Retain and Nurture its Workforce?

As noted in The State of the Service Report 2017/2018: "Most public service agencies still have a way to go in moving from reactive, defensive risk management to proactive, performance-focused risk engagement. Too often there remains a tendency to focus on compliance … rather than on performance. There remains too much focus on looking backwards, relying on evaluation and audit to identify problems after the event. There is not enough looking forward to prevent mistakes occurring." If the APS is to attract and retain high quality employees it is essential that APS services urgently address the current inadequacies within their risk management processes. The implementation and development of proactive risk management practices must be imbedded within the key organisational drivers at the top SES level if employees are to feel valued and thus capable of optimal productivity.

1. Pro-active mentoring and development rather than waiting for employees to seek advancement/development.
2. Skills/experience/qualifications register that is actually used to identify potential in people and then acted upon.
3. Managerial development stream vs Technical development stream. I've watched promotion turn a lot of excellent technical people into average (or below average) managers. Separate the two so that people can be promoted to higher levels as specialists but can also start off low as managers.
4. As so many others have mentioned, get rid of contractors who do the same work for more money because of accounting games.
5. Set in place long term career paths with distinct milestones, goals, incentives etc

Career development experiences Working with partner agencies on joint taskforces and being out-posted, to assist other agencies achieve their goals, have been my most beneficial career development opportunities. Information sharing between agencies is greatly enhanced with the co-location of staff in the same office. Working in this type of arrangement benefits employees through: • Stretching staff to think about their work from a different angle • Providing variety and refreshing the workforce • Enhancing communication and liaison skills • Growing staff’s ability to think about their work on a more strategic level

The future I envision a future with multi-agency APS facilities in large suburban hubs of the major capitals as opposed to current CBDs. Leases or property owned by the APS with floor space provided to different agencies. If the APS had leases for multi-agency offices in many different suburban huhubs in the major capitals and offices in regional locations, departments could offer their staff the option of working from these varied locations. It could facilitate agencies working together with the associated careers development opportunities. Agencies are currently often reluctant to allow staff to work from home due to security concerns. These new multi-agency facilities in suburban hubs would: • Help the APS uphold its obligations for the provision of flexible working arrangements • Encourage agencies to work together through co-location • Improve information sharing through the greater establishment of joint taskforces • Improve work-life balance by reducing commutes • Cut rental costs by reducing major capital CBD floor space requirements • Provide a decentralisation model for the private sector • Even encourage movement between agencies.

Make the public service workday a 5 hour day with no meal break mandatory (voluntary) and no change in pay (or any other condition). Current literature indicates this may get a better bang for our buck, contributing to efficiency dividends (some how).

This will allow for finding and retaining great talent due to the work/life balance, outside employment opportunities and other professional development it allows (for those that choose). The day reduces pressure on the daily commute and increases productivity (based on current trials). If too controversial for EL - a 5 hour work day could really focus on retaining and attracting the best APS level staff.

One way of 'funding it' as it's always about finding the money - and on a purely logistical level let alone the benefits - is to take some of the funding from the lower amount of desks needed.

People will come and go much more efficiently with much more focus and much more output.

First of all - the budget crisis: This two budget system where a government agency cannot hire staff but can use capitalised budget to hire contractors is a joke. I left the APS to come back as a contractor. Now I work with permanent APS staff doing the same job as them. Their yearly salary is about $70k while mine is around $200k. I gain the corporate knowledge and then I leave to do my next contract.

APS equal pay: The APS has work level standards to ensure we all do the same work yet you can make up to 30% more by simply changing department. Both have the same job work level standards yet there is a 30% pay increase. This weakens smaller departments and ultimately only hurts the APS.

Bring the APS 5 increments in line with all other APS levels which have 5 increment levels. Why is this the only APS level that has 3 increments.

