About 5,000 were completed and returned by the March 31 deadline. The respondents were guaranteed anonymity. Management consultant company The Hay Group, which the CBC contracted to handle the survey, produced initial findings late last month and is in the process of a more specific departmental breakdown of the data including separate analyses of attitudes among radio and television employees. The survey included several questions about life at the CBC now, compared with two years ago. This appears to be an effort on the part of Mr. Rabinovitch to assess the impact of his presidency on the depressed organization he inherited in November 1999, after years of massive budget and job cuts.
Many employees also feel that the quality of their own units is steadily declining.
People don't think there is any real vision or direction at the CBC and management is not seen as being responsive. Employees complain of frequent major changes throughout the public broadcaster, including programs being dropped and new ones invented for no obvious reason. It doesn't help that they seem to score points for it. Only eight per cent of those who returned the survey feel the CBC is concerned about its employees. CBC spokesman Pierre Sauve confirmed that the survey results were not all good news for Mr. Rabinovitch and his team but denied they were totally negative.