Internal survey of Tusla staff finds 46% do not feel valued

Nearly half of staff working for Tusla said they did not feel valued by the State child and family agency, while a significant cohort reported being overburdened by their workload.

An internal survey of Tusla employees found around a fifth said they did not feel proud to work for Tusla.

More than a third of workers surveyed said they were not given enough time to carry out work they were expected to complete. Some 29 per cent of staff surveyed said they would not recommend a career in Tusla to a friend or family member.

More than 3,200 Tusla staff took part in the survey run by polling company Ipsos, the first of its kind conducted in the agency.

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A May 2023 report on the results of the research, seen by The Irish Times, found 44 per cent of staff did not think change was managed well by Tusla. A quarter of Tusla staff reported being pessimistic about their own future in the State agency.

Only 15 per cent of respondents believed Tusla senior management team responded to staff feedback. Nearly half of the agency’s employees felt communication between Tusla senior management and staff was poor. Three out of 10 staff said the levels of stress they were under sometimes affected their work, while a third felt the amount of work they were given was unfair.

However, around two-thirds of staff said they were happy in their job and expected to still be working for Tusla in two years’ time. Nine out of 10 Tusla staff said they were trusted to do their job, while 77 per cent said they felt they made a difference to children and families who interacted with Tusla’s services.

Thirty-five per cent of workers said they did not value the workplace culture within Tusla. A fifth of staff said they did not feel Tusla “got the best” out of them while at work. Only a quarter of employees said “staff excellence” was recognised within Tusla, while half believed it was not.

Some 35 per cent of staff said they did not believe new ideas were “readily accepted” within the agency. Slightly more than half of staff in the agency who took the survey said they were satisfied in their workplace.

Some 79 per cent of respondents said communication within their team was good, while a similar number reported their manager treating them fairly. The vast majority of Tusla staff said they felt able to report instances of wrongdoing to their manager.

A quarter of staff stated that they did not think the recruitment and promotion process in Tusla was fair and transparent.

A fifth of staff did not agree that Tusla treated all employees fairly, while less than half of survey respondents described feeling a sense of belonging at the agency.

One-third of staff in the child protection agency said they did not think Tusla was a great place to work, the survey stated.

In a statement Tusla said it was committed to improving its work environment, with the employee survey providing “vital insights” to help that effort.

The agency said senior management had taken some “immediate” actions on foot of the survey findings, which included efforts to improve communication and support career progression.

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