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County workers give mix of results

Jeff Selle | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 10 months AGO
by Jeff Selle
| July 12, 2013 9:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - Kootenai County employees tend to like working in their own departments, but they are more negative toward the county government as a whole.

That was the general consensus of 530 county employees that participated in a government-wide opinion survey that was released to elected officials on Thursday.

Kootenai County Commissioners hired LMM Leadership Group to assess the county's Human Resources Department earlier this year, before replacing an empty Human Resource Director position, said Commissioner Todd Tondee.

"We asked them to tell us what kind of HR positions we needed," he said. "This is what they recommended to start the process."

Dr. Wade Larson represented LMM and gave a PowerPoint presentation of the findings on Thursday.

He assessed the overall culture of the county government, employee job satisfaction, overall perception of the senior leadership, compensation, communications and training.

He also asked employees to give opinions on their individual departments and direct supervisors.

Larson then broke down the results into three groups: positives, areas of concern and trouble spots.

The results were interesting in that employees tended to give favorable marks to their own departments but much lower marks where they were asked to assess the county overall.

"In the individual comments, one employee summed it up best," Larson said, relaying the comment: "I don't mind telling people the elected official I work for, but I don't tell people I work for the county."

For instance, employees were asked nine questions to determine their opinion of the overall work culture at the county. They responded positively to two of those questions, saying they were happy with the resources they have to do their jobs, and they feel it is a safe environment to work in.

Larson listed two areas of concern. Employees were asked if they were proud of the place they worked, but only about 20 percent were proud. When asked if it was a great place to work, only about the same number said it was.

Employees targeted five areas of workplace culture that Larson considered trouble spots based on the results. The county could do better at valuing employees, maintaining a diverse and inclusive environment, valuing employees' talents, show less favoritism, and attract and retain employees with diverse backgrounds.

On the other hand, when employees were asked seven questions about their individual departments, they only came up with one trouble spot - favoritism.

The same thing happened when employees were asked eight questions designed to rank their job satisfaction. They responded positively to six of the questions, and Larson listed only two areas of concern.

Larson said they were concerned about job security and a large number of them were looking for another job.

But there were no trouble spots concerning job satisfaction.

"These were very, very good responses," he told the elected officials in the room.

Asked to rank the senior leadership at the county, employees were a little more brutal. All six of the questions they answered were trouble spots.

"This may be collectively the lowest of all the categories," Larson said, adding that the questions were written broadly and could have been mis-interpreted. "This could be a reflection of some people talking about directors instead of the elected leadership."

However, he said that it is not uncommon to see upper management criticized more than direct supervisors.

In fact, direct supervisors got high marks across the board. Out of 14 questions, they didn't receive one trouble spot.

"It's kind of like they are saying I love my job, but I hate the company," Tondee said.

Commissioner Dan Green asked Larson if that pattern was consistent throughout the survey.

"Yes it is, " Larson said.

The pay, rewards and recognition category was another negative spot for employees. Out of nine questions, employees only gave the county high marks for making their benefit plans understandable.

The rest were trouble spots and areas of concern, Larson said.

"People made it pretty clear that they are not satisfied with the pay issues," he said.

Overall, Larson said the county got high marks for job satisfaction, working relationships with immediate supervisors and for the work atmosphere at the department level.

"In general," he said. "Employees enjoy what they do and where they are working in their departments."

Trouble spots included favoritism, the leadership and ethics of elected officials, pay, communication and training.

Larson had six recommendations for the commissioners: engage the employees in open communication, implement an employee development program, improve organizational communication, align priorities among the elected officials, share the survey with employees, and follow up the benchmark survey with another in 12 to 18 months to gauge progress.

Tondee said the commissioners will review and discuss the results as they address the human resource department. And Larson said he planned to meet with each of the elected officials in the county government to explain results for each of their departments.

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