In 2019 Mr Dodds, in his role as Tenterfield Shire Council CEO, was a leading figure in the The Voice Project’s Change Challenge — a survey-based workplace culture program designed by Macquarie University to improve employee culture and engagement.
Tenterfield council, as a result, was recognised in the national awards as the small/medium category winner.
Two weeks ago Murray River Council was informed it was a category winner — from the 13 businesses recognised in the Change Challenge awards — alongside organisations from the charity, education, software and health industries.
Culture has become a buzzword in modern workplaces and Mr Dodds said, on his arrival early last year, he had identified that the culture needed to be improved and again turned to The Voice Project.
“One thing The Voice Project does is give staff a platform to tell it like it is,” Mr Dodds said.
“It encourages staff to express their views without fear of repercussion.
“It ensures there is no impact by the ‘shoot the messenger syndrome’.”
The project involves the use of an independent facilitator to explain the benefits of the survey-based feedback.
Such was the enthusiasm for the project at Murray River Council that there was a 95 per cent participation rate in first survey.
“Once the results had been collated every staff member was given a copy, including the comments, and 28 non-director or manager volunteers were selected to identify the council’s lowest results,” Mr Dodds said.
There were 74 questions asked in the initial survey and in the ensuing five months the 28 “change champions” returned with solutions to the low-scoring areas.
“We immediately implemented those suggestions and eight months later the survey was conducted again,” Mr Dodds said.
He said there were three or four consistent messages in the survey, revolving around recognition of employees, face-to-face communication between staff and management, and training and development.
Mr Dodds said he, and the other 215 people working at Murray River Council, had seen the change in the culture first-hand.
He said if a survey area was low-scoring then it was identified for action.
“There has been a significant boost in morale,” he said.
“We now use an instrument called the navigator to ensure the lowest-scoring areas in the survey continue to be addressed in the future.”
He said the largest improvement areas were manager and director leadership, recognition and cross-unit co-operation.
“While these were the biggest improvements, most work practices involved in the survey showed a level of improvement,” he said.
“The Voice Project’s Change Challenge has delivered huge improvements in less than a year.”
