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Morale compass points in the right direction: Civil Service engagement in 2014

Positive overall results, but concern about pay.

The results from the 2014 Civil Service People Survey, the largest employee engagement survey in the UK, have just been published. The Survey asks civil servants from 101 organisations, including government departments, more than 70 questions about what they think about their jobs and their employer. Gavin Freeguard analyses the latest results, which show most numbers heading in the right direction.

The Civil Service Engagement score is now 59%, 1 up on 2013.

As this incredibly exciting graph shows, the Engagement Index score for the whole Civil Service is 59%, up from 58% in 2013. Although the relatively straight line may not look especially interesting, it is actually quite significant: despite the large staff reductions across the Civil Service since 2010, the engagement score has largely held up, and is now at its highest-ever level. The Engagement Index is calculated using a weighted average from five questions in the Civil Service People Survey: • I am proud when I tell others I am part of [my organisation]. • I would recommend [my organisation] as a great place to work. • I feel a strong personal attachment to [my organisation]. • [My organisation] inspires me to do the best in my job. • [My organisation] motivates me to help it achieve its objectives. A score of 100% means that civil servants strongly agree with the question asked, 75% that they agree, 50% that they neither agree nor disagree, 25% that they disagree and 0% that they strongly disagree. The scores for each of those questions have increased over the last year, and are higher now than when the Survey started in 2009. Civil servants are most positive about their organisation’s objectives and purpose, but most negative about pay and benefits.
Of the various engagement ‘themes’ the survey asks about, civil servants are most positive about ‘organisational objectives and purposes’ which has a score of 83% – they understand what their department or government body is for, what it is trying to achieve, and how their own work fits into it. At the other end of the scale is pay and benefits (28%), where civil servants are asked if they think their pay adequately reflects their performance, whether they are satisfied with their benefits package, and whether they think their pay is reasonable compared to people doing the same job in other organisations. Leadership and managing change (43%) and learning and development (49%) also score below 50%. The score for pay and benefits has fallen for a fourth successive year.
The scores for most themes in 2014 are very similar to the scores in 2009, with a few exceptions. Civil servants are slightly more positive about their team and their manager than in 2009, and much more positive about leadership and managing change – which has risen from 38% in 2009, via 37% in 2010, to 43% in 2014. Going in the other direction is the score for pay and benefits, which has fallen from 37% in 2009 to 28% in 2014. It fell again between 2013 and 2014, from 29% to 28%, the only theme to record a fall. As well as the rise in the Engagement Index, five other themes recorded rises between 2013 and 2014 – Inclusion and fair treatment, Leadership and managing change, Learning and development, My work and Organisational objectives and purpose. One in five civil servants wants to leave their organisation as soon as possible or in the next 12 months.
Aside from the engagement index and individual themes, the Civil Service People Survey also asks a few other questions including one about civil servants’ future intentions. In 2014, 21% of civil servants said they wanted to leave either as soon as possible or in the next 12 months, up from 17% in 2009. The percentage saying they see themselves staying for more than three years has fallen from 55% to 47% across the same period. The survey also shows that according to each survey since 2009, one in ten civil servants has experienced discrimination at work. Of those experiencing discrimination, a third said it was because of their grade, payband or responsibility level. One in ten also said they had experienced bullying or harassment, 30% by a colleague and 30% by their manager. Civil servants increasingly think that the results of the survey will make a difference.
In 2009, the question ‘I believe that managers where I work will take action on the results from this survey’ achieved a score of 45%; in 2014, it was 55%, an increase of ten percentage points. Similarly, civil servants are more positive about the likelihood of senior managers taking action. The score for whether civil servants think effective action has been taken based on the results of the previous survey has also increased since 2011 but remains low at 35%. These scores give us a sense of what the whole civil service feels. Over the coming months, results will be published for individual departments and also broken down by grade and demographic factors like age. When they do, we’ll publish further analysis as we have for previous surveys.

Keywords
Civil servants
Publisher
Institute for Government

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