Culture the Key to Performance at Fairfield City Council

Fairfield City Council has reduced processing times for development applications from an average of 11-30 days to less than 10 days following a positive shift in organisational culture.

Driven by a desire to be more than just a service provider, the senior management team and the Councillors undertook a Human Synergistics Life Styles Inventory (LSI), exposing them to feedback on their individual effectiveness, followed by an Organisational Culture inventory (OCI).

Ongoing culture measurement and the implementation of change initiatives across the Council have resulted in significant performance improvement, high staff satisfaction, low staff absenteeism levels and an overall increase in moral and 'commitment to the job'.

However it was the Building Control department with the most impressive improvement. Between June 2000 and August 2001 the department shifted the culture from Passive/Defensive and Aggressive/Defensive to distinctly Constructive.

"We started on this journey because the senior management team and the Councillors had an aspiration to do more than what we were doing - to be a direction setting government not just a service provider and regulator," said Steve Finlay, Executive Manager City Services at Fairfield Council.

"Building a high performance culture at Fairfield is having an important impact," said Mr Finlay. "It does require effort to focus on results, collaboration, effective problem solving and conflict resolution - however the return is an outstanding improvement on service delivery and business results."

Local Council Research

Progressive and innovative local councils are realising that a change in workplace culture is essential to achieve effective service delivery, improved customer service and a reduction in complaints.

Human Synergistics has undertaken extensive research and consulting with nearly twenty local government organisations nationally.

"Our research indicates that local government organisations are typically dominated by cultures of avoidance and opposition - opposition to new ideas, resistance to change, avoidance of responsibility and focus on blame," said Human Synergistics' Consultant Michael Peacock.

"The good news is that those local councils that have actively addressed the workplace culture and leadership have achieved outstanding results in improving their overall performance," said Mr Peacock.

Michael Peacock is a consultant at Human Synergistics' Melbourne office. Michael recently facilitated a workshop on Leading High Performance Cultures at the LGPro's 2003 Annual Conference in Melbourne (21-22 February).