Maybe you could look at the Canadian Public Service initiative called Free Agents to retain and motivate experienced and skilled public servants. It is aimed at retaining existing public servants who demonstrate attributes that are internationally recognised as useful for experimenting and problem-solving, such as empathy, action-orientation, team-orientation, creativity and outcomes-focus. These people work in project teams and move around the public service as needs required.

https://apolitical.co/solution_article/canadas-free-agents-helping-public-servants-find-purpose/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=69859742&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9s0i9mhTeWSpI8b64m1e1KTQNs78FIG2v9BmXrS-FB9u5jJyg9V5IU2S2S6gFGaBAjXkgfaL1Icp6Dn_HF5T-yZeT-bfzmaPs5VBNeOp4k_RVAkC8&_hsmi=69859742

The following is AHRI's answer to the APS Review's second question about lessons the APS could learn from our experiences with Deloitte and Coca Cola Amatil:

The lessons learned from our work with Deloitte and Coca Cola Amatil are that both companies have: 

• recognised the need for, and prioritised investment in, the building of HR capability

• taken a strategic approach by empowering their respective senior HR leaders with validating and building their own capability alongside that of their teams  

• set standards for HR practice within their organisation through enabling HR certification from the top down 

• established HR certification as the benchmark for those aspiring to mid to senior level HR positions, with a view to establishing HR certification as a pre-requisite for all future leadership positions

• established a long-term investment plan that commits resources ongoing to support staff achieving HR certification, and which includes financial and workplace study support for engaging in continuous professional development.  

An article on the Deloitte approach can be viewed on this link: http://www.hrmonline.com.au/certification/deloittes-hr-team-reveal-how-they-make-work-meaningful/

Thank you, APS Review, for the two questions you asked. I am posting the answers as two separate posts.

To your first question on the barriers to building HR capability in the APS:

A key barrier within the APS is the absence of a whole of government strategic approach to investing in building HR capability. Traditionally, HR has not been encouraged to invest in its own professional development, with its remit and priority primarily focus on building capability in other parts of the organisation.  However, as our workplace and customer needs change, the overt investment in those who are tasked with overseeing APS future workforce and organisational design, will provide the same tangible return to their counterparts in the private sector who have already made that connection. 

The good news is that there are some exemplar APS agencies already benefiting from the insights of their leadership team, who have prioritised the building of HR capability by resourcing it, and so are aligned with their counterparts in the private sector. These agencies are reaping the benefits in terms of good HR practice and being an employer of choice within the APS for highly competent HR practitioners. Based on these exemplars, the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) seems positioned to not only set the bar for HR standards through certification, but also to support all APS agencies in taking a similar strategic approach to assessing and building HR capability that will help ensure the sector is well positioned for the looming technological and societal upheavals that will impact our work and workplaces. 

A great deal of professional growth and learning comes from being able to take-on challenging tasks at work. This means having the support of management, and the time to tackle these tasks properly – rather than having staff spread so thinly that no-one can be spared from their relentless day-to-day duties to do anything new, or undertake training.

One consequence of having strict restrictions on staff numbers, but a relatively large amount of money to spend on contractors and equipment means that there's potentially no time available for staff to develop a solution to a problem (and therefore to learn and develop) but there's the pressure to just spend more money on 'stuff' (such as software), or consultants to fix it.

A hypothetical example: suppose your job involves answering email queries from the public. You come up with an idea for a system to manage these emails so they can be answered much more efficiently. You approach your manager about developing this idea. Odds-on they'll say either:

"There's no time to think about that now. I just need you to keep answered the emails. We're flooded with them, and you know how understaffed we are! Anyway, I'm late for meeting…"

Or:

"That's a good idea. We'll pay a consultant to develop a formal proposal, then we'll pay some contractors to implement the proposal. That'll free you up to get back to answering your email. Gotta go, I'm late for a meeting…"

I think that without allowing staff to take-on new and challenging tasks at work, to do high quality work and to improve systems – learning and development becomes a bit meaningless.

I think its entirely obvious to anyone considering it objectively that the present APS bargaining policy is flawed out of the gate. Its adherence to "productivity gains" in an environment where productivity is largely unable to be measured is the most apparent fault.

As an example, in one agency I'm aware of, a productivity gain to help pay for a pay rise was achieved by reducing the number of performance appraisals of EL staff to one a year (from twice). The agency still does performance appraisals twice a year, of course - now they just don't record them formally.

Or the most ludicrous productivity gain of all: extending working hours. Same outputs, more inputs = more productivity? The APSC might like to run that past the productivity commission.

Some sort of automatic process would seem more sensible. CPI is a possibility, but might be out of alignment with private sector movements. Linking to WPI or even the Fair Work Commission's minimum wage decision may be preferable. This would make it non-political, regular and predictable and would prevent the kind of situation encountered at Immigration/Home Affairs.

