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City of Windsor employee survey cites numerous areas for improvement · Kvetch & Release

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  On Monday, City Council supported a retention and Employee Experience roadmap which was developed
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  by consultant Price Waterhouse Coopers Group, and they approved as well seven hundred and
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  thirty seven thousand dollars to implement the recommendation. The report said that according to
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  some employees, there are concerns with speaking up and expressing thoughts freely in the
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  workplace. Employees have expressed the continued need for leaders to engage meaningfully and provide
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  a safe environment for staff to share diverse perspectives. According to The Windsor Star,
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  when asked about a culture of fear at the workplace, Mary Dilkins denied
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  that such a culture existed and said people don't come to work fearful at the
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  city. We've got a great employment relationship with our employees here. Joining me
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  now to discuss HR and workplaces as well as what this report had to say
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  is Kilion Shukulari, who is an HR advice manager with Peninsula Canada HR and
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  Health and Safety Advice Company. How you doing today? Very good, John,
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  and thanks for having me today. Thanks so much for joining me.
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  So you've read over this story and I'm just I'm wondering what your interpretation of
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  the situation is when you hear some of the concerns ceited by these employees in
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  regards to being able to express their thoughts freely in an environment that they feel
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  is safe for it to be shared and have diverse perspectives. Yeah, it's
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  a report that obviously was or has come to light because of an in depth
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  it sounds survey and research from an external resource that the CD is used there.
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  It's not unique, to be honest, some of the concerns that are
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  coming up. These are probably the most hot topics right now that a lot
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  of employers are dealing with. Depending on the size of your business, where
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  you operate, how you've been affected by the different changes we've been going through
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  recently. The pandemic is still in the back of our mind because it had
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  some long term effects. You're dealing with these things. The concern is that
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  is widespread, but more specifically, it sounds that there's been some at least
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  some attempts. Even the fact that they've engaged in external resource is a good
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  sign for these individuals, but it's concerning the fact that that feeling exists with
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  employees that they're not able to potentially come through to their managers or higher ups
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  to be able to express their concerns. However, like I said, this
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  sounds to be going in the right way with surveys and the fact that they've
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  approved that budget to deal with it. So one of the issues that was
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  raised is of course high turnover and staff retention, and the report listed nineteen
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  objectives or initiatives that they could use to fix that, including improving organizational culture,
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  driving inclusive behaviors, addressing root causes of burnout. My question for you,
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  what are some of the things that you'd recommend that a workplace implement to
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  prevent high turnover or workplace burnout. Yeah, the first step that we always
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  recommend is starting understanding where is it the bleeding exists within your environment. Service
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  are always a good start because they give you an understanding of what could be
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  the most important change that you can make within your environment. Is it more
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  flexible work environment for your employees? Is it career development that you're looking to
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  address a lot of their attention scenarios right now relate to the fact that the
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  employers are not able to provide that growth within the business. Individuals do see
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  a ceiling in many ways when they're part of a work environment. If you're
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  not an employer that has a great growth map for your individual employees or some
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  kind of a career path as to how they can develop, you obviously are
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  going to be in two positions. One where you're going to lose individuals that
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  you certainly need for your business down the road, or in a position where
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  that's the type of business you're in that a bit of retention or a bit
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  of a rotation of employees, it's fine in that line of business. But
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  in this particular case, I would say that providing the individuals with clear understanding
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  as to where they can go within the organization, providing them with the support
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  the survey also highlighted, which is it's a good sign in this case that
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  they are okay. They feel okay with their managers and the support they're receiving,
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  So it seems like they do have some elements there that could help this
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  along. Is just a matter of potentially having a clear strategy as to which
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  direction they're going to add with different departments and specific employees for that matter.
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  Definitely, and you know, the report goes on to highlight five areas of
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  opportunity for the City of Windsor to look at improving that they're able to build
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  a where the employees listed issues, one of them being culture and leadership,
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  another recognition and rewards, the third being diversity, equity and inclusivity, fourth
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  career and talent development, and then fifth workplace flexibility. You know, that
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  speaks to some of what you were just discussing there. But when you hear
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  that those were the five categories that were highlighted by PwC, what does that
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  say to you about the status quo of you know, a corporation. Let's
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  say it doesn't even have to be this specific one, but when those are
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  the issues that you see coming up, So to put it in context,
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  because it is a long article and it covers a bit of a it's not
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  only focused in this particular timeline. It seems that there's been different attempts.
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  There's there's been some concerns in the past as well, and they have tried
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  to put some fixes in place those have not It sounds like you've been fully
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  effective, So it's a it's a work in progress. A lot of the
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  work that we do, for example here at Peninsula with multi sized companies,
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  revolves around you have something in place, you need to constantly update it,
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  revap it to make sure that it's something that applies to the demographic that you're
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  working with, the content that their company operates, many changes that have happened
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  from a society standpoint, and also economical or financial. So in this case,
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  I think that's my takeaway from this. There is now an understanding of
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  what their gaps are they just need to execute. But to make sure that
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  this is not just left at this point, they have to have measures in
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  place to make sure that they update consistently policies and the direction they're going to
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  take with regards to these five points and the nineteen objections that they identified,
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  well, you certainly don't want to see any of them lingering around whatsoever.
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  And that's why you know there's organizations like yours at Peninsula Canada which you are
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  able to provide that HR advice that corporations need. I want to thank you
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  so much Killian for joining me today on the afternoon. My pleasure. John, thank you