Management of Human Resources

Table of Contents

Management of Human Resources
Workforce planning, staff turnover and retention
Managing people
Developing people
Rewarding people
Managing a diverse workforce
Healthy people

Management of Human Resources

The department is committed to being a good employer. It competes effectively to attract and retain talented and skilled people, and continues to aim to help all its employees reach their full potential.

The department’s diverse workforce is a major factor guiding its approach to people management. The department employs staff in a wide variety of locations and classifications, including policy and program, quarantine, meat inspection, veterinarians, economic and science specialists. The needs of these staffing categories, and the challenges this diversity offers, influence and shape the department’s people management policies and practices.

The People and Strategies Policy Committee drives the organisational approach to people management issues. The Committee, chaired by the Executive Director of BRS and comprising all executive managers and executive directors, provides a strategic focus for people management issues. The Committee in turn provides advice and recommendations for action on strategic issues to the Secretary and the Executive Management Team. Individual departmental businesses retain responsibility for addressing their own business needs within the corporate framework.

Workforce planning, staff turnover and retention

The department increased staffing during 2002-03, although at a lower rate than in 2001-02. The increase again reflected needs in government priority areas of border protection and quarantine. At the same time, the turnover rate in the department was lower than average Australian Public Service (APS) turnover rates.

Individual businesses within the department continue to factor workforce planning issues into their business planning processes. At the organisational level the development of a departmental strategic workforce planning framework has been identified as a priority for 2003-04. The framework will focus on a more integrated approach to ensure alignment with other people management initiatives, and better use of demographic information to help identify current and future capability requirements and separation issues. It will incorporate a new learning and development strategy, new initiatives arising from the Certified Agreement process and process improvements resulting from a review of the department’s performance management scheme. It will also take account of recent APS-wide studies on organisational renewal issues.

Apart from operational recruitment within AQIS, the department continues to invest heavily in graduate recruitment. Thirty-six graduates were recruited in January 2003. To ensure that the program maintains its focus and effectiveness, a comprehensive review of the department’s graduate recruitment policy and processes will be undertaken in 2003-04.

Managing people

Effective performance management remains a key departmental priority and provides a common framework for people management. The performance management scheme aims to align organisational, business and individual planning and seeks to provide staff with a greater understanding of the department’s business priorities. Annual work plans and learning agreements inherent in the performance management framework address APS and departmental values, as well as organisational and business objectives.

To ensure continued effectiveness, a major independent review of the department’s performance management scheme was carried out in 2002. Ten key recommendations arose from the review that identified short, medium and long-term actions to maintain the integrity and increase the organisational impact of the scheme. Recommendations included the introduction of quality assurance processes, clarification of the primary purpose of performance management within the department and the provision of options to better manage learning and development issues arising from the performance management process. Businesses are now required to report quarterly on progress with implementation of these recommendations.

As part of the review, the department’s performance management guidelines were systematically reviewed. A detailed guide on best practice in dealing with underperformance issues is being developed and will be implemented in 2003-04.

Developing people

The performance management scheme also underpins the department’s approach to the learning and development of its staff. It requires all managers and staff to identify learning and development needs as part of their performance agreements. The aim of this process is to ensure that such needs are identified in the context of the capabilities required for people to perform their jobs effectively.

At the organisational level, all businesses participated in a major learning and development needs analysis project during 2002-03. The project sought to identify key corporate learning priorities for people development across the department and is expected to form the basis for a new learning and development framework to be implemented progressively throughout 2003-04.

A significant outcome of the exercise has been agreement on a new departmental leadership program. The department advertised nationally in January 2003 a request for tender for the design, pilot and delivery of the flagship program. Work on the program design began with the successful tenderer, Yellow Edge Pty Ltd, and the program will be piloted in October 2003 to ensure that it meets the department’s objectives.

The department also expects to have in place in 2003-04 a complementary matrix of learning and development programs to address identified organisational learning and development needs and to provide increased effectiveness and economies of scale in providing training.

Graduate employees recruited through the department’s annual program are required to complete a comprehensive

10-month, competency-based training and development program while undertaking a number of workplace rotations. Successful completion of the program results in the award of a Diploma of Government.

The department maintained its considerable investment in its Studybank scheme, which provides assistance to employees undertaking appropriate formal tertiary level study programs.

The department has continued to give priority to induction training and training on corporate governance issues, such as security, fraud and ethics and risk management. The department ran a successful pilot CD-Rom based training module on fraud and ethics in 2002 and expects to introduce the program in 2003-04.

AQIS continued its intensive staff training program at all locations. Generic and technical training packages were designed and delivered to address needs for new and existing staff. All such AQIS programs are nationally accredited through the ACT Accreditation Registration Council and include Certificates II and III in Quarantine (Level III has recently been converted to Certificate Level III in Government to better reflect broader APS competencies).