I would also like to highlight what I see as a lack of appreciation for domain knowledge- it seems to be generally assumed that staff are completely interchangeable- for example that an engineer or project manager or contract manager with a navy hardware background will do just as good a job working on Air Force software- while there are certainly some overlaps (and generalists are important too) . I think that the general process skills (how to develop different documents, stakeholder engagement, policy development, decision making etc etc) are given too much more consideration than deep domain experiences developed by working in an area for an extended period (eg - we had this problem last time, and if we don’t do things differently we will repeat it).

In summary, while APS mobility is desirable, so is a degree of ability to progress without moving very broadly

I believe the APS should move towards an employee trusted deliverables working model where staff can telecommute (saving money on premises cost), where people work remotely on a set of deliverables / deliverable as defined by their management. Management need to mature and move beyond the 'bums on seats' outside my office model and trust employees to deliver on tasks they have been assigned. This model works fine in private industry and can work well with Government. The people who find it hard to work with this model can be monitored and retrained to work with this model over time.

3 During the years 2015-2018 AHRI has built an ‘alumni’ within the public service which can be the place for active discussion and exchange of good practice. AHRI’S Public Sector Advisory Panel can continues to assist in driving work programs for conferences and networks, and has offered to do so on the basis of a co-design and collaboration model with the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). AHRI’s General Manager HR Standards and Practice, Dr Kim Schofield, has been in discussions with the Deputy Public Service Commissioner, Mary Wiley Smith, and talked through work he is undertaking with the Jobs and Small Business Department on a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) and capability build for its HR. That could be re-purposed for the APSC, with wider implications for the rest of the service. Similarly, AHRI is currently building HR capability through certification with Deloitte and Coca Cola Amatil. Building good leadership and healthy, contemporary and robust workplace practices informed by professional HR input are key ingredients to the APS becoming an Employer of Choice, which is critical if the APS is to attract and retain the talent needed to deliver any transformation resulting from the APS Review, as well as being a step on the path to building the HR capability as a trusted partner.

2 A consequence of making HR appointments within the APS without strong HR capability is that the HR function has not earned a reputation in the Service for its capacity to operate at the level required to deal adequately with the complex issues that confront them with respect to the workforce they oversee in the present, as well as the workforce they foresee in the future. Recognising that malaise, in 2015 The Australian HR Institute (AHRI) took upon itself the task of creating a certification regime that set a high bar in Australia for entry to the HR profession. The certification standard is based on a globally benchmarked set of capabilities and behaviours outlined in the AHRI Model of Excellence, and includes validating professional behavioural attributes such as being credible, solutions driven, and future oriented. As an industry model, it was developed with extensive Australian and global industry and public-sector input, and the intellectual property it supports is continuously reviewed to ensure relevance to shifting trends and organisation needs. Certification candidates are now required to demonstrate organisation expertise and capability via 4 units of exacting postgraduate-level professional study, to undertake continuous professional development, and to sign up to an enforceable code of conduct.

1 Good leadership and management of APS people needs to include line managers and agency heads working with HR partners to share ownership and accountability as custodians of organisational culture. The HR function should be expected to play a key role and rightfully be held accountable for key elements of that leadership, including the development of an organisation’s culture strategy. However, for cultural transformation to be truly successful and driven through the entire organisation’s non-HR processes, agency policies and practices also need to change, so that individuals, regardless of their seniority, need to be accountable for the culture they display and to which they contribute. The APS is already on a path towards a shared services and centres of excellence model, with transactional HR services outsourced to hubs within APS agencies. The HR teams that remain, as the APS transitions to this model, could be effectively used to lead and contribute substantially to the building of strategic HR capability. For many years the APS has not enjoyed access to HR practitioners who have the level of leadership capability and business acumen in the areas alluded to above. In addition to the independent analysis the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) has undertaken in relation to HR capability, further evidence for that can be found in the number of occasions in which people from outside HR have been appointed to fulfil the HR function and wear the label of HR, and often without having brought with them the range and depth of capabilities that enable them to perform at the level that their senior HR counterparts would be expected to perform in the top companies within the private sector.

I love working for the APS as a professional Social Worker. I have postgraduate qualifications that are not necessarily being utilised. I would like to see more opportunity for staff to move across agencies and horizontal 'promotions'. Not everyone should/could/would want follow vertical development. I would like to see more financial support to access professional development opportunities. For example: At present if I wanted to attend the APS training programs on policy, it would cost me thousands of dollars, which I do not personally have. Perhaps financial 'scholarships' could be available in performance reviews/plans. For example, each employee would have an expectation to spend their 'preallocated' scholarship on professional development. A large majority of 'free internal' training offered online is very basic and does not encourage people to consider transferring to other agencies for a year. I would love to to this but no one seems to know how to do this.

