Unlocking Key Trends: What Councils are saying and why it matters

Local government is complex and constantly evolving. When you’re busy navigating tight resources, changing community needs, and workforce challenges day in day out, it can be hard finding time to zoom out and understand the broader trends.

So we’ve done the legwork to pull out the top three trends councils need to be aware of from our Australian and New Zealand local government data to help you tackle today's challenges and plan for the future.

Two key watch outs

1. Declining workplace satisfaction

2. Erosion in cultures of trust and respect 

What's driving the drop?

The downturn in council's workplace satisfaction is a stark contrast to the upward shift seen in the private sector, and it's largely driven by two factors:

• a disconnect between council values and the behaviours and actions of both employees and leaders.
• a gap in leaders' ability to communicate effectively with their people. Over the last 3 years, we've seen steady declines in almost every metric relating to leadership performance in councils. Most notable is a 12% drop in employee perceptions that leaders provide the information they need to do their job well. 

Like workplace satisfaction, the departure of leaders' actions from council values plays a big part in waning cultures of trust and respect. As a result, we're seeing council employees feeling less and less like they're valued, treated fairly and consulted in the decision making process. 

It's easy to see how leaders under pressure to deliver might overlook the importance of taking time to ask their people what they think, provide the rationale behind decisions and give thanks and recognition where it's due.

With the impact of these trends being felt so keenly, now it's time for council leaders to re-balance the external focus of delivering for their community, with an internal focus on themselves and their people. 

The solution? 

It's a big question, and one many of you are grappling with already. No one will argue with the idea that in order to optimise outcomes for your community, you first need to optimise outcomes for your people. It's clear that leadership effectiveness and ensuring everyone in the council lives by the values are the keys to unlock this.

Some practical ideas to consider

Values focused recognition programs : Small, frequent acknowledgements of behaviours that are inline with council values not only reinforce the values day to day, but can go a long way to boost morale and satisfaction. 

We've implemented one here at AskYourTeam and saw a huge uptick in engagement with the program simply by calling out each acknowledgement in our regular meetings.

Invest in developing your leaders : It really does pay! A study from Bersin by Deloitte found that organisations with comprehensive leadership development programs have 30% higher levels of employee happiness and satisfaction. Empower your leaders to build their self awareness with comprehensive 360 insights pinpointing their strengths and development areas for focus. 

'Trust Contracts' : Formalised 'trust contracts' between leaders and employees outlining mutual expectations and commitments can be a powerful tool to rebuild trust and ensure that actions align with values.

A positive shift : The rise of outcome-focused councils

What's behind the rise?

It's clear that in response to a scarcity of resources and increased scrutiny, councils are sharpening their focus on outcomes, and orienting actions around measurable goals.

Our data shows significant upward shifts in councils continually focusing on how they can work better to achieve goals, measuring progress against objectives and increasingly carrying out research or piloting projects before they’re implemented.

Bravo! That's no mean feat amidst the every changing political backdrop and talent shortages councils face on a daily basis.