Quarterly Summary - December 2011

Quarterly Summary - December 2011

Key Achievements

In this quarter progress has been made in:

  • Finalising the Southern District Health Board's contract for Sexual Abuse Assessment and Treatment Services. (R19)
  • Updating the 'About Us' section of the Police website to include a direct link to 'How to make a complaint about Police'. (R6)
  • Developing an escalation procedure, triggered when a policy due for review is not checked by the relevant business owner within a reasonable timeframe. (R2)
  • Finalising the development of an early warning intervention system intended to identify employees whose conduct or performance could potentially fall below the standard expected. (R47 & 48)
  • Establishing with the State Services Commission, targets, baselines and milestones against which future cultural change can be measured in the following key areas:
    • Leadership and Change;
    • HR Strategy and Capability to Support Integrated Change;
    • Performance Management; and
    • Lifting Trust and Confidence in Complaint Investigations. (R37 & 59)
  • Advancing the 2012 Workplace Survey. The workplace survey is designed to provide an insight into the health of the organisation (inclusive of whether police provide a safe workplace for women and employees from minority groups) via the perceptions of its employees. (R51)

Update on Police commitment to improve the workplace and service delivery

NZ Police Justice Sector 2011 Comparison Report

The NZ Police Justice Sector 2011 Comparison Report1, released in December 2011, compares how Police is performing against the New Zealand Justice Sector2 across various workplace areas and employee engagement. The results establish that3:

  • "NZ Police is scoring substantially above the Justice Sector on the climate dimensions of 'My Supervisor', ... 'My Work Group', ... 'Learning and Development' ... and 'Recognition'." ... ; and
  • "NZ Police is scoring on par with the Justice Sector for the climate dimension 'Vision and Purpose + Communication and Cooperation'.

Comparison with the State Sector

When the data was compared with the December 2011 State Sector benchmark, the results showed that NZ Police scores were "on par with the State Sector benchmark in the areas of 'My Supervisor', ... 'My Work Group', ... 'Learning and Development' ... Performance and Feedback' ... and 'Recognition'."4

Employee engagement - NZ Police vs Justice Sector 2011

A comparison of the NZ Police employee engagement5 results with the Justice Sector revealed that Police has "proportionately more engaged staff and less disengaged staff" than the Justice Sector.

Organisational Health Audit (Recommendation 51)

New Zealand Police in conjunction with Kenexa/JRA6, use annual workplace surveys to provide an insight into the health of the organisation via the perceptions of its employees.

The 2011 workplace survey results showed a definite improvement over the 2010 results in both employee engagement levels as well as survey scores generally. The results included an overall improvement in:

  • respect for employee diversity;
  • confidence in raising concerns about any inappropriate conduct (inclusive of harassment, bullying or discrimination);
  • confidence that any concern raised would be dealt with appropriately, and
  • the extent to which employees feel colleagues behave in accordance with Police values.

Footnotes

  1. Compiled by Kenexa / JRA (the Surveyor) - 21 December 2011.
  2. Using data from the 2011 workplace/employee engagement surveys from Police, the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections and comparing the results, across a common set of questions.
  3. See the Compassion Report, para 2.1, Section summary: NZ Police vs Justice Sector 2011, page 5.
  4. See the Compassion Report, para 2.2, Section summary: NZ Police vs Justice Sector 2011 vs State Sector Benchmark December 2011, page 6.
  5. The Surveyor records "Employee engagement goes beyond simple levels of job satisfaction amongst employees to include the level of connectedness people feel towards their organisation and their willingness to expend discretionary effort to ensure the organisation reaches its goals." page 12.
  6. Kenexa/JRA (formally JRA) is contracted by Police to undertake annual organisational surveys.