The City of Pensacola has completed the third annual city employee engagement and satisfaction survey, which showed that 73% of employees are satisfied to work for the city, and more than half of employees are highly engaged in their work.
The survey gathered valuable feedback from staff in an effort to identify areas for improvement and better serve city employees and residents. The survey saw great participation from staff, with 74% of employees completing it during the survey period in June and July 2021.
“It is exciting to see a continued increase in the satisfaction and engagement of our employees, even through the many challenges presented over the past year,” Mayor Grover Robinson said. “The significant increase in our national percentile ranking since 2020 demonstrates that our efforts to make the City of Pensacola a great place to work have been effective and are noticed by our employees.”
Some highlights of the survey include:
- The City of Pensacola ranks in the 65th percentile when compared to similar organizations nationwide (an increase of 7 percentile points from 2020).
- 73% of employees are satisfied to work for the city (an increase of 1% from 2020).
- 59% of employees are highly engaged in their work (an increase of 3% from 2020)
“Understanding and improving employee engagement has always been of high importance to me as Mayor,” Mayor Grover Robinson said. “This valuable feedback from our employees provides us with the opportunity to not only improve their experience, but also to better serve City of Pensacola residents.”
Conducting an employee engagement survey was one of the recommendations from Mayor Robinson’s Transition Team Report, something Transition Team Chairman Quint Studer identified as an important action item to help improve employee performance and morale.
Using a series of questions with a five-point scale, the survey measured employee attitudes on 13 factors, including city image, recognition and development, compensation and benefits, work pressure, progress and job security.
Some strengths employees identified through the survey included satisfaction with benefits, recognition, opportunities for development, and feeling like their supervisor treats people fairly and cares about them as a person. Other factors where the city scored above the norm were satisfaction with coworkers, my job, and recognition and treatment.
One issue raised through each survey was pay, which the city has been working to address through a compensation study and merit-based pay plan implemented by Human Resources. The 2021 survey showed improvement with employees’ satisfaction with compensation, in various factors related to pay.
Items with significant increases from the 2020 survey to the 2021 survey included:
- Employee retention
- Health benefits
- Investment in individual development
- Retirement plan
The survey was conducted by Atlanta-based Sperduto & Associates, a firm of corporate psychologists and management consultants that works with organizations throughout the country to help their employees be more engaged, satisfied and productive at work.
City administration and Mayor Robinson will be working with staff to prioritize which items to address first and identify a plan of action based on the survey results.
To view the City of Pensacola Employee Engagement Survey results, visit the city’s website.