City of Knox employees are creating a culture of trust, respect and honesty in their organisation by demonstrating a set of desired values in their day to day work. The outer Melbourne Council’s ‘Living Our Values and Behaviours’ program is aimed at instilling teamwork, innovation, integrity, an enjoyment of work, and service excellence in all staff.
It is based on the following principles.
- Building a sustainable community.
- Harnessing the skills, experience and energy of staff into a strong, cohesive team to make Council an employer of first choice.
- Demonstrating performance excellence by taking responsibility for achieving challenging targets.
- Proving and improving value by achieving a balance between cost, price and quality.
- Involving staff to provide a safe, inclusive and dynamic environment.
Manager People and Culture, Trudie Balthazaar, said the demonstration of these values accounted for 50 per cent of every employee’s performance assessment.
“This is aimed at ensuring all staff understand that they will have their performance assessed on how they demonstrate our organisation values at work – in the way they deal with team mates, other teams within Knox, our suppliers, partners and our customers,” she said.
Council has developed the following roles and responsibilities for its staff.
- Staff must operate as effective team members by consistently demonstrating the shared values and behaviours at work.
- Coordinators must show courageous team leadership by role modelling the shared values and behaviours to team members.
- Managers must create an environment where teams are living the shared values and behaviours at work.
- Executives must champion the shared values and behaviours by role modelling and driving the establishment of Council’s desired culture.
“Our values and behaviours underpin our desired culture of openness, innovation, trust, cohesiveness and service excellence,” Trudie Balthazaar said. “We believe that a strong organisation culture is vital for achieving the outcomes that our community expects.”
For further information contact Trudie Balthazaar, email trudie.balthazaar@knox.vic.gov.au or telephone (03) 9298 8121.
