Opposition politicians are calling for a fundamental review of the Earthquake Commission’s operations after results of an in-house survey found only a quarter of
EQC’s staff members had faith in the organisation’s outcomes.
Labour’s Canterbury spokesperson Megan Woods said the organisation was lurching from failure to failure with staff morale hitting ‘rock bottom’.
“Across the board, EQC’s staff morale is far lower than the Government’s targets.
“According to the survey, just 26% of staff believe the organisation follows through on promises it makes to its customers.
“Just 35% think communication at EQC is honest and open, and only 38% believe it has any idea where it’s going.
“Only 40% of staff have confidence in its leadership.”
She continued: “For months Cantabrians have been calling for a full enquiry into EQC. After five years of failure it’s time for Gerry Brownlee to take his head out of the sand, admit how bad things have got there, and start taking action,” Woods said.
EQC CEO Ian Simpson said he disagreed with Labour’s claims that morale had hit an all-time low, saying the purpose of the survey was to get an in-depth view of how staff felt about working for EQC in order to enable them to ‘build a better workplace where staff can perform at their best’.
“Of importance, while there are some areas that need improvement, the survey still found some categories of high engagement, including that 86% of staff strongly believe in what EQC is trying to do, 83% think their immediate manager treats people with respect and 83% think EQC looks after their safety,” he said in a statement.
Simpson added that the survey results were not unexpected and that he was proud of his staff’s work and commitment in a difficult environment,
Fairfax Media reported.
He said the organisation grew from 22 to a peak of 1,800 staff to resolve more than 469,000 Canterbury claims.
