Staff Sur­vey: Con­text & Interpretation

²⁰²³⁄₂₄ Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey Results

1. The Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey was launched in Octo­ber 2023, Respond­ents to the sur­vey were staff who were in post at the time it was launched. 84 Sur­veys were returned from 103 sent out, rep­res­ent­ing an 82% response rate. The response rate in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ was 77%.

2. Response rates by dir­ect­or­ate were: a) Cor­por­ate Ser­vices & Comms = 81% (26 responses out of 32 cir­cu­lated) b) Nature & Cli­mate Change = 77% (21 out of 27) c) Plan­ning & Place = 81% (27 out of 33) d) SMT = 90% (10 out of 11)

3. Through the sur­vey, the fol­low­ing ter­min­o­logy applies: e) Team – a team of people that the respond­ent works with (e.g. the Plan­ning team) f) My man­ager — refers to the respondent’s line man­ager. g) Seni­or Managers/​Management — refers to the Dir­ect­ors and Heads of Ser­vice, i.e. MT and OMG h) Lead­er of this Organ­isa­tion — refers to the CEO.

4. The graph below shows the Authority’s Best Com­pan­ies Index Score, and how it relates to Best Com­pan­ies’ accred­it­a­tion stand­ard. A rat­ing of One to Watch is Good; 1 Star is Very Good; 2 Star is Out­stand­ing and 3 Star is Extraordin­ary. This accred­it­a­tion relates to an assess­ment of how we engage with our staff. The 2023 res­ults show that CNPA scored One Star, and the score was high­er than the last 4 surveys.

5. The Tra­di­tion­al Chart below shows the Over­all pos­i­tion, which com­bines the organisation’s sur­vey responses under each of the 8 work­place factors and com­pares them to the res­ults at the last 4 sur­veys. Employ­ee engage­ment is shown for each factor. On this scale, a score of one shows strong dis- engage­ment and sev­en is strongly engaged. A score of four is there­fore the ​“middle ground” score. The num­ber on each red bar shows the per­cent­age of how far above or below the pre­vi­ous sur­vey we have scored.

6. The eight factors are: Lead­er­ship; My Com­pany; My Man­ager; Per­son­al Growth; My Team; Well­being; Fair Deal and Giv­ing Some­thing Back.

7. The slides in Appendix 1 are mostly presen­ted as tra­di­tion­al charts, which dis­play the organ­isa­tions sur­vey responses using bars or columns, and offer great­er flex­ib­il­ity for view­ing the res­ults, par­tic­u­larly when com­par­ing to pre­vi­ous res­ults. A low response to a neg­at­ively phrased state­ment indic­ates agree­ment with the state­ment. A high response indic­ates dis­agree­ment with the state­ment. For example, ​“seni­or man­agers do a lot of telling but not much listen­ing”. This is a neg­at­ively phrased state­ment. A score below 4 indic­ated that the over­all responses to the state­ment agree with that state­ment, which sug­gests ​“dis- engage­ment”, where a score above 4 indic­ates dis­agree­ment with the state­ment, and a work­force that is more engaged. The high­er it is above 4, the great­er the engage­ment is. On the flip side, a low response to a pos­it­ively phrased ques­tion indic­ates dis­agree­ment with the ques­tion, where a high response indic­ates agree­ment. For example, ​“Seni­or man­agers truly live the val­ues of the organ­isa­tion”. This is a pos­it­ively phrased ques­tion. A score below 4 indic­ates gen­er­al dis­agree­ment with the state­ment, where­as a score above 4 indic­ates that the state­ment is broadly agreed with.

8. An easi­er present­a­tion to inter­pret is the heat­map. At the end of the slide show, you will find the heat­maps. A heat­map allows you to view the pro­por­tion of employ­ees who feel pos­it­ively, neg­at­ively, or indif­fer­ent about each ques­tion in the factor. The chart is col­our coded to make it easy to see at a glance where prob­lems might lie. The orange and reds rep­res­ent neg­at­ive responses to the ques­tions, while greens rep­res­ent pos­it­ive responses. The yel­low sec­tions rep­res­ent people who are indif­fer­ent. So, for a pos­it­ively phrased state­ment – e.g. ​“My man­ager cares for me as an indi­vidu­al”, the orange and reds indic­ate those who do not agree with this state­ment and who there­fore feel that my man­ager does not care for me as an indi­vidu­al. For a neg­at­ively phrased state­ment e.g. ​“I feel I lack sup­port from my man­ager”, the orange and reds indic­ate those who agree with the statement.

Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment. katechristie@​cairngorms.​co.​uk