Furthermore, I would love to be able to link into career mentors and planners that would work alongside you and your supervisor in ensuring your developments needs are matching.

The process of being promoted is slow and again based on tenure. There is no mechanism for management to recognise a talented individual and streamline them to management. Instead there are a number of barriers and ideology of doing you're time through each of the respective levels.

Without banging on about it, the private sector does this streamlining. It is not uncommon to see Executive / CEOs in late 20s or early 30s. When was the last time the APS had a Secretary or even a Dep Sec of FAS below 35? Wouldn't happen, as it's currently setup in the traditional ladder climbing management system.

Can be a very frustrating environment where performance and talent isn't recognised, but instead people are just defined by their APS / EL level.

I believe John Lloyd mentioned this exact point in his final speech as one of his greatest frustrations with the APS.

The pay and conditions bargaining framework in the APS is completely backwards and needs to be addressed in order to attract and retain good workers.

I agree with the submission to the APS Review by Andrew Podger AO on this point:

"The current approach for funding pay increases is unnecessarily complex and is based on a false premise about how pay is and should be set. The premise is that pay increases can and should be conditional on productivity improvements within each agency. That is not how the labour market works, whether in the private or the public sector, and it is not how enterprise bargaining works in the private sector. Not surprisingly, the policy now imposed on the APS is not applied by the Remuneration Tribunal for politicians, judges and statutory office-holders, nor applied to ministerial staff, where the notion of internal productivity offsets is more obviously inappropriate. The current APS approach also risks double-counting productivity requirements, again impacting the level and/or quality of services in a disguised way. There is also the risk of ‘gaming’ by agencies as they look for the ‘productivity offsets’ needed to justify pay increases.

Under the more rational approach I suggest of setting pay centrally based primarily on market assessments, no special funding would normally be required. CPI indexation of running costs should be sufficient in most cases to meet APS remuneration increases. Additional supplementation would only be justified on evidence that the agreed pay increases were well above movements in average earnings for a substantial proportion of an agency’s staff, leading to its output prices increasing beyond the CPI."

Create greater mobility and development opportunities for staff outside of the ACT, who tend to be APS 1-6 staff.

The recent State of the Service Report found that mobility in non-ACT jurisdictions (which have a higher number of APS1-6 staff) is significantly lower than in the ACT:

'In 2017–18, 79 per cent of total movements were attributed to the ACT. Higher mobility in the ACT contrasts with most APS employees (62 per cent) working outside the territory. The greatest proportion of the ongoing workforce is at the APS 1-6 classifications (Figure 49). These roles are primarily based outside the ACT, and most of these employees are in service delivery. From the EL 1 classification upwards, employees are more likely to be located in the ACT where mobility occurs.'

APS L&D offerings and conferences also tend to be delivered in Canberra, which can make it difficult for non-Canberra based staff to access these development opportunities. It would be great to see more courses delivered virtually/online.

Let's stop being so Canberra-centric so that we can attract and retain talented staff from around the country.

I agree with James that there needs to be much more room made for specialists. I have wanted, since the beginning of my 9-year stint in the Canberra APS, to specialize in relations with Europe, but have found it extremely difficult to gain work that would contribute to that goal, because of the expectation that I will work on anything. I have been placed in several roles after bulk recruitment rounds where it seems the panel had no regard to my interests, experience or ambitions but simply where was there a vacant job, or what would be best for the business. I think what would be best for the organization's business would be putting people in roles which play to their strengths, interests, ambitions, experience etc, just like happens in some other organisations.

I also agree that there should be more emphasis placed on technical skills not just soft skills, and that progression beyond APS 6/EL1 should be possible for those not wishing/able to go into management. This progression should include greater responsibility, better pay and higher classification.

I would also like to see opportunities for public servants to work with academics to publish papers in academic journals, blog posts etc. I think there is not enough crossover between academia and the public service, although I have appreciated the initiative of the National Security College at ANU for the last few years.

Formal learning and development promotes lazy learners. In today's world, you can google for information and learn freely. Stop wasting money on L&D and crippling a self-learning attitude, on a needs by needs basis.

YES

The government must peg wage rises to inflation. Not undermine public service employees just remuneration through inflation.

The government must set the standard for the private sector.

1. The public service must cease using casual employees and those hired through labour hire companies. These contractors are paid less and do not have job security. It's a dishonest hiring method that undermines workers lives.

