Kempsey Shire Council adopted a more streamlined organisational structure at Tuesday’s August Council meeting.
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The new look will see reporting lines defined by two central streams rather than the four that currently exist.
The reporting lines will now be defined by the parts of the organisation that commission and plan council’s services and those that deliver services on the ground.
Previously, there was four directorships - community, corporate, infrastructure and planning.
Mayor Liz Campbell said the restructure aims to improve the communication between employees and their leaders.
“It’s about creating direct line of sight to the general manager and the directors of the two arms,” Cr Campbell said.
“What’s highlighted (by the LKS Quaero review) is that our employees need more defined lines of report, so that they know who they are reporting to, so they know their tasks, and have the opportunity for feedback and dialogue on how to improve, or be commended if they’ve done a good job.”
The LKS Quaero review was also critical of a lack of leadership, the overall culture of the organisation and the absence of any discernible vision.
Cr Campbell said the review was not about performance and that many of the areas assessed are subjective.
“It didn’t even address performance, so when we say damming, I think it is probably fairer to say it is confronting in its assessment of the culture and the organisational structure that we deliver here,” she said.
“In essence when you look at structure and culture, there is nothing that you can really define.
“When you get a scorecard like this, and scorecard probably isn’t the right word for this because it’s about looking at yourselves and where you can improve, not looking at yourselves and thinking: we’ve failed, and we’re no good and it’s damming.
“I’m really optimistic that over the next 18 months we’ll see a big change and that’s exciting.
“The councillors have really committed to this, there is an expectation for us to work together on this and to make sure we come out a much stronger community and a much stronger organisation.”
Acting general manager Daryl Hagger said that one of the key things the LKS consultants stressed to staff was that a change of structure doesn’t necessarily improve culture.
“It’s the opportunity to review the structure and look at the capabilities of the leaders and the framework, and how you are supposed to interact that can change culture.”
