Living our Commitment to Innovation
Prologue: In our last Community Impact Report, we shared what staff told us in our 2004 Workplace survey about the positive aspects of working at FSA Toronto and the areas that could benefit from improvement. We conducted a follow-up survey this winter to continue to gauge employee satisfaction and opportunities for innovation and improvement. Ninety-two employees (56% of staff) participated, a drop of 8% from the previous survey but still considerably higher than benchmark employee response rates of 30% to 40%.
After our 2004 workplace survey, we requested additional feedback from staff on the areas identified as needing improvement. We then implemented strategies to address these issues. Results from our 2007 workplace survey reveal that we have improved on 8 out of the 10 areas that received the lowest scores in the previous survey. Five of these scores improved by 9% or more, including an increase in the number of staff who agreed or strongly agreed that "FSA does a good job of addressing employee issues".
Positive themes emerged in the areas of diversity values (94% of staff rank FSA as excellent in this regard), work and family balance, strategic directions and understanding FSA, work environment, leadership, and teamwork and morale. Most staff (86%) believe that the agency is concerned about staff health and wellbeing.
Staff indicated that further work needs to be done to identify new ways to connect with clients to get feedback that will improve products and services. Also, new ways to recognize staff achievement and issue with computer technology were flagged as areas for improvement. The latter likely reflects the challenges staff have experienced making the transition to our new client information management software.
Epilogue: Learning and innovation are fundamental to our organization’s success and we welcome staff input on how to improve our value to them as an employer and to clients as a service provider. In May, the results of the survey were shared with staff, who were invited to discuss the results with their teams and committees and bring forward strategies and ideas to improve those areas in need of attention.
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