In the weeks since Steve McCormick appointed Mike Andrews and me to our new roles as Chief Conservation Officer and Chief Administrative Officer, one of the topics the three of us have discussed frequently is staff morale. In turn, in our first official meeting as the Administrative Leadership Team (the heads of the WO-based divisions: Finance, Human Resources, External Affairs, Legal, TIS, and Marketing & Philanthropy) we discussed this issue.
Based on that discussion, we recently put together a lunch meeting with several staff from the Worldwide Office as well as the Directors of each of the WO-based divisions at which we discussed some of the issues that have had an impact on morale – the mandatory week off at the end of the year, the layoffs last March, the pay freeze, and the decision-making process for all these issues. The staff from the administrative units who attended were Deahtra Marcellus, Bob Barnes, Becky Wood, Beth McNally, and Kristin Ragland. These people were not selected in any scientific way. Each administrative unit simply nominated someone from their division who could speak to the morale issue. I believe the people who were invited spoke frankly and with insight about their concerns.
Speaking for the other Directors of the Administrative functions (Mike Coda, Jean-Louis Ecochard, Steve Howell, Darryl Varnado, and Phil Tabas), I think we all found the discussion to be quite sobering. We had not realized the extent of the morale problem, the lack of information among staff about how decisions were made and who made them, the sense that the Worldwide Office employees were treated unfairly relative to staff in field offices and, most importantly, the lack of trust in senior management.
There is no doubt in my mind that this situation is hampering our effectiveness as an organization, and in my new position I am intent to do whatever I can to change it.
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