MEDIA RELEASE DATE: 18 November 2011

Council makes top 3

Three seems to be the South Taranaki District Council’s lucky number. After having been a finalist for the last 3 consecutive years the Council took 3rd place for the medium-large workplace catergory at the national JRA Best Workplaces Awards held last night in Auckland.

“This is the third year we have been a finalist and it gets tougher to keep increasing what are already, quite high levels of employee engagement,” says Council chief executive Craig Stevenson

“We seem to be doing things in threes - we were placed 9th in 2009, 6th in 2010 and now 3rd in 2011, so bring on 2012,” says Mr Stevenson.

Mr Stevenson says the result is great news for a number of reasons. “A highly engaged workforce is more productive, more innovative and more highly committed and these factors result in better service to our citizens,” he says.

“A further benefit is the ability for the organisation to attract high calibre employees. Good people want to work for good organisations.”

Mr Stevenson believes the reason why the Council has rated so highly comes down to the quality of its people and the strong organisational culture that exits.

“We are one big, professional family with a very positive can – do attitude. People have that positive attitude when they feel they are being valued and they are making an important contribution. Our people are totally committed to doing their best for our residents,” he says.

The Council also took out the Employer of Choice Award at the Westpac Taranaki Chamber of Commerce Business Awards held last month.

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Information about JRA Best Workplaces

The JRA Best Workplaces Survey is New Zealand’s largest annual workplace climate-employee engagement survey and uses confidential feedback from organisations’ employees to rate their employers.

A record 31,700 employees from 237 organisations across the country took part in the survey this year.

Now in its 12th year, as the largest survey of workplace climate and employee opinion in the country, it has become the benchmark for best workplace practices nationwide.

The survey is done by asking employees of participating organisations a range of questions, grouped into categories such as culture and values, learning and development, reward and recognition, communication and co-operation.

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