SURVEY RESULTSHamilton County Sheriff’s Office employees were given an opportunity to take a survey this summer and rank top administrators. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being worst and 5 being best the following people received these rankings:• Chief Deputy Allen Branum – 3.64;• Director Gino Bennett – 3.31;• Director Ron Gorman – 3.07;• Sheriff Jim Hammond – 2.94;• Deputy Chief Ron Parson – 2.39Source: University of Tennessee at Chattanooga survey results
A survey administered by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga reveals Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office employees ranked its top five administrators as moderate on a scale of 1 to 5, averaging a score of 3.07.
“When you’ve got neutral responses, it means no one is really disappointed, but no one is really satisfied either,” said Katherine Karl, a business professor, who compiled the survey. “It’s not an ideal place to be for employee satisfaction, but it could be worse.”
The survey was placed online and about 400 sheriff’s office employees were sent a link to the website, where they could anonymously take the 24-question survey.
A total of 138 employees – about one-quarter of the sheriff’s office workforce – took the survey in July to learn how deputies employees perceived administrators.
With such results, “the best course of action is to meet with employees,” Karl said, noting that the results can be a starting point to assess the needs of an agency.
Sheriff Jim Hammond, who approached Karl about conducting a survey for the department, said the survey allows the department to see areas where it can improve. He said he plans to form a focus group of mostly deputies to gather feedback about such topics as morale and administrative performance.
“I realize when you’ve got 400 employees spread out over three shifts, you can never know what everyone is thinking,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I was hearing what was out there whether it was good or bad.”
A similar survey will be administered for captains and lieutenants, he said, but he didn’t give a firm date.
“I’d like to work with officers every week, but the reality is, with most departments this size, sheriffs don’t see officers,” Hammond said.
Karl said the survey is a reliable gauge of employees’ feelings toward administrators.
“Research shows that it isn’t just complainers. Research shows complainers are least likely to take [the survey] because they feel it won’t do any good,” she said.
In this case, she said, there weren’t many extremes in the scores. Some slightly agreed or disagreed, which canceled each other out when scores were tallied.
As far as his own scores, Hammond said, “I certainly didn’t come in No. 1 if you look at who got the highest or lowest. Some of that could be the buck stops at my door and I have to deal with the discipline.”