Spectrum Care and the Public Service Association

Spectrum Care provides support to around 450 residents in over 80 homes and working with another 800 people who live in the community. It is the largest provider of care and support to children and adults with developmental or intellectual disabilities in the Auckland region and is second in size nationally. The client base often has the most profound disabilities.

This project addresses the difficulties of building effective workplace engagement and employee commitment to the organisation’s objectives in workplaces that are small, geographically spread, with workers who are largely part-time, very low paid, often with few formal qualifications or education in a sector that has limited resources.

With the assistance of the PRC Associate, a joint union management Partnership Steering Group was established and developed an innovative staff team engagement programme as part of a range of projects designed to improve employee job satisfaction. The focus of the PRC project was to build the sense of all staff in the organisation being valued for their contribution to Spectrum Care through the development of a team of employee leaders/facilitators.  The project identified that the organisation needed to focus on “Encouragement, Respect and Communication”. This approach was adopted as the means to better value staff and change the workplace culture. The principles of encouragement, respect and communication underpin an education programme aimed at developing both a management style and team interaction reflective of these principles.

The objectives for these projects have been exceeded.

1. Staff satisfaction has increased 12.6%, measured by external survey.  Previously this had been a 2% decline year on year since 2004 (the goal was 5%).
2. The response rate to the staff satisfaction survey has increased 9 percentage points (the goal was to arrest decline).
3. Staff turnover has dropped from around 25% to around 13% and staff vacancies have reduced from around 20% to around 5%.
4. External Audits indicate staff have wide knowledge of the strategic plan, know what senior manager’s roles are in delivering to the organisation’s future and have confidence in the leadership team, excellent communications at all levels, felt listened to and opinions valued, felt motivated and positive about the future

“Staff working weekends have reduced bureau staff usage (external contractors to cover roster gaps) by some 90% and the savings have been returned directly to staff saving in the current year, approximately $808,000 less than February’s extrapolated costs across the year.” General Manager

“Staff are much happier, we feel more valued.” “Culturally we feel that we are part of the organisation.” Staff members