Leadership, management and communication

Key chapter findings

The results in this chapter suggest that there are a number of positive developments in the APS in the area of leadership and management.

The management of performance, an area which the APS has historically found difficult, shows signs of real improvement. Agencies are actively supporting managers to implement performance management systems and most have measures in place to ensure that line managers are accountable for implementing their agency’s performance management system.

The large majority of employees are receiving individual formal performance feedback and an increasing proportion of these employees believe these performance discussions will help them improve their performance. Employees’ perceptions of performance pay systems have also continued to improve, although there is still room for improvement in particular areas. The increasing effectiveness of performance management appears to have had positive results in helping employees to have a very strong understanding of their role and its connection to organisational strategy and objectives.

There have been some positive developments this year in employees’ ratings of their supervisor against most of the elements of the SELC framework. The improvement in the shapes strategic thinking cluster is particularly pleasing in light of the strong agency focus on this issue.

There have also been slight improvements in employees’ perceptions of senior leaders, although they continue to be lower than the very positive results for employees’ immediate managers. These lower results may reflect the greater distance between employees and their senior managers, and on a number of questions the low levels of satisfaction reflect a high neutral response, rather than a highly dissatisfied response. The particularly low results for satisfaction with communication between senior leaders and other employees, however, suggests that this is an area that agencies could focus on to improve overall satisfaction with senior managers.

These lower results, especially in the area of communication, may also be a symptom of a larger issue and reflect the increasing demands that are being placed on senior APS managers. These days our leaders are expected to know all the technical details and spend a lot of time personally advising Ministers; however, the trade-off is they can sometimes have less time to dedicate to managing and actively engaging their employees. This tension exists across the APS and is one that needs to be recognised and addressed—ideally by reducing the reliance placed on the technical knowledge of senior managers and shifting some of this technical responsibility to middle managers.

We need to be realistic about what is the most effective way for senior leaders to communicate with other employees. In smaller agencies, senior leaders may have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with most of their employees, whereas this may not be the case in larger organisations or where employees are located across the country. Senior leaders may also benefit from examining ways to better leverage ICT, such as online discussions to assist them improve their communication with other employees. The challenge is to work out what is practical and feasible, and to find the right mix of approaches to ensure that employees are receiving key messages from senior leaders and also feel that their voice is being heard.

The SES themselves have very positive views about leadership in their agency, and these results compare favourably with those in the UK. The views of EL 2s are more of a concern, particularly their low levels of agreement that they are actively engaged in the leadership of their agency. Analysis of the EL 2 group shows that the composition and experience of EL 2s varies greatly between agencies. This is not surprising given the different environments in which agencies operate. Nevertheless, across the APS, EL 2s are reaching this level faster than in the past and are increasingly likely to have worked in only one agency. There are also a growing number of EL 2 employees engaged directly from outside the APS.

The need for strong investment in capability development for the EL 2 group is reinforced by the fact that more than half of agencies identified at least one skills gap in their SES feeder group, particularly in the areas of people management, strategic capability, change management and communication.

Each agency will need to adopt the right mix of strategies to develop and support their EL 2 group. Nevertheless, the results suggest that there is significant potential to involve EL 2s more actively in the leadership of their agency, and to increase their sense of being part of the leadership group. This is particularly important given the role that EL 2s play as the conduit for translating and reinforcing messages from senior leadership to more junior employees. There is also significant potential for EL 2s to initiate for themselves a greater stake in agency direction setting, leadership and active staff management.

There has been a strong focus on leadership development within agencies and across the APS, with almost half of agencies having developed their own agency-specific leadership development programmes. There are, however, a number of other leadership and management issues that could benefit from a greater focus. Most agencies, for example, have put a strong informal focus on identifying future leaders, but there is potential for more formal approaches, including more strategic approaches to succession planning and talent management. There are continuing concerns by employees about how their agency and their immediate manager handles underperformance. Workplace consultation is also an area where employees have relatively low rates of satisfaction, both compared to other issues, and compared to employees in some other jurisdictions. The strong relationship between consultation and satisfaction with employee engagement factors suggests that this is an area where agencies could benefit from a greater focus. It may also help in improving the visibility of senior managers.

The employee survey results show that there are some particular issues with the satisfaction of specific groups of employees, with employees working in regulatory roles generally reporting lower levels of satisfaction in leadership, management and communications, while employees working outside the ACT report lower levels of satisfaction with leadership and consultation. These lower levels of satisfaction will be of more relevance to some agencies than to others, but they do emphasise the importance of agencies regularly assessing their own employees’ satisfaction with leadership and management issues.

Strong and effective leadership is integral to building a high-performing APS that can meet the challenges that arise as agencies adopt new ways of working to address emerging policy issues and skills shortages. APS leaders are some of the most talented in the country—they have successfully guided the APS through some very demanding reform agendas and are responding well to the new challenges that are emerging. We also need to recognise that every APS employee can contribute to the effective leadership of their agency and the APS.

All employees need to focus on developing their capabilities and their levels of understanding so that they can appreciate how their work fits into the bigger picture and how they can make a real contribution to achieving outcomes for their agency and the APS as a whole.