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The Austin City Council, during its work session Monday, took its next steps toward bettering the culture within the ranks of city employees based on results of a recent employee survey.

The council approved a proposal from Employee Strategies that would include a two-day planning session in January, moved backward from a proposed November date, leadership 360’s devoted to giving feedback to city department heads and an additional survey used as a benchmark to gauge improvement and to gather more feedback.

The proposal comes after the survey conducted by the company reflected an incredibly low satisfaction rate among employees of the city.

The results, which council member Joyce Poshusta described during a September interview as “sobering,” were the lowest ever recorded in Employee Strategies’ history.

The survey involved 122 responses and 11 one-on-one interviews, along with 20 people participating in focus groups. On average, the survey found positive responses at just 30% overall and that only 25% of people had positive responses for job satisfaction in the city.

Both were well short of the 57% average for positive responses in first-time assessments.

Employee’s concerns ranged from dissatisfaction regarding benefits to distrust in leadership.

“From a staff standpoint, hearing and listening within public works, it was not surprising to me as to where those numbers came in,” said City Engineer Steven Lang during the work session.

Meanwhile, Police Chief David McKichan stressed that there needs to be buy-in within the employees themselves, adding that to do that means making sure the employees have a stake in the next steps.

Those next steps, however, will come at  cost. The two-day planning session will cost the city $25,000 while the 2024 Employee Pulse Survey and Blueprinting Session will come in at an added $20,000.

The leadership 360’s will cost $45,000 with $4,500 being added or subtracted for each evaluation.

However, the council members agreed that the money would be well spent if it does help in improving the situation.

There was some discussion as to who would be receiving the 360’s evaluations, with some indicating that a starting point should begin with City Administrator Craig Clark, Director of Administrative Services Tom Dankert and Director of Human Resources Trish Weichmann, using them as a starting point and going from there. 

However, after some discussion it was agreed that the 360’s would be better utilized to involve all department heads.

While the City Council has been pursuing fixes to the situation, Mayor Steve King pointed out that these issues are not just employee-related.

He argued that some in leadership have been taking the brunt of recent complaints, but that it was the council that is setting forth the “edicts.”

“We have to own this problem,” he said. “We are very much a part of the problem. We need to allow policy to be policy.”