Healthy Workplace Report

On March 12th of this year - the City of Williams Lake confirmed to the Williams Lake Tribune that it was going ahead with a review of workplace climate in the entire City but raised doubts that the consultant's report would be public because of privacy concerns - read here

However - over this past weekend, I was provided a copy of this report by a member of the public however, after discussing it with some, I have chosen not make my copy of the entire report public

In the report written by Dugal Smith last month (Note - I was 'tipped off' by a previous commentator on this blog in early May as to the author of this report prior to me acquiring this report) - he raises a lot of red flags in regards to the current workplace climate status in the City including the fact that if nothing is done, as much as 26% of current City Staff could leave and those positions could be difficult to replace, given the number of open BC Local Government jobs at the moment, as reported on CivicInfo BC and the fact the cost to the City could be huge in terms of higher WorkSafe BC premiums as workplace bullying is now a time-off claimable expense through WorkSafe BC.  He also says that 'institutional knowledge" is not being handed down from senior to junior workers and that has a financial cost to the City.

He also says positive workplace health must be sustained, regardless of leadership changes (Senior Management (CAO/Senior City Mgmt and WL City Council) given there has been 5 CAO changes in the last 11 years

However - Mr. Smith also says that all is not lost.  If the City moves towards a 'team- based' approach for workplace management rather than the current "Boss-Employee" model (and he says the sooner, the better), then things can turn around and morale can/will improve City-wide.  He also suggests that manager pay be tied to overall workplace health.  He finally suggests that members of WL City Council should be making annual worksite visits to talk to the workers themselves and seeing how things are going and finally workers' should be treated as "partners" in managing City operations and not as robots whereby they are told what to do and where to do it.  He also urgently recommends that a facilitator be brought in ASAP to facilitate the transition to the 'new' workplace management model

I hope that everyone, regardless of role, will 'roll up their sleeves' and get on with implementing every one of these recommendations in this Healthy Workplace Report because in my view they are necessary both from a social and financial perspective to the City

As a side note -- the City is advertising today for 4 Union Positions covering a Bylaw Services Officer and 3 Clerk positions at the local RCMP Detachment.  Details are here

~SF