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Last updated: 11 October 2005
Managing and sustaining the APS workforce
Executive summary
The Australian Public Service (APS) faces a challenge in attracting and retaining skilled and talented staff in an employment environment very different to that of the past. In this new environment, agencies will need to adopt strategic and dynamic approaches to managing and sustaining the APS workforce, taking account of its increasingly diverse career paths and aspirations.
The APS workforce and employment environment has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, due to structural changes to the Australian economy, society and labour market as well as to a series of reform processes which have devolved previously centralised employment powers to individual APS agencies.
Current APS employment arrangements provide agencies with unprecedented levels of autonomy over how many and which employees they recruit, and over how they classify and remunerate them. This has provided agencies with the flexibility they need to respond to their specific business requirements, the needs and aspirations of their employees, and the differing labour markets from which they recruit.
While these arrangements are generally working well at present, the broader environment in which the APS recruits and manages its workforce is continuing to change. A tighter labour market is in prospect, with a diminishing supply of younger workers projected to enter the labour market in the next few decades. This tightening is already affecting the APS in important specialist areas, such as accountancy.
The existing APS labour force is both ageing—as the baby boomers move towards retirement—and becoming increasingly diverse in its career patterns and working arrangements. The younger people coming into the APS—the so-called generations X and Y—are displaying a greater interest in career mobility than their predecessors.
The APS will need to be well positioned to respond to these challenges and to continue to recruit and maintain a workforce that can deliver high quality advice to government and effective services to all Australians.
Start of pageAPS workforce needs into the future
Go to this chapterConnecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia’s Priority Challenges found that, in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century, APS employees at all levels and in all agencies will need to be multiskilled, flexible and intellectually agile, and be able to operate effectively in the information age.1
Since the 1970s, there has been a declining role in the APS for tradespeople and unskilled or low-skilled employees. The functions they traditionally performed have been contracted out, corporatised, transferred to states and territories or—with support from information and communications technology (ICT)—integrated into the work of other clerical and administrative employees.
These changes have led to:
- the disappearance of the lowest classification levels (APS 1–2) in a growing number of agencies, with most new staff now being recruited at the APS 3–4 levels and being able to expect to rise higher during their careers
- a growing proportion of APS staff who hold tertiary qualifications (a bachelor’s degree or above)—approaching 50% of all staff, and over 60% of new recruits
- APS employment becoming more concentrated in agency head offices in Canberra
- a tendency for agencies dealing with broad economic or societal sectors (for example, health, community services, education, industry) to directly recruit experienced middle to higher level employees from outside the APS.
The APS of 2005 features four broad areas of work, namely:
- Service delivery: employees largely in the APS 3–6 range, mainly located outside Canberra in the regional networks of agencies such as Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), who work on a broad range of tasks related to the direct or indirect delivery of services to the public, including case and contract management, regulatory decision-making, and investigation and enforcement activities.
- Programme design and policy advice: employees typically in the range APS 5 to Executive Level (EL) 2, mainly located in Canberra, who are engaged in policy advising, programme design, leading implementation processes, stakeholder management, and high-level decision-making in relation to contract management, regulation and enforcement.
- Corporate support: employees who are engaged in traditional corporate service activities such as ICT, human resources, records management, accounts processing, and ministerial and parliamentary processes.
- Technical: employees making use of specific qualifications obtained in the tertiary education sector and/or through their employment, for example, doctors, lawyers, journalists, accountants, scientists, engineers, librarians and economists (such employees can be found in almost every APS agency, and predominate in many of the more technically-focused and/or regulatory agencies).
All these types of work increasingly require employees with communications, problemsolving and ICT skills commensurate with those of the average tertiary graduate. This multiskilled APS workforce will continue to need to be supplemented by staff with specialist skills and qualifications.
