In 2008, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) commissioned Towers Watson to consult with an internal survey team on the design and administration of an ATO employee engagement survey (EES). The resulting EES was administered as a pilot survey to Small and Medium Enterprise business line in 2008 and then as a full census survey to all ATO employees in 2009 and 2011. Employee engagement is an important organisational issue for the ATO to consider within its current corporate strategy plan of leveraging a valued and committed workforce in achieving its business goals. Employee engagement is defined as the degree to which employee thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are aligned to the ATO goals and objectives. Employee engagement has been linked to many business performance outcomes including enhanced financial performance, improved key business indices, improved attendance behaviour, increased innovation behaviours, and reduced employee turnover.
This report was prepared by Towers Watson and provides the high-level survey results for the ATO overall. Key data findings are presented and discussed with a particular focus on the trends since the 2009 survey. The survey achieved a response rate of 79%, a 4% improvement on 2009 and a response number that provides the ATO with the confidence to act reliably on survey results.
The overall trend is one of improvement in the ATO. Nine of the categories were significantly higher, with Work Relationships showing the greatest change. Engagement has also improved since 2009, largely due to increases in discretionary effort and pride in the organisation. Focus areas such as Senior Leadership, Change Management and Career Development also improved significantly over the two year period. One area declined significantly, Image, which was a reflection of large declines in three of the four questions that were also asked in 2009. More specifically, the results suggest employees hold concerns regarding the community's confidence in the ATO and the ATO's integrity in its external dealings.
Within large organisations which are actively working to improve engagement, a 1-2% change over a year period is typical, with top quartile change being 4%. Therefore, the improvement of 2-3% achieved is in line with what you can hope for a large and geographically spread organisation.
The trends in change are not consistent across the ATO - Operations has improved significantly across all of the focus areas from the previous survey, with Compliance results remaining stable or declining. Enterprise Solutions and Technology has made substantial progress in the areas of Senior Leadership, Change and Career Development. Corporate Services and Law has improved significantly on Career Development. Given the relative size of the Operations sub-plan much of the positive change overall can be attributed to their improving result. It is also worth recognising the size of the improvements in Operations is in line with top quartile change for a large business.
Results showed that the ATO employees are more engaged than employees in other Australian organisations, however engagement levels are lower than those in Global High Performing Companies, suggesting further opportunity for improvement. In particular, the ATO employees continue to be extremely aligned to the ATO goals, objectives, and values and are intending to continue employment with the ATO. With the strong improvements evident in pride and discretionary effort the results are moving closer to the average of Australian organisations in these areas, although further improvement is possible. Consistent with 2009, Engagement overall is driven by Career Development, Image [1], Values and Wellbeing.
The areas of organisational functioning in which the ATO is performing most highly compared to other Australian organisations are: Pay and Conditions, Performance Management, Working Relationships, Values and Immediate Management. Opportunities for improvement in the ATO surround aspects of Senior Leadership, Change, Confidence in survey processes, Career Development, Image and Training. With the exception of Confidence in the survey process (a new survey topic and Image) the other areas of focus are consistent with the 2009 survey.
[1] The Image category seeks views from employees regarding the organisation's internal and external reputation and its approach to environmental sustainability.
Last Modified: Tuesday, 12 June 2012