CSIRO’s culture survey has now closed with Chief Executive Doug Hilton and his team hoping for a turnaround in workforce sentiment from last year’s survey, which revealed a slide in employee confidence over the performance of the organisation’s senior leadership.
However, staff morale at CSIRO continues to suffer due to deep cuts to support roles as part of the Enterprise Services (ES) restructure process. A recent Staff Association report into the impact of Information and Technology Management (IMT) job cuts revealed ‘deep anxiety around job security and the organisation’s strategic direction.’
That anxiety looks set to intensify over coming weeks as a suspension of further cuts to CSIRO research positions – announced by Dr Hilton last year – is set to expire at the end of June.
The 2025 edition of CSIRO’s Culture Survey also represents a change in contractor with Australian software startup Culture Amp now in charge.
This change represents the third survey provider in three years after long-standing partner Willis Towers Watson was dumped in 2022 for rival Denison Consulting.
Culture Amp was founded in 2009 and offer software solutions to manage employee performance, engagement and workplace culture. The company has received backing from Blackbird Venture Capital, which was involved in setting up CSIRO’s Innovation Fund in 2016.
Last year’s survey headline results showed a steep decline in staff confidence regarding CSIRO’s vision, mission and strategic direction.
“The overall results show that since 2022, our key culture indicators have either remained stable or trended backwards,” Dr Hilton said at the time.
“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.”
However, the subsequent release of the business unit survey data underscored the difficult task in front of senior leaders to rebuild staff confidence in the organisation’s vision, mission and strategic direction, with some sections of the organisation returning some truly terrible ratings.
It’s a situation that’s unlikely to have improved in the last twelve months. The pace of change resulting from the ES restructure has picked up and cut short the CSIRO careers of hundreds of staff across the organisation.
For those left behind, the ongoing impact of job cuts to ES roles is leading to increased workloads and research disruption as remaining employees scramble to cover gaps in administration and support.
That theme of disruption was reflected in the results of the Staff Association’s report on the IMT impacts of ES reform.
‘No theme was more emotionally resonant in the feedback than that of morale, trust, and the consultation experience. Respondents repeatedly expressed frustration, fatigue, and cynicism around how the IMT reform process has been communicated and executed,’ the report stated.
‘Several responses reflected a deep sense of burnout and disillusionment, compounded by years of ongoing change and what many perceived as a slow erosion of the organisational culture that once made CSIRO a place of pride.’
Whatever the outcome, the culture survey results will represent a big challenge for Dr Hilton and his Executive Team, especially Chief People Officer Marcia Gough and incoming Director of Organisational Development, Phillipa Cantrell.
However, the problems that CSIRO faces are larger and require more complex solutions than a change in survey provider or enhanced reporting capability can deliver.
It’s a situation that’s no doubt being monitored closely by incoming Science Minister Tim Ayres and may well feature in a new Statement of Expectations over coming months.