The ethical climate at Palo Alto City Hall is generally sunny, though many city workers feel the city can do better when it comes to rewarding strong performance and encouraging employees to speak up about ethical violations. Those are results of a survey of more than 300 employees that was recently conducted by the Office of the City Auditor.
The survey asked both management and non-management workers to consider a variety of statements and give each a score between 1 and 10 (Examples: "In my local government, I am expected to tell the complete truth in my work for the agency" and "The executives in my local government treat the public with civility and respect.").
The city then received a score between 1 and 100 from the management group and, separately, the broader employee group, with 75 to 100 connoting a "strong ethical environment" and 0 to 49 indicating that the agency's "culture needs significant change."
Palo Alto's scores were good but far from spectacular. The employees' anonymous answers added up to a score of 75.1, placing the city in the lowest tier of "good," The managers were more critical, collectively giving the city a score of 70, which signifies room for improvement.
Many employees said they are not being encouraged to speak up about "ethically questionable practices." Only about 30 percent put "always" as their answer to this question, with another 30 percent saying "rarely" (the rest were either "almost always" or "sometimes"). When asked if they're surrounded by coworkers "who know the difference between ethical and unethical behaviors, and seem to care about the difference," only about 30 percent responded "always."
Among the managers, the statements that scored the poorest related to whether executives "create an environment in which staff is comfortable raising ethical concerns"; "appreciate staff bringing forward bad news and don't 'shoot the messenger' for saying so,"; and "appoint and reward people on the basis of performance and contribution to the organization's goals and services." These statements received scores of 6.1, 6.1 and 5.6, respectively, on a 10-point scale.
The two qualities that don't seem to be an issue at all are civility and avoidance of corruption. A vast majority of managers gave the city high marks (8.7) for whether executives "treat the public with civility and respect" and "refuse to accept gifts and/or special treatment from those with business before the agency."
Comments
Fairmeadow
on Aug 2, 2013 at 9:54 am
on Aug 2, 2013 at 9:54 am
Special Advisory Memorandum - Follow Up to the 2008 Audit of
Employee Ethics Policies and the Results of 2013 Ethical Climate
Survey:
Web Link
I have always had a problem understanding “ethics”. If I run a red light, then I have clearly broken “the law”. But there are many grey areas in life—particularly in institutional settings, or in the so-called “professions”. If we create laws to help people understand what is right (in society’s eyes) and what is wrong—why do we leave so many grey areas for (all too often) for our government’s employees, and the “professions”?
This memo from the Palo Alto City Auditor uses the term “misconduct” nine times in his treatment of the “ethics” of our City employees. Yet, he provides us with no concrete examples of what ”misconduct” is, relative to a City of Palo Alto employee. Certainly it would seem only reasonable for the Auditor to provide the public with some concrete examples of “misconduct”, and buttress these examples with citations to official policy statements. And pressing that point a bit, the Auditor should perhaps investigate the City’s training programs to determine if its employees are being provided adequate training as to what actions are clearly prohibited, and which actions aren’t.
For instance—let’s take Public Information Requests (PIRs). It’s not hard to hear people say that their PIRs have been ignored, or the responses were “non-responsive”. Responding to the public is “the law”. So, when a City of Palo Alto employee ignores a PIR—is that “illegal” behavior, or “unethical” behavior?
A couple of years ago, the City was embroiled in a real mess over at the Children’s Theater. Cash handing by one key employee was clearly out-of-control. So, is this sort of action on the part of a City of Employee “illegal”, or “unethical”, or is it possibly “ethical”, but “undesirable”?
Recently, in Menlo Park, a Police Officer made the news because he was caught naked in a prostitute’s room while he was on duty, in another city. Although he was arrested, presumably making his actions “illegal”—was he also acting “unethically”? Since the Santa Clara County DA (Jeff Rosen) managed to find a way not to take the case to court, the officer was not convicted, and after some legal maneuvering, managed to get his job back on the Menlo Park Police Department’s role of Menlo Park’s “finest”. I don’t remember the word “unethical” appearing in any of the news reports on this matter, so since he got his job back—seems that neither the word “misconduct” or “ethics” applied to him.
This is a fairly high level review of “ethics” in the local government workplace. I’m a bit concerned that the problems associated with Palo Alto “ethics” are not being monitored by this approach. For instance—PA supposedly offers its employees a “tip line”. In the context of “ethics”—it would seem desirable for the Auditor to produce some information about how many “tips” have be offered by City employees, and how many of these “tips” have borne fruit.