Key workforce trends
Internal and externally driven change processes in the APS since the 1980s have produced:
- higher entry levels and streamlined classification structures, with staff now typically commencing in the APS at the APS 3–4 levels or higher and advancing fairly rapidly to higher levels
- an ageing APS workforce, as the baby boomers who were recruited in the 1970s and 1980s move into the 45 to 54 age range, as well as through the increasing direct recruitment into the APS of older, experienced workers, now that the barriers to outsiders applying for APS positions have been completely removed
- an increasingly female workforce, with the proportion of women in the APS now at 53% and rising
- rising levels of Indigenous employment until the mid-1990s, which are now proving difficult to sustain or increase
- a sustained decline in the level of employment of people with disabilities
- falling rates of interagency mobility, with staff currently reaching the executive levels or joining the Senior Executive Service (SES) being far less likely than preceding cohorts to have worked in more than one APS agency
- more employees seeking to achieve a work–life balance, by accessing part-time work, leave purchase schemes (‘48/52’), and more generous maternity and paternity leave arrangements
- continuing strong use of graduate programmes, which still flourish in a large number of APS agencies, despite the growing numbers of all recruits holding tertiary qualifications.
These change processes have emerged in the context of an Australian labour market which has grown significantly on both the supply and demand sides in recent years, but which is projected to tighten over the next two decades, with a significant reduction in the rate of new labour force entrants, particularly school leavers and younger graduates.
Expectations and career preferences of the future APS workforce
The traditional concept of an APS career as a long-term and steady advancement up a hierarchy of classifications is being overtaken by a growing diversity of career patterns and expectations among APS employees.
Younger workers pursuing portfolio careers: According to some researchers, workers from Generation Y expect rapid career advancement and substantial personal development or will not hesitate to switch employers. Employees who seek to develop a flexible set of skills and to make several changes of career direction during their working lives are often said to be pursuing a ‘portfolio career’.
Focus group research suggests that younger APS employees are interested in pursuing a portfolio career featuring stints both inside and outside the APS. The removal of restrictions on outsiders applying for any APS vacancy, and the recent changes to superannuation arrangements, mean these younger APS employees will face few disincentives to the pursuit of such career paths.
Experienced and skilled recruits: Employees from other sectors are increasingly attracted to the APS by expectations of job security, superannuation, opportunities for learning and development, and conditions promoting a work–life balance. As the population ages and the labour market tightens, these recruits are likely to continue to grow in prominence among the APS workforce.
Career stabilisers: Another growing group of APS workers are content to remain at the one level (for instance, EL 1 in Canberra, APS 4–6 outside Canberra) for a prolonged period while raising a family or pursuing other interests, often accessing conditions promoting a work–life balance.
Semi-retirees: Workers in their 50s or older who are looking for reduced hours of work and/or levels of responsibility, and would therefore be suited to more flexible arrangements for employment of non-ongoing staff.
Employees with limited opportunities to advance: Staff employed, for example, in regional service delivery networks and small agencies, who feel they have insufficient opportunities for advancement or mobility. In the past these staff could look to advance steadily up a finely graded hierarchy of levels. They now advance somewhat more rapidly to a point in the APS 4–6 range beyond which they may have few prospects of advancing in the near future.
Implications for future APS career patterns and development
The growing diversity of career paths among the APS workforce is raising challenges in a number of key areas.
Staff mobility and leadership development: Agencies will need to develop strategies to facilitate greater mobility and diversity of career experience, particularly among staff with limited opportunities to advance, and potential future leaders, who will be needed to replace the 70% of current SES staff and 55% of current EL 2s who are aged 45 or over.
The declining rate of interagency mobility among potential APS leaders risks creating a new generation of middle and senior managers who lack the breadth and depth of experience in management, policy development and whole of government processes they will need to address the challenges identified in Connecting Government.
Agencies may also need to look increasingly to send a clear message to some of their staff about their relatively limited prospects for career advancement from the positions in which they are working. A sound strategy might be for agencies to focus on filling these positions with staff such as the career stabilisers and semi-retirees, who have few ambitions to advance beyond their current levels. xiii
Base level recruitment: Apart from some specialist areas, APS agencies are currently experiencing few difficulties in attracting sufficient quality recruits to fill vacancies, and these new recruits are increasingly likely to possess tertiary qualifications.
