek further expertise of Te Ao Māori in the Ministry.
6.4
I feel that the ministry encourages the understanding of the differences and similarities between Te Ao Māori and Crown world views.
6.6
Comments from the survey:
• 9(2)(ba)(i)
19
2.3 Customised Questions – Health and Wellbeing
Question
Score
2024
The Ministry cares about health and safety at work.
7.7
I feel psychological y safe at work.
7.6
If I raised a health and safety issue, I would be confident that it would be properly recorded and dealt with.
7.8
Ministry for the Environment cares about health and safety at work.
• 9(2)(ba)(i)
If I raised a health and safety issue, I would be confident that it would be properly recorded and dealt with.
• 9(2)(ba)(i)
20
3.1 Business Group Breakdown – Diversity & Inclusion and Wellbeing
Out of scope
9(2)(a)
4.2 Health and Wellbeing
+ 0.3 improvement since
Oct 22
Nov 2021 Oct 2022 Apr 2023
Insights:
•
Continue to see positive shifts in overall H&W driver (+0.3) and the sub-drivers
Mental Wel being (+0.2), Organisational Support (+0.3), Physical
Wellbeing (+0.7), and Social Wellbeing (+0.1).
•
Mental Wellbeing - Competing demands has been identified as priority area. This driver measures the extent to which the role has different
demands and priorities that can be chal enging to manage. In this regard it is related to workload.
• P&C wil continue to review the data and insights from this segment to highlight meaningful actions we can take to further support the
organisational wel being action plan and associated work activity.
07
