An audit has found 67 per cent of City of Winnipeg employees haven’t had formal performance reviews.
In addition, the majority of senior managers haven’t conducted formal and documented employee performance reviews, and three of them don’t even have formal job descriptions.
The findings are in a 67-page workforce management audit by city auditor Jason Egert. The report doesn’t name the managers or their positions.
Mayor Scott Gillingham said Wednesday he recognizes the need for improvement.
Mayor Scott Gillingham said Wednesday he recognizes the need for improvement.
“Our staff need formal performance reviews,” Gillingham said. “It’s hard to improve on the things which aren’t measured.
“The people of Winnipeg work very hard, pay taxes, expect services and so we need to make sure we are optimizing our employees and our opportunity to grow the services’ delivery and to do that we need to provide regular performance reviews for all of our employees.”
Gillingham said he will read the entire report before it formally comes up at next week’s executive policy committee meeting.
He said he doesn’t know why the review, which had been talked about being done a few years ago, wasn’t done before now.
One of his campaign promises was to put in place performance reviews for senior statutory officers, he said.
“That hadn’t been done until now and now we’re in the midst of that process of providing performance reviews for our senior statutory officers… I want us to be a city which always is committed to continuous improvement and into growing.”
The audit took a look at the processes to support leaders in the civic bureaucracy as they manage employees to “optimize performance, build competency, and meet the goals of the organization while serving the residents of Winnipeg.”
The audit looked at all the city’s departments except for the Winnipeg Police Service.
The city has about 10,400 employees whose salaries and benefits accounted for $980 million, or 52 per cent of the city’s total operating expenses in 2022.
Gord Delbridge, president of the city’s largest union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, said the city has trouble hiring and retaining workers and not having employee performance reviews is part of the problem.
“If you want to become an employer of choice, you have to provide opportunity,” said Delbridge.
He said ways to attract and keep employees is compensation, flexible hours and the ability to work at home or work, and the possibility of education and room for advancement, the last of which can be flagged during performance reviews.
“We provide essential services for this city,” Delbridge said. “During a performance review, you’re being heard. You could identify individuals who are excelling in their field and could advance. A review is not intended to be negative, you can have recommendations too.”
Michael Jack, the city’s chief administrative officer, said while the report says 67 per cent of the city’s employees hadn’t had a formal job review, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
“To be clear, the auditor wasn’t able to confirm through their own reporting that was the case,” Jack said.
“We do have entire chunks of the public service where employees may not even see inside a city building on a regular basis or may not have a city email. We know we have some barriers to ensuring we are getting on the same page with all of this – that’s what we have committed to in terms of our responses in this audit report. Yes, we clearly need to do better.”
When asked if he fears his own job is in jeopardy over the findings, Jack would only say, “I am solely focused on doing my job as well as I can for every day that I am in this role.
“So that’s what I will continue to focus on.”
— with files from Joyanne Pursaga
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Rollason
Reporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.