If the tightening of the labour market leads to a drying up of the supply of younger employees and experienced recruits from other sectors, agencies may need to consider introducing strategies for attracting, recruiting and educating school leavers and other younger and/or less experienced staff to address emerging skills shortages. Such strategies may also help agencies to maintain or increase their numbers of Indigenous employees and reverse the decline in the employment of people with disabilities.
Graduates: Even though graduate entry programmes have long since ceased to be the main mechanisms for recruiting staff with tertiary qualifications, there are many sound reasons for retaining them, particularly in enlivening the talent pool available to move into the executive levels.
However, it will be important for agencies to extend some of the key learning and development opportunities currently offered to graduate programme participants to other new starters in the APS, to ensure they are adequately skilled in whole of government processes.
The advent of the portfolio career and the rising competition among employers for a diminishing pool of quality recruits will make it critically important for the APS to develop effective strategies for attracting and retaining graduates. The variety of opportunities available within the APS should be emphasised to younger employees, showing them that they can achieve the diversity of skills and experiences they seek in a portfolio career within the APS. For those who choose to leave the APS for a part of their careers, agencies will need to develop flexible career pathways which will encourage them to return to the APS, bringing the benefits of their new skills and broader life experiences.
Strategies for attracting, retaining, managing and developing graduates and other skilled staff into the future
To address the challenges identified in the above analysis, all APS agencies will need to adopt a range of strategic responses, including:
- systematic workforce planning to identify emerging issues and challenges in relation to the recruitment, development, advancement and succession of their employees
- effective processes for attracting and recruiting new staff, including new entrants to the labour force and experienced employees from other sectors
- smarter approaches to graduate recruitment and development, including using the flexibilities available through agreement-making—particularly Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs)—to attract and retain graduates
- learning and development opportunities to ensure new APS employees have the required skills and capabilities
- promotion of opportunities for mobility and exchange for those employees who need them
- strategies to ensure the increasingly diverse current and longer-term career needs of the APS workforce are met
- investing in identifying and developing the future leaders of the APS, including ensuring they have the breadth and depth of experience to provide leadership in a whole of government context.
Individual APS agencies have the capacity to develop responses to many of these challenges. Some will be addressed more effectively if individual agency strategies can be supported by concerted and coordinated APS-wide action.
APS agencies will therefore review their approaches to managing and sustaining their workforces in the light of the findings of this report. They will also look to adopt the following measures:
Workforce planning
- All APS agencies will continue to work to establish processes for systematic workforce planning.
- The Australian Public Service Commission, in consultation with agencies, will develop and promulgate advice on best practice.
- Agencies will report back to the Management Advisory Committee (MAC) on their progress and key issues emerging from this work.
- Agencies will give a high priority to taking the results of their workforce planning into account in policy and programme development, particularly in relation to any specific skills requirements needed to implement new government initiatives.
- Agencies will also pay special attention to trends in the employment of Indigenous people and people with disabilities, and to identifying and, where required, addressing the underlying causes of those trends.
- The Department of Finance and Administration, through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), will lead a working group to report to MAC’s Information Management Steering Committee which will:
- catalogue existing agency e-recruitment systems and projects
- identify best practice approaches
- develop and promote adoption of data and connectivity standards
- address relevant privacy and data security issues
- identify and assess risks in relation to timeframe and cost
- explore the potential business benefits arising from online sharing of recruitment data among APS agencies.
Attracting and recruiting employees to the APS
- All APS agencies will identify and adopt strategies for making their recruitment processes more accessible and attractive to potential recruits.
- The Australian Public Service Commission will develop a short guide to APS selection processes that can be distributed to all applicants.
- A working group of agencies—guided by advice from the Australian Public Service Commission on legislative requirements and better practice—will be formed to develop guidelines for streamlined recruitment processes.
- The Australian Public Service Commission will redevelop the online Gazette into an APS employment and recruitment portal. APS agencies will cooperate in this process by linking all advertising of vacancies on their web sites and linking these to the portal in a consistent format that will provide complete and coherent information to applicants, and facilitate provision of interactive services such as email alerts.
- The APS will become more active in marketing the range of employment and learning opportunities available within an APS career. As a first step, all APS online or newspaper job advertisements, and all selection documentation, will feature a message emphasising the benefits of a broad career in the APS.
