Putting the APS ahead of the game

In March the Advisory Group on Reform of Australian Government Administration released its report Ahead of the Game, Blueprint for the reform of Australian Government Administration.

Reform of the APS is proposed in four areas.

1. Forging a stronger relationship with citizens through better delivery of services and through greater involvement of citizens in their government.
2. Strengthening the capacity of the public service to provide strategic, big picture policy and delivery advice that addresses the most difficult policy challenges of the day.
3. Investing in the capacity of the public service workforce through improved recruitment and training processes, greater mobility and alignment of working conditions across agencies, and a new, more consistent approach to employee performance.
4. Introducing a stronger focus on efficiency and quality to ensure that agencies are agile, capable and effective, backed up by measures to help them plan and improve their performance.

The report recognises that the APS needs to make its recruitment processes more efficient and transparent. In total 57 submissions called for recruitment processes to be streamlined, simplified and sped up.

The report also recognises that wage dispersion has increased significantly both within and between departments and agencies and the APS classification profile has changed dramatically.

Recommendations and suggested actions include:

• establishing new work level standards linked to classification structures and ensuring fairness through similar remuneration for similar work.
• providing APS employees with appropriate career paths.
• establishing a capability framework that allows APS employees to identify knowledge and skill requirements, learning and development opportunities, plan their careers and build a greater understanding of performance expectations and standards.
• developing efficient, transparent and applicant friendly recruitment processes that address agency skill gaps and issues of diversity, and distinguishes candidates on the basis of merit plus a mobility strategy that encourages and assist employees to pursue diverse work opportunities to develop their capability.
• streamlining recruitment and improving induction by developing best practice standards that promote greater efficiency while preserving transparency and open competition and upholding the merit principle.
• establishing mechanisms to challenge prevailing recruitment myths.
• providing a model for induction and transition programs to ensure employees are supported on entering the APS.
• establishing a single point of contact for graduate applicants.
• developing and implementing mechanisms to promote an APS career to individuals from underrepresented backgrounds.
• encouraging employees to expand their career experience. This covers developing mobility mechanisms that encourage more APS employees to obtain diverse career experiences and to reinvigorate the mechanism for advertising a temporary non-ongoing positions. It also includes working in other jurisdictions and addressing barriers to jurisdictional mobility.
• reinvigorating APS jobs and similar websites to support temporary placements and increased mobility.

Implementing these recommendations means dealing with some challenges:

• Achieving pay equity means balancing out people and places that overpay and those that underpay.
• Providing career paths and reinvigorating APS Jobs means taking a more detailed and specific approach to public service careers. As indicated in my 2010 eCareer Awards report, APS Jobs is well behind what other jurisdictions are doing to promote career paths and how public servants do make a difference.
• The APS already has a comprehensive and complex capability framework, called The Integrated Leadership System. Both public servants and those outside the public service find these frameworks difficult to work with when applying for jobs. Even public servants say they won’t apply for jobs where it is used as the task is too onerous. If capability frameworks continue to be used for recruitment and selection a way must be found to make them simpler and easier to understand for everyone.
• Policies relating to non-ongoing vacancies need to be over-hauled to make them simpler, while at the same time ensuring merit is maintained. Employees will need to understand that transfer and acting arrangement decisions are different from promotion and engagement decisions. Mobility will be encouraged if processes for short-term appointments are simplified. These processes need to be linked to career and resource management rather than to recruitment.
• How long someone stays in a job is shown to be directly affected by the quality of induction they receive. Managers need to have a strong staff retention ethos and this needs to be reinforced by performance mechanisms.
• Recruitment myths are alive and well and will remain so as long as there is a confusing mix of approaches to recruitment and selection, poorly trained selection panels, and a culture of ‘it’s not core business’. Greater use needs to be made of independent panel members who know what is and isn’t a myth, are highly trained and who can support the panel to achieve a solid result. Such people can relieve some of the perceived ‘burden’ of selecting staff, while at the same time modelling best practice.
• Elevating the skill level of staff who are selecting staff is even more critical now, given the range of approaches agencies are using to help applicants submit their applications. While on the face of it, asking applicants to write 1000 words in support of their case, based on a range of capabilities, may look simpler and easier, such an approach raises queries as to how the selection panel will assess the responses. As most public servants are familiar with tackling job specific criteria, as are selection panels, the risk is that an approach based on the latter will be used for the former. Assessing a 1000 word essay is not the same as assessing responses to a list of specific criteria. While poorly trained staff continue to make selection decisions, perceptions that merit is not applied will be fed, and managers will suffer the cost of these decisions.

Dr Ann Villiers, learning guide, professional speaker and author, is Australia's only Mental Nutritionist® specialising in mind and language practices that help people build flexible thinking, confident speaking and quality connections with people. Visit www.mentalnutrition.com to learn more about Mental Nutrition. Visit www.selectioncriteria.com.au for free resources unlocking the mysteries of public service jobs.