More than four out of five public servants said staffing levels/work volumes was a problem. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Public servants say poor staffing is their biggest barrier to performance, and just 44 percent are confident their colleagues were hired based on merit.
The Public Service Census is a voluntary survey carried out by the Public Service Commission this year, following on from the first such survey in 2021.
Public Service Minister Judith Collins in May brushed off criticism raised by the Greens over her involvement, which included suggesting questions and wording to the commissioner.
The approach taken in the 2025 edition had a much stronger focus on productivity, and removed questions around identity.
The results showed 44,737 out of more than 65,000 public servants took part from 40 agencies - a participation rate of 68.5 percent, up from the 63.1 percent in 2021.
Commissioner Sir Brian Roche said he was overall encouraged by the results, saying it indicated the public service was performing well - pointing to the more than 90 percent who believed their team was at least moderately successful achieving objectives in the last 12 months.
He expected chief executives would make changes in areas where organisations needed to improve, highlighting some of those areas for improvement in a written statement:
- 57 percent believe senior leaders clearly articulate the direction and priorities for their organisation
- 51 percent believe suggestions to improve workplace efficiency or productivity are taken seriously and acted on
- 60 percent of managers say they have support from their agency to manage or improve staff performance that is not meeting expectations
- While about 80 percent of public servants felt accepted and valued and comfortable being themselves at work, 12 percent said they had experienced harassment or bullying in the past year
- 70 percent of public servants felt it was safe to speak up about wrongdoing or inappropriate behaviour, with 15 percent disagreeing it was safe to speak up
He said the Commission planned to run the survey again in 2027.
Staffing, stress levels, and job satisfaction
More than four out of five public servants said staffing levels/work volumes was a problem, making it the top-rated concern.
Some 49 percent said it affected them to a great or very great extent, a further 33 percent said it had somewhat of an effect, with just the remaining 19 percent saying it was very little or not at all a factor.
The second-biggest barrier was complicated or unnecessary business processes (37 percent great or very great, 36 percent somewhat, 27 percent very little or not at all), followed by inefficient decision-making - including slow timelines or micromanaging (34 percent, 41 percent).
Too many meetings was rated the least problematic, with 52 percent saying it was very little barrier or not at all, placing it behind siloed communication between teams, lack of access to the right tools, agency appetite for risk and innovation, colleagues not having the right skills or motivation, and physical environment.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, public servants were generally positive about their work - with high proportions (87 percent) believing they contributed to better outcomes and providing value to taxpayers (80 percent), the vast majority (90 percent) saying they cared how their agency's use of taxpayer funding, and that their manager cared about delivering good value (79 percent).
A majority of respondents felt they had more than enough work to do - 23 percent saying they were well above capacity, and 42 percent slightly above capacity, with only 5 percent saying they were available for more work.
The vast majority experienced work stress, with 10 percent saying they were always stressed, 34 percent often stressed, and 42 percent sometimes, compared to 11 percent hardly ever and 2 percent never stressed.
And while about a third (34 percent) were satisfied or very satisfied with their pay, about half did not or strongly did not think their pay adequately reflected their performance.
Nearly all (96 percent) said it was important to them that their work contribute to the common good, with most (78 percent) reporting a sense of accomplishment, and enthusiasm about their job (72 percent), though fewer reported being satisfied in their job (62 percent, down from 69 percent in 2021).
Fewer public servants (54 percent) said they had no immediate plans to leave their job compared to 2021 (59 percent), although the 2025 survey did introduce one extra option (want to do a secondment or temporary move in the next 12 months, 9 percent), potentially spreading the results more thinly.
The two agencies bucking that trend - with fewer staff planning to leave than in the past - were the Treasury and the National Emergency Management Agency.
The top reasons for people to consider leaving their job were a perceived lack of career progression (42.4 percent), followed by pay (39.4 percent), boring work (32.7 percent), poor management (27.8 percent), lack of training/development (26.3 percent), high workload (21.1 percent).
The agencies offering the least 'free and frank' advice
Only 71 percent expressed confidence that their organisation was free and frank in our advice to ministers, meaning nearly a third (29 percent) did not have confidence in their ministry to be open and honest with their minister.
The organisations scoring the lowest on this metric were the Ministry for Women (54 percent), Ministry of Transport (56 percent), Ministry of Māori Development (59 percent), Oranga Tamariki (60 percent), the Ministry for the Environment (62 percent), Ministry of Education (62 percent), Ministry of Disabled People (63 percent), the Social Investment Agency (66 percent) and the Education Review Office (66 percent).
Bullying and harassment
More than 12 percent experienced bullying or harassment in the past year - most of that (9.2 percent) being bullying, 1.6 percent reporting hostility or ridicule because of race, colour, ethnicity or national origin, and 0.8 percent saying they were sexually harassed.
Most of the time the offender was a current or former manager, though nearly as many were underlings or colleagues.
People with non-binary or multiple genders were more likely to say they faced sexual harassment (1.4 percent) than women (1.1 percent) or men (0.4 percent).
Questions about bullying frequency showed that of those who were bullied, 48 percent faced it just a few times over the last year, 15 percent said monthly, 17 percent weekly, and 8 percent daily.
Leadership and appointment on merit
Some 40 percent of managers said they did not have the support needed to manage or improve the performance of staff who were not meeting expectations, with leaders at all levels saying managing staff performance was a challenge.
And 44 percent said they were confident that in my organisation people get jobs based on merit.
Two thirds of employees felt their manager provided them with helpful feedback.
About 79 percent said their team had clear objectives, and 84 percent said the team collaborated well, and only 9 percent felt their team was only slightly, or not at all successful in meeting objectives.
The proportion who felt they understood their organisation's responsibilities under the Treaty or Te Tiriti was up, at 77 percent compared to 2021's 69 percent, as was the proportion who felt comfortable supporting tikanga in their agency (72 percent, up from 69 percent in 2021). Nearly three quarters (73 percent) said they valued their knowledge of te reo Māori or wished to grow it.
AI and technology
The survey showed most (88 percent) were confident in their ability to learn new digital skills, but less than half (42 percent) agreed their organisation took enough advantage of technology.
About a third had used AI for work, with 14 percent saying they used it regularly.
Working from home
The 2025 survey included several questions about flexible working, but the commission said those results would be published alongside separate working from home data which was still being collected.
This would be released in late August or early September.
It avoids confusion if these two sets of data are published together, a spokesperson said.
Rainbow identity
The survey showed a decrease in the number of public servants who identified as rainbow, but the commission said this may reflect a change in the measurement approach.
It remains considerably higher than seen in New Zealand's LGBTIQ+ population overall, at 4.9 percent of usually resident adults, according to a Stats NZ 2023 report.
It also showed rainbow-identifying public servants were underrepresented at all levels of management, but age was likely to be a factor with rainbow public servants being considerably younger on average than their non-Rainbow colleagues.
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