The Canberra Liberals claim that Canberra Health Services delayed its annual Workplace Culture Survey from March until November in order to get more positive survey results – “when folks are feeling a bit more optimistic”, according to CHS CEO Dave Peffer’s text messages – but Mr Peffer maintains that the survey was delayed so more staff could take part.

For the past five years, CHS has conducted culture surveys in March/June and November / December. CHS had originally arranged for BPA Analytics (BPAA) to conduct a Pulse Survey in November 2022 and a full Workplace Culture Survey in March this year.

“The CHS all-staff culture survey run by BPAA is a useful tool for us to see where we have come from and where we are going as an organisation,” a spokesperson said. “We conduct these surveys because we want to hear what our team members think and feel about the organisation.”

But the pulse survey was delayed from November to December because of the implementation of the Digital Health Record, Mr Peffer told ABC Radio this morning.

“It was a very challenging time for us as a health service to activate such a major change in how we undertook our business,” Mr Peffer said. “We had to be realistic about how much could people have on their plate at a point in time.”

Because the results from the pulse survey would not have been published until January / February, CHS considered March too soon for the full Workplace Culture Survey.

“To run a survey a few weeks after you’ve got the results from the last one, where you’ve done nothing, it’s a bit disingenuous,” Mr Peffer said. “We ask a lot of people, and we ask them to invest the time and effort to fill out this sort of survey; they expect results. I reckon that’s pretty reasonable, and so we’ve got to think as an organisation: ‘Let’s stage it and make sure we respond’.”

The Canberra Liberals claim that CHS officials wanted to delay the full survey until late August / early September, then suggested November. Shadow health minister Leanne Castley MLA obtained the following text messages between Mr Peffer and EGM People and Culture:

“[This] candid text exchange … exposed the extent of the ACT Government’s desperation to obtain better Workplace Culture Survey results,” Ms Castley said.

“CHS’ hardworking staff deserve better than this. The Health Minister should say whether she thinks this is a good plan.”

Mr Peffer, however, rejected the idea that choosing November would skew results.

“If the time of year could materially shift culture survey results, this would be a very easy job,” he said. “But that’s not the case at all.”

Mr Peffer stated that over recent years, CHS has seen a slow and steady improvement in the results, irrespective of timing.

CHS wanted as many staff as possible to participate in surveys, Mr Peffer explained; they were less likely to do so when the workforce was under a lot of pressure – such as school holidays, the summer break, or particularly the depths of winter.

“There’s a lot of things that we factor into the timing and the rollout of the survey; it’s not a small exercise,” Mr Peffer said. “The time of the year is one of those things.”

“Our aim is for the highest levels of engagement (participation) in surveys so we get the best handle on how we’re tracking,” a CHS spokesperson said. “This is why we try to avoid conducting surveys in periods of time with heightened levels of workload, such as during the winter illness surge (where demand for services is greatest, and we have the highest levels of sick leave with team members absent from the workplace), or during major project implementation, for example the Digital Health Record in November of 2022, or during school or summer holiday breaks.”

“We try to optimise or maximise how many people we can actually get engaged and hear from,” Mr Peffer continued. “You’ve got all of those things that you have to manage in terms of times during the year when it is and isn’t appropriate to run a survey; that’s on top of the actual logistical challenges of a workforce that, by and large, doesn’t sit in an office behind a computer…

“What we try to do is get the greatest number of people feeding into these surveys as we possibly can. I know, having talked to many of our team members, that if they don’t have the opportunity to participate in these sorts of processes, they’re not happy about that, and so, as an organisation, we have to think through how we create these opportunities and not time things in a way that we’ve got hundreds of people off sick.”

Ms Castley also accused health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith of misleading the ACT Assembly. On 28 June, she remarked, Ms Stephen-Smith told the Assembly:

“Ms Castley also said something about a March survey that Canberra Health Services was supposed to do but had not done – a culture survey. Ms Castley, that was a March survey that was for the ACT Health Directorate, which is a different organisation, and it did happen. I wanted to correct the record there and make sure that accurate information is recorded in the Hansard…”

“The Health Minister is again clueless when it comes to CHS culture surveys,” Ms Castley said. “Previously, she said the December Pulse Survey had returned CHS’ best ever results on workplace culture, despite an internal memo stating that the results would be statistically invalid due to a low response rate.

“These Pulse Survey results were also skewed because CHS administrative divisions with an interest in a positive result had high response rates, as opposed to frontline hospital employees, many of whom boycotted the survey, according to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.

“The Health Minister should stop focusing on rebranding, spin and ‘announceables’, and address the significant cultural issues afflicting Canberra’s public health system.”

Canberra Daily asked Ms Stephen-Smith’s office for comment.