2024 Employee Engagement Survey

We asked to hear your views on the council as a place to work and about your health and wellbeing at work.

Thank you to the 1,058 employees who completed the 2024 Employee Survey.  This represents 42% of employees who were invited to respond. Since school-based employees were last surveyed in November 2023 they will be surveyed in September. 

So the results summarised here only include the results from the survey of non-school based employees. The results for every service area have been shared with Service Managers who should discuss the results with their employees.

At the council level the responses to seven of the eight questions that are asked in every survey showed more positive responses than in 2023.

• I know how my job contributes to council’s objectives – 94.5% (2023 - 93.2%)
• I am aware of the East Lothian Way – 92.2% (90.8%)
• I am treated fairly – 87.3% (86.7%)
• I am encouraged to offer new ideas – 84.3% (80.4%)
• I have a manageable workload – 73.3% (70.4%)
•  Change is managed well – 67.8% (67.4%)
• I have had a personal/ professional review in the past 12 months – 59% (55%)

Only one question, ‘The council is a great place to work’ had a lower positive response than in 2023; 83.1% compared to 83.8%.

The 2024 survey included 15 new questions to provide the basis for council and service self-evaluations.   Eleven of these questions received over 80% positive (Strongly Agree & Agree) responses. The questions with the most positive responses were:

• I have clarity around what is expected of me in my role – 90.9%
• I work in a safe and healthy environment – 87.4%

Two questions received between 75% and 80% positive responses:

• My service responds to feedback from service users to improve how it delivers it services – 75.7%
• My line manager motivates me to achieve my best results – 78.2%

Two questions received under 75% positive responses.  These were:

• When changes are made at work, I am clear about how they will work out in practice – 72.2%
• My service manages its  staff in the best way to achieve the goals of the service – 71.3%

There were some variations in the responses to these questions between services. As with the core questions any issues identified from these questions should be discussed within the service and improvements to address them agreed between managers and employees.

Respondents were asked to rate whether they have had the training they need to do their job. 42.5% said their training needs have been fully met, 42.5 % said their needs have almost been met, but 15% said their needs have not been met.

Respondents to the survey were able to provide comments on what the council could do differently to be more efficient or effective in how we deliver our services in order to meet the financial challenges we face. 490 respondents provided comments and suggestions so there are too many to provide a detailed response to them here.  But this is a high level summary of the types of the comments made:  

• Positive or no change required: e.g.
  • “At the moment we are working as effectively as possible”.
• Some people made suggestions that we are already doing or plan to do as part of the Transformation programme: e.g.
  • “Develop and introduce digital forms, this would save time and effort and therefore make staff tasks more efficient.”  
  • “Close unnecessary buildings.”
  • “Better data sharing between teams.”
• Concern about workload and resources: e.g.
  • “More admin support is required within our service.”  
  • “Our team is short staffed for the area we cover, having more staff would help to alleviate the pressures.”  
  • “Difficult to see how we can be more efficient short of recruiting more staff.”
• Improved engagement internally is needed:
  • “Communication needs to be better.”
  •  “Timely and well communicated decision making.”

All the results/comments have been shared with senior management and service managers and they have also been shared with the Transformation team.  They will consider whether any suggestions can be acted on now, or can be added to the list of ideas that are being considered for inclusion on the Transformation programme.

The Council Management Team has recognised the concerns raised about workload and the need to improve engagement.  The Council Plan is being re-prioritised to target resources to new priorities in order to manage council resources more effectively. Consideration is being given to how to support all managers to communicate more effectively with employees so as to reduce uncertainty about the impact of budget decisions, what is happening with service and staffing reviews and inevitable change that is required to meet the challenges faced by the council and its employees.

If you want any further information in the survey and actions being taken in response to the issues and concerns raised by employees contact: Rebecca Grangeret. Organisational Development Manager – rgrangeret@eastlothian.gov.uk