Rewarding people

The current certified agreement covering the majority of departmental staff reached its nominal expiry date in June 2003. Negotiations for a comprehensive replacement agreement under Section 170LJ of the Workplace Relations Act are well underway and are expected to be completed early in 2003-04

The new agreement will again be comprehensive and provide the pay and conditions framework for all staff except those employed under the AQIS Meat Program Agreement 2001-04 and Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). The AQIS Meat Program Agreement, which expires in 2004, is not comprehensive and is read in conjunction with the Australian Public Service Award 1998.

The new certified agreement is also expected to maintain important core elements, including the following:

• a performance assessment and management framework with defined performance measures
• procedures for resolving individual workplace grievances in a fair, unbiased manner
• enhanced flexible hours arrangements
• arrangements for home based work
• a continuation of the department’s specific broadbanded classification structure
• a flexible remuneration framework that provides similar flexibility to AWAs.

The department continues to use AWAs as a vital part of its remuneration framework. At 30 June 2003 the department had 223 AWAs in place comprising 65 SES and 158 non-SES agreements. The agreements provide capacity to offer increased flexibility in retaining key staff and rewarding significant performance achievement.

A total of 102 departmental employees received performance pay during 2002-03.

Managing a diverse workforce

The department embraces diversity among its workforce and its clients. The table below shows the breakdown of the workforce by diversity groups across the organisation, by employment structure and classification.

Initiatives taken during 2002-03 to maximise the benefits of this diverse workforce include the following:

• participation in the National Indigenous Cadetship Program, which is expected to see up to seven indigenous cadets recruited across departmental businesses in 2004
• continued support of employees seeking to balance work and family commitments through such mechanisms as a vacation care program, access to part-time and home-based work arrangements
• provision of cultural awareness training for AQIS staff
• formal celebrations of milestone days such as Disability Day and Harmony Day
• departmental participation in NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Week activities
• update of workplace harassment guidelines and provision of training to all workplace harassment officers.

The department continues to include mandatory selection criteria for understanding and awareness of workplace diversity issues in advertisements for all vacancies. Media advertising includes reference to the department’s commitment to diversity. Additionally, positions in AQIS’s far north region, which involve interaction with Indigenous people, have specific selection criteria relating to cultural understanding. Advertising for these positions is through local newspapers (e.g. Torres Strait News) and circulated to the Council of the Islands. Positions in the department’s Graduate Development Program are advertised nationally in Indigenous media.

The department’s Indigenous Strategy Steering Committee continues to oversee Indigenous access to departmental programs. As part of its overall strategy, the committee aims to raise staff awareness on issues relevant to Indigenous staff and to increase the number of Indigenous people employed by the department.

The department’s commitment to diversity management was recognised in the 2002 Australian Public Service Workplace Diversity Awards where it won the regional category for its development of Guidelines for reaching our clients – young people. The guidelines encourage the development of more policies and programs relevant and accessible to young people.

AQIS is introducing a new module Working effectively with diversity into its induction training program. This will form an important part of the new Certificate Level 3 in Government that will be introduced early in the 2003-04 financial year.

While the focus on workplace diversity is a strategy for generating a successful business, it is also an important consideration in the department’s interaction with the community. The department is committed to implementing the Commonwealth Disability Strategy. Progress in implementing the Strategy is outlined in Appendix 8.

Healthy people

The department continues to focus significant attention and resources on providing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for staff, contractors and visitors. The Performance through People (PtP) Plan, which provides the framework for the department’s staff management, includes occupational health and safety (OH&S) as one of its key strategic areas.

The department has a comprehensive committee structure that allows for an integrated and effective approach to OH&S issues. The committees operate within the Canberra office, AQIS regional offices and operating establishments. The committees comprise experienced and committed management and staff representatives, and provide the focus for a consultative approach in dealing with health and safety issues across the department’s many workplaces.

During 2002-03, separate committees within the department, ABARE and AQIS consolidated into one major committee for Canberra-based staff. All major departmental businesses are represented on that central committee.

Major developments and achievements during the year include:

• an audit of AQIS by Comcare that resulted in a positive assessment and placed it as ‘one of the better performing organisations within the Australian Government jurisdiction’
• a self-assessment of OH&S policies and practices undertaken in all work areas of the department’s Edmund Barton Building headquarters in Canberra, ACT. The findings are underpinning the current work program of the Canberra-based committee
• AQIS receiving a Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Workplace Safety Innovation Award
• AQIS continuing to establish project teams to address identified areas of risk across its establishments
• an OH&S Open Day held at the Edmund Barton Building to encourage healthy working lifestyles. The event included displays and demonstrations by a range of organisations in the medical, health and recreation fields
• OH&S awareness sessions continuing to be an important component of the department’s induction training, and separate training sessions on both general and specific health and safety matters were delivered across a number of departmental businesses
• formal training for appointed health and safety representatives (HSRs) across the department.

The claims frequency determined by Comcare for the department is 1.12 claims per $1 million dollars of payroll. This is a reduction from the previous year. The Workers’ Compensation premium for 2003-04, however, has increased and the department will investigate the underlying causes of the increase and implement an action plan to address those issues.

Statutory reporting outcomes, as required by Section 74 of the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1991 are outlined in Appendix 3.