Located approximately 74 kilometres south of Perth, the City of Mandurah is one of the most thriving and fast growing regional cities in Western Australia.
In 2005, Council leaders recognised that continued high growth in the area required a clear vision to create an organisation and culture that would sustain delivery of planned outcomes and position the City strongly for the future.
A review of Council’s culture found it to be largely defensive, siloed and lacking a shared purpose and direction.
Believing that highly engaged, motivated and customer focused staff would be the key to providing effective services, the City made a conscious decision to enhance its internal culture and to develop a reputation for attracting and retaining the best people.
The City of Mandurah embarked on a culture program called ‘Blueprint’ and a range of measures were identified and implemented which, over time, shifted the organisation’s culture to create a more constructive and participative workplace.
This leadership and culture program was designed using tools developed by Human Synergistics Australia.
At the City of Mandurah, the key areas of focus included:
- encouraging people to take calculated risks
- empowering leaders at all
levels to be accountable - encouraging leaders to show
by example the affiliative and
encouraging behaviours
Council hoped to foster throughout the organisation - employees supporting each
other in making the
leadership and culture
changes necessary for the
City to be a great
workplace.
As part of the program, LSI (Lifestyles Inventory) assessments were offered to all staff with leadership accountability. Selected staff became accredited practitioners to support these leaders in improving their leadership capabilities via personal change action plans.
A new corporate induction program was also developed, more emphasis placed on cultural fit during recruitment processes and there was a clear focus on systems based planning and process improvement using the Australian Business Excellence Framework. This ensured all staff shared a common vision and had a clear understanding of the expectations of their role within the organisation.
Additionally, Council has held annual culture conferences attended by all staff to celebrate the achievements of the organisation and reinforce the City’s ongoing mission to be a great place to work.
The City of Mandurah retests the Organisational Cultural Inventory (OCI) results every two years, with the latest results showing a marked increase in ‘humanistic encouraging’ and ‘affiliative behaviours’. This reflects the strong sense of team work, individual satisfaction and internal drive for improved customer service levels.
Mandurah CEO Mark Newman said that he, along with all other leaders in the organisation, is actively working to improve the City’s leadership style, so that the organisation can increase its constructive (blue) styles and decrease the aggressive (red) and defensive (green) behaviours.
“Over time, it has been clearly demonstrated that organisations that focus on blue styles of achievement maximise the potential of their people,” he said.
“In 2007, our results improved just two years after the City began its Blueprint program. In 2009, our results showed such significant improvement that our blue style is the most dominant one.
“There is no doubt in my mind that high performance and supported workplaces deliver quality outcomes for their customers and key stakeholders.
“The teamwork and alignment between the organisation and Council is one of the major reasons why culture is so strong here.
“This program, along with our use of the Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF), will deliver sustainable improvement in our customer services and processes well into the future for our great city and community.”
The City of Mandurah recently received a Cultural Transformation Achievement Award from Human Synergistics Australia for its efforts in creating a sustainable organisation.
Mark Newman said accepting the Cultural Transformation Achievement Award on behalf of 530 employees was exciting and he was proud of all of the people in the organisation who had worked so hard to bring about improvements to make the City a great place to work.
“We have all won this award for exceptional performance in the way we work for our community and the way we work with each other,” he said.
“Not only is this a fantastic result for us as a Council, but it is even more prestigious because the City of Mandurah is also the first WA organisation to achieve such a standard.”
