Case Study: East Hampshire District Council
The Survey Centre was commissioned to redesign and manage East Hampshire District Council's 2006 Employee Survey.
The survey's focus was employee engagement - the extent to which employees are 'engaged' with the organisation and their job. EHDC were keen to incorporate The Survey Centre's 47 ESAT™ questions which have been specifically designed to measure employee engagement.
Survey questions were developed in partnership with EHDC's Communications Team and the Council's senior management. Some additional questions were also selected from The Survey Centre's Local Authority 'question-set'.
The questions were developed with specific reference to East Hampshire's corporate plan, team plans and the organisation's most recent Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA).
As well as focussing on employee engagement, questions also covered awareness (e.g. of the Council's objectives), opinion (e.g. of the planned Customer Service Centre) and implementation (e.g. the extent to which appraisals were being conducted).
A separate questionnaire was developed specifically for Councillors. Many of the employee survey questions were mirrored allowing EHDC to compare satisfaction, awareness and opinion between Councillors and employees.
Reporting presented an opportunity to compare:
- Departmental results with those of the organisation as a whole
- EHDC results with those of other local authorities
- Employee and Councillor results
ESAT™ reporting presented the organisation with:
- An organisational employee engagement score
- A departmental employee engagement score
- Scores for the priority areas of; line management, pay and benefits, role fit, cultural fit, empowerment, personal development, work-life balance, job security and communication
The results from the EHDC survey were used to develop an action plan to address issues such as:
- Understanding the role of the Corporate Management Team
- Improving the working environment
- Promoting a work/life balance
- Understanding council 'values'