Wakefield Council Reviews

- Dreadful management culture and attitude at senior levels. People listen, they don't like the answer so they ignore what staff say and do something else. Classic example with the staff survey -many middle managers didn't like the response so blamed it on the questions instead of understanding the role they play in creating the culture. - Inconsistent application of policies e.g. some teams have complete flexibility around remote working, other teams its fixed time in the office all because "its what the service needs" but this can't be explained beyond "its what the service director wants". - unrealistic appreciation of workloads and how long things take to get down - little or no respect for corporate functions. Teams in HR, Comms and ICT are not trusted as experts or able to deliver because of poor Leader-relationships. The answer is often "we need to ask the service directors before we change a process". There's no trust or respect, everything has to be checked and consulted on. - colleagues are encouraged to do apprenticeships or specialist training but then aren't trusted or empowered to make decisions - decision making is slow, largely down to risk aversion but also the inability of leaders to commit to things. We have service plans, corporate plans, a people plan, an EDI plan etc. but when you suggest things that deliver those actions there's still a massive debate. - antiquated systems and risk aversion to using Microsoft 365 to its full potential. - senior leaders are not visible, they only appear when there's a crisis and spent very little time "on the shop floor". - senior leaders to not speak about or champion equality outside of the Chief Executive. Actions are performative e.g., "here's a newsletter about Black history month" and then leave it at this, not realising that as Senior White People in Power, the responsibility lies on them to make changes. - All key decision makers are white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-aged and fairly privileged- there is no voice in scrutiny or the boardroom for anyone outside of these demographics which is reflected in the decision making. There's no development or CPD offered to the leaders Equality or how they should act on improving it. - Overall, the organisation is paralysed by fear and beholden to "we're a political organisation" by a select few individuals who can't get out of the mindset that the Council is one of the largest employers in the area and therefore what they do and how its done makes a huge difference.

Nothing really . Supportive team and work environment