A Dunedin ACC employee spoke to the Otago Daily Times on the condition of anonymity, and said hiring extra staff was not fixing morale issues.
New hires took time to train up to the level required and it was up to the more experienced team members to pick up the slack in the meantime.
‘‘It’s all good and well hiring 10 new people to help ease some pressure on the rest of the staff, but when those 10 people are so new that they have got the collective knowledge of two people, it doesn’t really make a difference.’’
The problem was exacerbated because by the time staff members were getting to the point where they were experienced they were burning out and quitting, perpetuating the cycle.
‘‘We’ve lost valuable people that don’t feel like their value is appreciated or like their knowledge is appreciated.’’
One of the major drivers of low morale was how a 2019 restructure of working methods had caused backlogs of work to multiply.
Before the restructure, claims would be looked at within a week, usually.
In the two years since, backlogs varied from weeks to months, and some lower-impact claims took as long as four months to process.
‘‘There are people whose claims are coming in whose injuries have healed by the time we are getting to them.’’
Under the restructure, different staff members were taking care of smaller parts of claims, rather than a single person having an overall view.
Although the restructure had looked as if it would create efficiencies on paper, in practice staff felt like claims were taking longer and required more work.
This led to staff feeling like they could not provide the level of service they wanted to clients.
‘‘At the end of the day... staff want what the business wants, which is to serve the people of New Zealand and help them recover from their injuries.’’
ACC acting chief executive Mike Tully said earlier in the week that workloads had increased and staff turnover was higher than he would like, but 183 additional people had been hired to ease the pressure.
There had also been 74 call centre staff hired in May, and ACC would also soon be ‘‘advance hiring’’ 217 more staff in its next recruiting round, in anticipation of more staff leaving.
The restructure had still been a success, but extra workloads were due to more people having accidents than it anticipated.
‘‘That was occurring right at the time when we were doing the final transition of some of this work. That's created an extra workforce pressure. And so for us to clear through that we need to bring on the resources, which is what we have been doing.’’
ACC staff had been doing an ‘‘absolutely tremendous job’’ coping with the workload and the organisation's own staff surveys showed improvements, Mr Tully said. — Additional reporting RNZ
