Leadership, management and communication

Communication

Effective communication and consultation is an essential element in increasing employees’ levels of engagement with their work and, in turn, agency productivity and performance. Effective communication helps employees to understand clearly the relationship between the work they do and the strategic goals of their agency. Effective communication by senior leaders is particularly important in achieving this, and the employee survey results reported earlier show that this is an area of the APS where there is still considerable room for improvement.

Employees also reported mixed views about the extent to which they had been consulted at work more broadly. Less than half (42%) agreed that their agency involved them in decisions about their agency’s business, and 27% disagreed. These results are similar to last year. Agreement levels for the APS are comparable to those recorded by Canadian public servants in response to similar questions, but below the 54% recorded in the USA. Agreement levels for the SES on this issue (67%) were somewhat lower than those of UK senior civil servants (78%).²⁰

SES employees and those employees inside the ACT were more likely to record higher levels of consultation. Employees working in administrative support (53%) and policy (48%) roles were more likely to agree that their agency involves them in decisions, compared to employees working in regulatory roles (31%).

Employees were slightly more positive about whether their input is adequately sought and considered about decisions that directly affect them (as opposed to their agency’s work). Just over half of employees (54%) agreed that this was the case, compared to 21% who disagreed. This is an improvement on last year’s results and represents a return to the levels of agreement recorded in 2004–05. SES employees and those inside the ACT were more likely to agree than their colleagues.

When compared to other jurisdictions, public servants in Western Australia and Tasmania were more likely than APS employees to agree that they had input into decisions that directly affect them (68% and 60% respectively). Agreement levels for South Australian public servants (55%) were similar to those for the APS.²¹

Workplace consultation is particularly important in an environment of rapid change. Employee results suggest that there is room for improvement on this issue. Under half of employees (43%) felt that change was well-managed in their agency, with 31% disagreeing. Agreement levels for the SES (61%), however, compare very favourably with those for the UK SCS, where only 33% agreed.

The importance of encouraging effective workplace consultation is reinforced by the strong link between satisfaction with workplace consultation and satisfaction with a range of issues related to employee engagement. A large majority of employees (90%) who agreed that their agency involves them in decisions about their work were satisfied with the range of employee engagement indicators (as outlined in Chapter 3). A similar result emerged for employees who agreed that they had been consulted about decisions directly affecting them.

Some employees took the opportunity to provide comments about aspects of communication in their agency. Many of the comments related to improving communication between senior leaders and other employees and to senior executives being more open and accessible to employees at lower levels. Some employees, for example, commented:

The biggest issue is communication between senior management and staff.

Staff tend to feel disempowered by the decisions made at the top as they have no input into the process and no control over how changes affect their work.

Senior management operates, in general, remotely from most agency staff.

More regular, personal interaction would facilitate better communication and de-mystify senior level operations.

Sending out the occasional all staff email is not sufficient, staff want meaningful face to face interaction.

20 The international comparison data from surveys of public sector employees conducted in the UK, the USA and Canada is not necessarily directly comparable with the employee survey because of differences in coverage and data collection methodology. The 2006 UK survey was a census of all 4,000 senior civil servants. See, UK Cabinet Office, Survey of the Senior Civil Service 2006, <http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/reform/leadership/scssurvey.asp>; Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada 2005, Public Service of Canada: Organisational Report—Public Service Employee Survey 2005, <http://www.psagency-agencefp.gc.ca/survey-sondage/2005/results-resultats/index-e.htm>; Office of Personnel Management (USA), Federal Human Capital Survey 2006, <http://www.fhcs2006.opm.gov>

21 The jurisdictional comparison data from surveys conducted in 2005–06 and 2006–07 was provided to the Commission by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, South Australia, on behalf of the Commissioner for Public Employment (Workplace Perspectives Survey 2006); Tasmania (State Service Employee Survey 2005); and the Office of the Public Standards Commissioner, Western Australia (Climate Survey 2006–07). The South Australian survey covers all employees employed under the Public Sector Management Act 1995 and the Tasmanian survey covered all employees employed under the State Service Act 2000. The Western Australian Climate Survey involved 14 separate agencies in 2006–07. Each year 10–15 agencies are surveyed with each agency being surveyed approximately once every five years.