Repairing The Damage Done

Far North Mayoral candidate, Laurie Byers, today said that among his first priorities in office would be to repair the damage that the current Mayor has done to Council as an organisation.
Mr Byers said, “In the 15 years I have been involved with Council, I have never seen Council staff so disillusioned and their morale so low. And it is no wonder given the way they have been treated and the ham-fisted way in which basic management and governance functions have been treated.”

“The first thing that the current Mayor did when he entered office was to demonise staff, call them names, and question their competency. To make it worse he did his hatchet job publically, not just within our District, but in national media.”
“And then the mismanagement began. It took the Mayor and his team 6 months to achieve it, but they finally succeeded in forcing out one of the most respected local government CEOs in the country, Clive Manley. And it cost them something like $250,000, almost a one per cent rate rise, to do it.”

“That Clive has now secured such a big and high profile job in the new Auckland Super City organisation makes you wonder why the Mayor and his team were so keen to get rid of him.”

“Then an acting-CEO was appointed. And then they hired what they called a CEO-designate. For some reason, they kept both on for nine months. As they were still paying out Clive, they effectively had two CEO’s for the price of three.”
“I can make a cast iron promise that under my leadership, Council will only ever have one CEO at a time.”
“In November 2008, the Mayor, his team and CEO’s launched an organisation-wide restructure and, bizarrely, it hasn’t finished yet. I have never heard of a restructure taking almost two years.”

“Anyone who knows anything about organisations knows that you restructure as quickly as possible so that employees can refocus on core business, rather than worrying for a prolonged period about the fate of their jobs. In that way you minimise the negative impact on the organisation and its performance.”
“So what has the Mayor’s two-year restructure achieved? By the end of the week, two of the four senior management positions established when the restructure was announced in 2008 will be vacant, there is no permanent chief financial officer, a number of high quality staff have left and staff morale has been shot to pieces. None of which is efficient or productive.”
“Among the reasons why the restructure has taken so long, is that it appears that they have been paying an Auckland consultant $1,500 a day for the last 18 months to advance it. Of course that consultant doesn’t want the restructure to finish.”
“This is no way to treat an organisation or its staff, and I will put a stop to it.”

“I accept that there are some staff culture issues that need to be sorted, and I will fix them – not by name calling, but by working constructively with management and staff. And yes there are a number of processes that need to be simplified and streamlined and I will use all my local body experience to achieve that too.”

“Importantly, I will lift staff morale, and therefore their ability to perform at a high level, by removing the uncertainty that the marathon restructure has forced them to endure. Quality, performing employees should not be forced to work under constant fear about their futures.”

“Due to the experience I have in local government, I will be able to hit the ground running. I will put a stop to the uncertainty that the organisation has been labouring under, give the staff peace of mind, empower them, and expect them to get on with their jobs, while demanding the highest levels of service,” Mr Byers said.