2. The public service must put in place a policy that prevents hiring of relatives within the same area and government departments.

3. Redacted

I am an officer that does not have any formal degrees or higher learning certificates. What I have are skillsets that have been gained through applied experiences. However, these skillsets are rarely recognised in the modern APS. This can be overcome by allowing officers to undertake Competency recognition which may allow certain degrees to be recognised if the respective competencies are achieved at the required levels. An interesting element of this process was the unexpected review of competencies not met to the high standards by professionals in particular areas. The professionals had the competencies but not to the same degree as some experienced staff. I believe this highlighted the trade offs between experience and formal recognised learning. (This is not meant to sound like a gripe - which I am sure it does, just an observation.)

I have undertaken some of these and have had my competencies recognised formally but there is still a vacuum of understanding of what these mean. Unfortunately the program has not been expanded (I am not sure why - possibly budget) even though it was met with great success.

Professions models rely on officers having the formal recognition of training in reality what happens is that the actual work rarely meets the expectations of the professionals; being evolved to a highly particular operation in the service for the organisation. This creates problems of retention of professionals or erosion of professional skills. Whereas the general operators who achieve required skills tend to remain with the service but can become disenchanted due to little prospect of advancement due to poor recognition.

I want to discuss how the public service can address the needs of the younger generation who will be soon be entering the public service. It goes without saying that having young people in our workforce is extremely important as they as it helps to bring fresh ideas and perspectives that help shape the future of our country.

Firstly, according to a national survey of 15 - 19 year old Australians by Mission Australia (just publicised yesterday), to which over twenty-eight thousand young people responded, the top issue identified for today's youth was mental health.

Some of this is in part due to technology and the advent of social media which has, by no fault of their own, created a generation of young people who in many cases experience high levels of anxiety and low confidence. Can the department look at incorporating things like confidence building, mental health strategies (such as mindfulness techniques) and other training that will equip young people with the skills that many of us take for granted from having growing up in a time that forced us to develop them?

Secondly, youth today have grown up in a world of instant gratification, where they are used to gaining results quickly. Can 'growth mindset' be incorporated in some way to the department's culture or training strategies to help future staff to develop resilience when dealing with complex policy and an ever-changing environment in the public service?

There are a number of benefits to hiring youth in the APS, we just need to acknowledge some of the issues they face and make sure they are supported so they can be the best public servants they can be.

I wish to raise whether the inequitable way the governments negotiate remuneration within Employment Agreements can be invigorated, as for many years it no longer acknowledges the enhancing and evolving contribution of it's public servants.

Perhaps wage raises can be increased to reflect reality, calculated by the CPI, and wages increased biannually in line with the CPI.

I agree James - Microsoft successfully structured their workforce with managerial and technical streams. It would be better for the technical specialist, but also for the teams they don't want to lead and it would help the APS to retain top technical and managerial talent.

Regarding the professions model (which seems to be focussed on policy makers) - have you considered a planning and development model based on cluster careers? See https://www.fya.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/The-New-Work-Mindset.pdf

I believe we need to move on from thinking people are going to do one job - the reality is anyone with good analytical, research and writing skill should be able to contribute to policy. There are many professions that carry this skill set - a lot of them are in APS corporate functions for instance.

Instead of focussing on a job as part of a profession we should be breaking it down to 'Who would do this job well?' 'What are its constituent parts?' ' What other seemingly different jobs does this relate to?". For example, in the PDF linked above policy officers are in the same cluster as teachers and statisticians.

This approach instantly widens the pool of 'talent' as well as increasingly the likelihood of fresh perspectives and solutions. It would position the APS ahead rather than behind current practice.

The public service needs to balance the need between generalists and specialists better.

There is a trade-off between generalists and specialists. Graduates and public servants will be expected to fill many roles and be across bureaucratic process, but at the end of the day they will be asked to advise on particular topics or complete specific skilled tasks. These topics or tasks can be highly technical and require expertise. Staff are also expected to have a strong ability to write competently, work in teams and manage deadlines.

Expert positions are uncommon and vary by department. A lack of room for specialists encourages the creation of new agencies, e.g. the Infrastructure and Project Financing Agency, or the use of consultants to produce work which is counterintuitive.

Many public servants seeking to advance their career may wish to do so without taking on management responsibilities. There are people are who experts in their field but either don't want to manage, or should not manage. There should be greater scope for advancement and career progression in streams beyond management.