- All APS agencies will explore base level recruitment pathways such as apprenticeships, traineeships and/or other recruitment strategies targeted at potential employees without post-school qualifications, including examining how these may help build greater workforce diversity through employment of more Indigenous people and people with disabilities.
Recruiting and retaining employees with specialist skills in high demand
- The Department of Finance and Administration, working with the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) and relevant professional associations, will take a leadership role in establishing an APS Community of Accountants.
- The Department of Finance and Administration, through AGIMO, and working with existing interdepartmental processes and relevant professional associations, will take a leadership role in establishing an ICT Professional and Skills Development Group.
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will take a leadership role in establishing an APS Community of Statisticians.
- On the basis of evaluation of the progress of the three proposed professional groups, consideration will be given at a future stage to establishing communities for other professions such as economists and scientists.
- Interested agencies will collaborate, under the leadership of the Australian Public Service Commission, to develop an Accountancy Recruitment Initiative to be implemented in 2006 and, if successful, annually thereafter.
Smarter approaches to graduate recruitment and development
- APS agencies will review the effectiveness of their current graduate programmes in terms of their remuneration and advancement arrangements, structure and other key characteristics, including the extent to which other suitably qualified new recruits have access to learning and development opportunities and other programme features. Agencies may also wish to consider how more strategic use of agreement making, and in particular AWAs, may help them recruit and retain graduates.
- APS agencies will review their current graduate programme intake levels, making use of best practice approaches to workforce planning.
- APS agencies will maintain contact with better quality unsuccessful applicants for graduate programmes and will encourage them to apply for suitable future vacancies at the APS 3–4 levels.
- The Australian Public Service Commission, agencies and the leaders of professional communities will collaborate in engaging with tertiary institutions about public policy programmes and other disciplines relevant to the APS with the aim of lifting their quality, profile and status.
Ensuring new employees have the necessary skills and knowledge to work effectively in the APS environment
- APS agencies will act to ensure all new starters are given the induction and orientation in the Australian Government and APS processes which they will need in order to perform effectively in their positions.
- The Australian Public Service Commission, assisted by other key central agencies, will lead development of APS-wide online and other learning materials which agencies can draw upon to build their own induction and orientation programmes.
- The Australian Public Service Commission will offer short APS-wide induction courses in capital cities and other locations as required.
Interagency mobility
- Portfolio secretaries and agency heads, in consultation with the Australian Public Service Commissioner, will undertake systematic career planning discussions with SES Bands 2 and 3 employees and arrange mobility opportunities where these are deemed appropriate.
- Agencies will include consideration of their employees’ need for, and opportunities to pursue, mobility as part of their regular performance management processes.
- The new APS employment portal will include a facility for APS and external organisations to advertise rotation and mobility opportunities, and for employees to express interest in accessing such opportunities.
Responding to the employment needs and career aspirations of the changing APS workforce
- Options for agency heads to be given greater flexibility to engage non-ongoing staff will be considered in the Australian Public Service Commissioner’s current review of the Public Service Act 1999.
- APS agencies will review the classification structures they use to ensure they match required skill and capability profiles.
- All APS agencies will develop mature workforce strategies and report back to MAC on progress.
- The new APS employment portal will feature an online registration channel for former APS and other mature employees interested in accessing APS employment.
- APS agencies will ensure their performance management and feedback processes address employees’ longer-term career development needs.
- The APS Employment and Capability Strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders will develop initiatives that seek to provide positive employment outcomes in the APS for Indigenous people, while supporting the business and workforce needs of agencies.
- All APS and Australian Government agencies will review their strategies for attracting, recruiting and retaining people with disabilities.
Investing in identifying and developing future leaders
- All APS agencies will devise systematic approaches to developing potential future leaders, including making use of the emerging APS-wide menu of career development options.
The MAC will issue a statement on the need for a greater APS-wide focus on leadership capabilities and development to ensure that the 70% of SES and 55% of EL 2s aged over 45 can be adequately replaced over the next five to 10 years.
1 Management Advisory Committee 2004, Connecting Government: Whole of Government Responses to Australia’s Priority Challenges, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.
