Employee confidence in the strategic direction of CSIRO has taken a major tumble, with the release of the results from a staff culture survey that spells big trouble for the organisation’s senior leadership.
By far the biggest takeaway from the survey – amid a set of largely underwhelming results – is the steep decline in staff confidence when it comes to CSIRO’s vision, mission and strategic direction.
The poor showing comes as Chief Executive Doug Hilton continues a cost cutting drive across CSIRO resulting in widespread cuts to jobs, research and support services across multiple business units and workplaces.
A recent Staff Association snap poll – conducted at the same time CSIRO’s own survey was in production – revealed heightened job security fears, concerns over research capability and plummeting morale throughout the organisation.
These results represent the second full culture survey conducted by Denison Consulting. The methodology records ratings as percentiles compared to the company’s Global Normative Database (based on more than one thousand organisations) with progress charted against the most recent CSIRO all staff survey held in 2022.
The ‘Denison Culture Model of High Performance’ seeks responses across twelve indices, themselves grouped into four main categories: mission, consistency, involvement and adaptability.
Open to all staff and affiliates, more than 4,600 respondents took part in the survey, a participation rate described by CSIRO as ‘comparable’ to similar efforts over the past two years.
“The overall (results) show that since 2022, our key culture indicators have either remained stable or trended backwards. We will now take some time to understand the detail and to work with you to shape our response,” Dr Hilton said when releasing the report.
While poor ratings for the mission and strategic direction will grab the attention of key CSIRO stakeholders, the overall lack of quality will concern seasoned observers.
Across all twelve indices, benchmarked against Denison’s Global Normative Database, CSIRO failed to score a single result above fifty; meaning that culture at the organisation is mediocre at best, well below average at worst.
“There are also areas where you told us there’s more work to be done. This includes understanding our long-term vision for CSIRO and how we’re going to get there, how we work together to make decisions and coordinate across the organisation, and how we manage change,” Dr Hilton said.
Compared to the 2022 results and measured against Denison’s global averages, ratings for strategic direction and intent fell sharply (40) as did long-term vision (22).
Goals and objectives – how staff understand the importance of the work they are doing and why – also went backwards (23).
“This honest, candid, constructive feedback will be top of mind as we continue our work to simplify CSIRO and make us more sustainable so that we can continue to deliver benefit to the community,” Dr Hilton said.
Ratings measuring core values – including organisational ethics and accountability – remained stable (37) and results measuring agreement – working through disagreements, reaching consensus – increased marginally (40).
Coordination and integration – working together, collaboration and alignment – remained unchanged (32).
While the indices measuring customer focus (44) and organisational learning (50) largely stayed the same, ratings for creating change fell sharply (22), perhaps speaking to a sense of disempowerment and loss of agency in an uncertain operating environment.
The returns measuring involvement remained relatively robust, with empowerment (30), team orientation (47) and capability development (50) only down slightly.
“Measures that stayed stable included how we care about and value each other, how we work together as a team, and our commitment to the values that guide our actions,” Dr Hilton said.
The 2024 edition included a new module on safety management, where CSIRO scored it’s highest overall rating (63).
There were particularly strong returns for personal ownership for health and safety (72) and contribution to safety practices (70).
While respondents, when asked to consider everything, rated CSIRO as a very safe place to work (75) the results on the ultimate primacy of safety as a workplace priority was much lower (50).
Team leaders and Group managers returned low ratings for strategic direction and vision, significantly less confident than the staff under their supervision.
This contrasted wildly with the results from CSIRO’s Leadership Team, where senior executives rated their own strategic direction and intent, ahem, rather highly (77).
Results from CSIRO participants in some States and Territories show a concerning decline in ratings across the board, particularly in South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Elsewhere, more than 650 Staff Association members participated in a snap poll, conducted at the same time CSIRO’s culture survey was undertaken.
Staff morale at CSIRO has taken a battering, with more than two thirds (67%) of respondents reported feeling worse off since the announcement of rolling cuts in Enterprise Support Services and multiple business units including Health and Biosecurity, Agriculture and Food and Manufacturing.
Almost 80 per cent of participants reported feeling less confident about the current state of job security in CSIRO, with less than 2 per cent reporting feeling more secure.
And almost 65 per cent of respondents are concerned that potential job cuts will impact CSIRO’s research capability, the organisation’s ability to support local industry and science in service of the public good.
