Attraction, recruitment and retention

Attraction

Effective strategies to attract and recruit employees are an important component of an agency’s response to the impact of a tight labour market and are an integral part of workforce planning more generally. The Commonwealth Government already has a high profile as a potential employer among some groups of employees. The Universum 2007 Graduate Survey, for example, found that the Commonwealth Government was the place where students would most like to work.⁸ It is important that the APS continues to build on and expand this profile.

This section looks at what agencies are doing to attract applicants, and whether they are collecting and using information on what attracts people to their agency. It also looks at the key attributes of agencies that attract APS employees to their jobs.

Agencies’ attraction and recruitment strategies

As noted above, the great majority of agencies, 88%, reported that difficulty recruiting people with required skills had been a major workforce challenge over the past 12 months. Given the current tight labour market, a better knowledge of agency-specific attraction factors can give agencies a powerful competitive edge in targeting suitable applicants. Only 43% of agencies currently collect this information.

Of the 43% of agencies that collect attraction information, exit surveys were the most common method used, followed closely by collecting information through the application process. Agencies also reported using, to a lesser degree, a survey of new recruits and other methods, including the use of more general staff surveys.

The use of surveys at various stages in recruitment and employment is consistent with the literature on better practice in this area. Organisations doing this well ensure they receive feedback at key ‘touch points’, with candidates and new recruits being asked about their pre-application experiences, recruitment experiences and early employment. For APS agencies, this means casting a wide net in their information gathering which covers successful and unsuccessful (but shortlisted) applicants, and current and departing employees.⁹

Based on the data collected by these methods, agencies reported an assortment of factors that attracted people to work in their organisation, including the agency’s reputation and location/s, along with various employment conditions and benefits. Frequently included in this mix were some agency-specific factors, for example, the opportunity to work overseas in Austrade.

When viewed in total, agencies that collected attraction information were able to present a set of key attraction factors that could be used to tailor recruitment advertising both by differentiating themselves from other agencies, and by gaining value from more common APS-wide factors such as opportunities to develop skills and career (these APS-wide factors are outlined in more detail later in this chapter).

While only 43% of agencies collect information about what attracts people to work with them, most agencies (81%) reported using specific attraction and/or recruitment strategies to attract people to their agency. During 2006–07, these strategies were primarily targeted at people with specific skills sets such as ICT and finance/accounting (69% of agencies). These were also the areas in which agencies were most likely to be experiencing skills shortages.

A substantial proportion of agencies also targeted their attraction and/or recruitment strategies to attract particular groups of employees to their agency, for example, graduates (55% of agencies), and, consistent with the APS Employment and Capability Strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employees, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (42% of agencies).

Almost all of the agencies with measures in place to attract and retain people with critical skills focused their strategies on remuneration with higher base salary, performance-related bonuses, and recruitment/retention allowance/bonuses being used by 87%, 63% and 56% of relevant agencies respectively. Considering the wide variety of attraction factors reported by agencies, this focus on remuneration seems to be a relatively limited response.

What attracted employees to their current job?

This year’s employee survey asked, for the first time, what agency attributes attracted employees to their current job. Table 4.1 presents the attributes that employees rated as their top five. It presents results for the APS as a whole and for a selection of groups. The most popular three attributes for each group are bolded.

The top three attraction attributes APS-wide were job security, interests matching the responsibilities of the job, and geographical location (including commuting costs and time). These were also the top three attributes for the majority of different groups. Results differed the most for those employees in the SES. The only SES attribute to be found among the APS-wide top three was interests matching the responsibilities of the job. The other top attributes for the SES were the ability to contribute to making a difference to the lives of Australians, and the opportunity to work on innovative or ‘leading edge’ projects.

Table 4.1: Attributes attracting employees to their current job, 2006–07
Attraction Attribute	APS-wide %	< 25 years %	45–54 years %	APS 1–6 %	ELs %	SES %	Service delivery %	Policy %
Job security	61	48	62	68	42		77	36
Interests match job	46	47	46	42	59	67	37	57
Location	39		46	40	37		43
Career opportunities	38	46	32	39	34	28	39	43
Gain experience in the APS	33	49		34		31		43
Remuneration			32				37
Making a difference						52		39
Work-life balance		29
Working on ‘leading edge’ projects					33	41
Source: Employee survey

Remuneration package did not rate in the top five attraction attributes APS-wide (it ranked sixth), although it did rate in the top five attributes for mature-aged workers and employees working in service delivery jobs. This is somewhat surprising, as the literature suggests that remuneration is a relatively more important attraction attribute. Remuneration was particularly unlikely to be rated as important by employees under 25 years of age (an age group that would include most recent graduates) who ranked it tenth. Gaining experience in the APS was much more important to this age group.

Results on the importance of remuneration as an attraction attribute need to be treated with some caution. It may be that different results for the importance of remuneration as an attraction attribute would be obtained if we asked potential employees/graduates (rather than current employees). Potential candidates, who may value remuneration more highly, may not even consider applying for APS jobs, given the relatively low APS remuneration levels in comparison with those in the private sector (discussed later in this chapter). It should also be noted that salary rated much higher as a job satisfaction attribute, as distinct from an attraction attribute, particularly for younger employees (see Chapters 3 and 5).

Other attraction attributes also varied by age. As age increases the desire to gain experience was less important as were future career opportunities and the agency’s reputation for good work-life balance practices. Attributes that become more important as age increases include remuneration,¹⁰ geographical location and job security. Interests matching job responsibilities remains an important attribute at all age levels. It is interesting to note that for employees under 25 years of age, attraction attributes were relatively evenly spread (with the top four attributes varying only between 46% and 49%) whereas for other groups one attraction attribute generally stood out.

The top five attraction attributes are much the same for men and women in the APS. The only difference is that remuneration was ranked fifth by men rather than desire to gain experience or greater experience in the APS, which was chosen by women.

The key attraction attributes show some variation across APS agencies. While the APS-wide top three attributes tended to rate relatively highly among most agencies, there was considerable variation in the relative importance of other attributes. APS-wide, for example, an agency’s reputation for good work-life balance practices ranked only eighth. For some agencies, however, it was a key attraction attribute for its employees, for example, for ATO employees it ranked second, while for employees at IP Australia it ranked fourth. Similarly, ability to contribute to making a difference to the lives of Australians ranked equal sixth APS-wide (along with remuneration package), but for ACC and CSA employees it ranked second and for CRS Australia employees it ranked third. These results reinforce the importance of agencies identifying and utilising their specific attraction attributes in their recruitment strategies.

Attraction attributes also varied depending on the type of work APS employees do. Having interests that match their job responsibilities, for example, was important to all employees, but was ranked the most important by employees working in policy and research. Service delivery employees and those in administrative support rated job security as being more important than other employees. Remuneration was ranked in the top five for legal employees and those in service delivery, but not for employees doing other types of work.

Employees were asked for their ideas on how their agency or the APS could become more attractive to potential applicants. Of the minority of employees who provided comments, remuneration was the issue that attracted the most comments. Other recurring themes included improving workplace culture, improving managers’ people skills, streamlining recruitment processes and promoting the benefits of the APS and the interesting work of agencies.

8 B. Hatch, ‘The Graduates’, AFR Boss Magazine, November 2007, p. 62.

9 Corporate Leadership Council 2006, Attracting and Retaining Critical Talent Segments: Building a Competitive Employment Value Proposition, CLC, Washington, D.C., <http://www.clc.executiveboard.com>

10 The finding that remuneration becomes more important as an attraction attribute as employees get older contrasts with the pattern for salary as a job satisfaction attribute (see Chapters 3 and 5).