Northern Territory Public Sector : People Matter Survey Report 2014
Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment reports; Reports; PublicationNT
2015
Made available via the Publications (Legal Deposit) Act 2004 (NT).
English
Northern Territory. Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment -- Periodicals; Civil service -- Northern Territory -- Personnel management -- Periodicals
Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment
Darwin
2206-0235
Check within Publication or with content Publisher.
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/259019
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/499901
05 | OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVED PERFORMANCE 40 0 5 | O P P O R T U N IT IE S F O R IM P R O V E D P E R F O R M A N C E NORTHERN TERRITORY PUBLIC SECTOR PEOPLE MATTER SURVEY REPORT 2014 Key driver analysis The People Matter Survey is not an employee engagement survey. The Survey measures employee engagement levels, but it has not been designed using an employee engagement analytical framework. This means that the survey does not collect information on all the relevant work environment aspects which would be theoretically required to properly explain engagement. This does not mean, however, that the survey cannot provide insights to understand and identify drivers of employee engagement. In fact, the analysis in this section will show that, although information on some key work environment aspects required for a more comprehensive understanding of employee engagement may be missing, data collected by the survey are capable of identifying some key drivers of employee engagement in the NT public sector with a good level of statistical confidence. Identifying drivers of engagement could assist decision makers to know how to improve or maintain engagement levels which, in turn, could improve their organisation performance. Organisational culture measures (i.e. survey questions measuring application of the NTPS Values, PSEMA Principles and other work environment aspects) were used for the analysis. Exploratory Factor Analysis and regression analysis were the main tools. Exploratory Factor Analysis was particularly useful for analysing the impact of organisational culture as it allowed the reduction of the large number of survey items measuring organisational culture into a more manageable group of factors. These factors were used to identify key drivers of employee engagement in the NTPS through regression analysis. Exploratory factor analysis Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the structure underlying the set of 2014 People Matter Survey questions used to measure organisation culture in the NT public sector. A total of 59 questions using a four-point agreement scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree and strongly agree) were used for this analysis. The exploratory factor analysis solution identified eight factors grouping a total of 51 individual questions. The size of the factor groups varies from a minimum of four to a maximum of 12 questions. A total of eight questions were dropped from the analysis because they did not have any significant loadings or they loaded significantly on more than one factor. Based on the topical area of the questions grouped under each factor, these factors have been given the following names: change management, EEO, integrity, merit, my contribution, my manager, OH&S, and responsiveness. Identifying key drivers of employee engagement Regression analysis was used to identify key drivers of employee engagement. The eight factors identified through exploratory factor analysis were used as explanatory variables. Results showed that the regression model had an explanatory power (R-squared7) of 59 per cent, which is a good level of explanatory capability. Table 5.3 shows the regression analysis results identifying the key drivers of employee engagement in the NT public sector. Change management (leadership), followed by responsiveness, integrity and merit, are the most important contributors to employee engagement8. Thus, any strategy to increase employee engagement in the NTPS or its agencies should focus on improving these aspects, particularly change management (leadership) which is the most important key driver. The change management factor is made up of the following Survey items: Communications about change from senior managers are timely and relevant In times of change, senior managers provide sufficient information about the purpose of the changes There is a clear consultation process when change in my agency is proposed I am provided with the opportunity to influence changes in my agency. 7 A measure of the coefficent of determination for multiple regression, indicating the how closely the data fits the regression line. 8 Note that the UK Civil Service People Survey has consistently shown, since 2009, that leadership and change management is also the most important contributor to employee engagement in the UK civil service (see, for example, Cabinet Office, 2013). Similarly, regression analysis using Victorian public sector data also shows that leadership and change management is the most important predictor of employee engagement in the Victorian public sector.