OTTAWA – The National Research Council says it’s not surprised at a survey that says three out of five employees at the federal government’s scientific research agency are frustrated by decisions made by senior management.
Responding to questions about an internal survey obtained by Postmedia News, a council spokesperson said the NRC expected a negative reaction from staff because of its ongoing restructuring.
Following the 2012 federal budget, the NRC cut spending and shifted its mandate away from doing general scientific research on public policy issues, moving instead toward becoming a “concierge service” for businesses.
“Communicating in a time of change is not always an easy task and often creates uncertainty,” NRC spokesman Charles Drouin said in an email.
After this story was published online, the NRC and the office of the federal minister responsible for the agency said that the “concierge service” was only one component of the services it provides for industry.
The survey, conducted between April 29 and May 5, 2013 asked whether employees agreed with the statement: “Overall, I believe that the leaders of NRC are making the right decisions for the success of the organization.”
Of about 4,000 employees, 721 responded, with 63 per cent of those saying that they disagreed with that statement (43 per cent “strongly disagreed” and 20 per cent “disagreed”).
Only two per cent said they “strongly agreed” the NRC was making the right decisions, and 15 per cent said that they “agreed.”
Another 20 per cent said they “neither agreed or disagreed” with the statement. The results were distributed internally and didn’t specify a margin of error.
“Our leaders had taken a strong leadership role in this, and it was expected that employees would express frustrations at the time,” said Drouin, who described the survey as a “snapshot” of how about 20 per cent of employees felt last year.
The NRC says on its website that its new “concierge service” is meant to provide a single access point for small- and medium-sized businesses to “find high-quality, timely advice to help them innovate and accelerate their growth.
Liberal science and technology critic Ted Hsu, who received a leaked copy of the survey, said the NRC’s emerging strategy, along with changes in other science-based federal departments, is erasing the federal government’s historic role of doing long-term research for the public good in order to protect the health and safety of Canadians.
“There has been a radical change at NRC and a lot of delays,” said Hsu, the MP for Kingston and the Islands. “My guess is the minister (responsible for NRC, Greg Rickford) is probably not happy with how long it has taken to implement all these changes. But scientists have either said that it has not been done well or that the strategy is wrong.”
Rickford said through a spokesman that he was proud of the NRC’s efforts to address the needs of businesses, explaining that this was creating jobs and improving the quality of life for Canadians.
Drouin said NRC is now “in a much better position to communicate with employees” and deal with their perception of the situation.
He said the council was also building and rolling out about 40 new research programs while gradually reassigning staff. He suggested that it would take time for people to see the full benefits.
“However, we are already achieving key milestones in several of our programs and are looking forward to many more in the near future.”
A separate survey of NRC scientists, conducted by Environics Research and commissioned by the union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, found that 69 per cent of employees believed that the NRC was getting “worse at advancing the public interest” and that 80 per cent found it was getting worse at advancing Canada’s international standing on innovation or technology. This Environics survey sample of 268 had a margin of error of 6.2 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
