Culture at WA Department of Health

My division in particular has an excellent social environment and there is a steady flow of events organised outside of work. Working across different teams is strongly encouraged and there are no issues with approaching senior staff to discuss issues.

There is an appetite and opportunity for cultural change. There is strong social support from informal networks.

There is a lot of hierarchy and not a lot of cooperation. The company is very siloed into different areas which can make collaboration difficult. Certain areas of the company have good socialising, whereas others can be very isolating.

Some areas of the department are fantastic everyone is very engaged, hard working and innovative. However, this is often only small pockets. I have heard that many areas of the department are not engaged in their work. I have yet to experience this.

The culture working on a project is very different from working at the main offices (where I was previously located in a different role). I have found the teams in a project setting to be more diverse, over all 'younger', more dynamic. Working off site from the main offices in the CBD allows for there to be more autonomy and independence- people work very long hours on this high stress project however I have attended social events including arranged team building activities and after work drinks/dinner- something I was not exposed to at the main offices. There is a social hierarchy, the recognition of hard working team members is now occurring however could improve. Open planned offices work well in our environment as everyone is working on the same project so people can socialise and ask questions openly and freely this also makes the work environment more efficient.

The company has a great team environment, at times it can be very 'top heavy' with a large proportion of senior level managers and executives and few lower level employees, this is especially evident within short term project environments. While there are no formal social events, employees generally all cooperate and socialise well informally.