QBCC whistleblower leaks anonymous staff survey results to reveal ‘toxic’ workplace

Staff at this Australian office completed what seemed like a routine survey. But then they started to realise something was seriously wrong.

EXCLUSIVE

The outcome of a government department’s anonymous survey to staff was so damning they held off sharing the results, so much so that staff began to demand answers.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC), a statutory government body that regulates the state’s building sector, is under fire from staff who claim it has a toxic working culture.

News.com.au has previously revealed a former staff member claimed she wasn’t properly trained and was worked to the bone, leading to negative outcomes for customer cases.

Now the dire morale within the department is being exposed, after Amber, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, was provided with a copy of the results of an anonymous staff survey from last year.

“I went to hell and back with the QBCC,” Amber, a single mother who worked as an assessment officer for 18 months, said.

“I couldn’t wait to get out.”

Forty-two staff completed what seemed like a routine, annual anonymous internal survey in October last year, asking questions ranging from workplace satisfaction to if they had ever experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

But what was unusual about this survey, Amber recalls, is that it was never mentioned again.

“We had an inkling the results were bad,” she said. But just how bad, she would discover a few months later.

Staff have raised alarms about the internal survey.

Some of the more damning findings about worker satisfaction.

After completing the survey in October, it wasn’t until December that the QBCC shared the results with staff.

Some of the findings were staggering.

Nine people said they had experienced workplace bullying, two said “yes” to sexual harassment, while three responded “yes” to workplace violence and aggression.

QBCC staff rated the organisation at less than 50 per cent for the general workload and for wellbeing support.

Of that, 33 per cent of staff said they weren’t proud to tell others they worked for the organisation, while 23 per cent said they wouldn’t recommend working there to anyone.

Despite the sobering results, news.com.au understands more than a dozen staff raised concerns that this was never addressed.

Finally, with mounting pressure, a meeting was held earlier this year, at the end of February, acknowledging the results.

A QBCC spokesperson said the organisation “regularly seeks feedback from our people, with a comprehensive staff survey undertaken annually”.

“The responses to these are used to develop initiatives and action plans at organisational and divisional levels, to help address any concerns raised by our people,” the spokesperson said.

“We are committed to addressing staff feedback received from these surveys and through other means.”

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Staff have previously revealed to news.com.au the way QBCC employees claim to be overworked.

Amber said despite these assurances, nothing has changed since, causing her to quit her job earlier this year.

“The turnover is just horrific,” she said. “Everyone’s looking for work.”

She said that at one point, 12 people out of the 30 on her team asked her manager for a reference as they were job searching.

“If everyone who asked for a reference who got a job (somewhere else), there’d be no one left,” she said.

One incident sticks out in her mind as particularly unfair. Amber hadn’t seen her dad for three years because he lived in another state.

She was approved to work remotely from interstate to visit her father and didn’t have to take leave for it.

But at the last minute, she was told this shouldn’t have been approved.

In the end she was forced to use up four weeks of holiday leave.

That was despite other staff being able to work from interstate and overseas themselves without having to take leave.

“You can’t treat us like sh*t,” Amber said. “You can’t treat one person one way, and one person another way.”

Some staff said they were experiencing violence, aggression and sexual harassment.

The QBCC took months to address the survey to staff.

Staff are also up in arms about the loss of “flex time”, which was a lifeline for overworked employees such as Amber.

If they worked overtime, they accrued flex hours. Although this was capped at 9.5 hours a day, it meant staff could build up days off, on top of their annual leave.

But an important change was made to the policy earlier this year. They now have to seek permission from their managers ahead of time, leaving staff with no recourse if they end up working one minute outside of their normal hours.

And on top of that, Amber has lamented about the fact that the reward for good work is more work.

“Some people gets loads of cases, some get none,” she said.

The more competent staff get more and more work while others get away with doing nothing.

She had over 100 cases at her peak while others in the organisation had just four at the time.

The QBCC comes under Queensland Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon’s portfolio.

In a statement, Ms Scanlon said “The QBCC is an independent authority, but it’s my expectation that any allegations be looked at and dealt with appropriately”.

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Originally published as QBCC whistleblower leaks anonymous staff survey results to reveal ‘toxic’ workplace