Staff at Bermuda College have told their bosses exactly what they think of them in a warts and all survey designed to improve standards and create openness, The Royal Gazette has learned.

The 140 workers were asked to complete the comprehensive, anonymous questionnaire, which asked about the perceived effectiveness of all members of management, from the president, down to the various heads of faculty, as well as departments around the college.

About 75 percent of staff voluntarily took part in the survey in the weeks before Christmas, adding comments, sometimes blunt, at the end of each question on where improvements could be made, and where things were working well.

The Royal Gazette has obtained a leaked copy of the private study this week. It was told that the results of the survey were only released on the college's computer-based bulletin board in January - and made available for just a few days before being deleted.

President of the college Dr.Michael Orenduff, who joined on a three-year contract last July with a brief to make the college more relevant to the Island and more efficient, seemed to be the most favoured among workers.

He drew the highest percentage of 'yes' votes when staff were asked whether he displayed effective key skills.

Some 93 percent said "yes" to his communication skills; 91 percent said "yes" to his interpersonal skills; his decision-making ability got a 91 percent thumbs up vote; and for leadership, he achieved 90 percent support.

He was praised for opening up the lines of communication, and for his "bold, innovative, and decisive leadership."

However, some deans of the college received less favourable gradings, including vice president Larita Alford.

Only 34 percent of people who responded said she had effective decision-making skills, and just 40 percent of people said she had good leadership skills.

And one faculty member, who shall not be named, received the four lowest marks out of the whole survey, with only 20 percent of people believing that he or she had good interpersonal skills and good decision-making skills.

It is understood that when the board asked staff to complete the questionnaire, some members of the management team were more than a little disgruntled.

And when the results were revealed, it is believed that embarrassment was felt by some.

However, when Dr. Orenduff was asked at the weekend to explain the object of the survey, he said no malice was meant by it at all.

He said: "The concept came from the board of governors with the idea being that in order to have a more open organisation, we should allow the rank and file to evaluate both the administration and various services, just as we, in administration, evaluate them.

"We wanted to give people a chance to let us know what was working, and what they thought was not working, and we really wanted to listen to them.

"The survey would have shown us if there was widespread belief that there was a problem and it gave us a chance to identify problems and then address them.

He added: "The survey was not to make people feel uncomfortable.

"Nobody was going to lose their job over this. It was simply to find out problems and solve them, and help everyone to improve."

Dr. Orenduff said although some of the College's services and management team were lacking in some areas, he believed the overall picture was good. And he said he believed it showed that morale was high.

The president said the board was hoping to make the survey an annual event, so comparisons could be made year to year.

He added: "This was simply an unofficial evaluation system. It will not replace the official evaluations we do each year.

"We will be talking to everyone in the survey, and those that did not do very well in an area, we will work with them to improve it. I think everyone can improve somewhere. It's normal for people to have strengths and weaknesses.

"I know that personal gripes can come into things like this, and that's why we were so pleased so many people took part. We had more than 100 members of staff that answered each question, out of a possible 140.

"I'm sure that some people will have marked people down because they didn't personally like them, and others will have marked up because they did like them. But I think the larger the census, the better the results."

And Dr. Orenduff said, considering the low morale of the College a year ago, he was "pleasantly surprised" by the majority of the remarks and the grades given.

He said: "The results were actually better than I thought they were going to be. We have already started to address some of the problem areas."

In the survey, the library, accounts, communications office, bookstore and security departments received high marks, along with the hotel and business faculty.

Many areas received average marks, but the human resources department, admissions, information services and telephone system came in for criticism. The human resources department was described as "incredibly inefficient" by one person, and "totally unresponsive and useless" by another.

Information services was described as being "understaffed", and the admissions office as "not having a clear understanding of actual programmes offered".

But Dr. Orenduff said steps had already been taken to begin addressing some of the problem areas.

He added: "Human Resources is a relatively new department, but we are providing additional training in there, and we are working to help admissions improve, too. We are going to provide training to the people on the front desk, so they can help out with admissions when needed.

"We will attempt to address all of the problem areas."

Chairman of the board Jan Spiering said a committee had been set up to carry out the survey,

He said: "The board has set the direction that we believe in for the College, and that is one of open communication. We are going to have a 360-degree evaluation system. The College has had these kinds of things in the past but this time we wanted to make sure everyone participated in it.

"We want to be sensitive to and listen to our stakeholders, and the people at the College are our stakeholders too. We simply want to be able to improve and this survey will help us to be able to do that."