OUR PEOPLE CHAPTER SIX OUR PEOPLE

OUR PEOPLE

CHAPTER SIX

OUR PEOPLE

GOAL

TOP-LEVEL RESULT

HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2003–04:

• 
  implementing the Centrelink Development Agreement 2003–05 (page 158)
  
• 
  establishing and continuing programs to enhance leadership capabilities (page 185)
  
• 
  streamlining recruitment arrangements (page 166)
  
• 
  continuing strong focus on workplace health (page 173)
  
• 
  continuing investment in learning (page 169)
  
• 
  maintaining the recognition of diversity (page 160)
  

DESCRIPTION

Centrelink’s aim is to meet the challenges of current and future business by supporting our people with knowledge, skills, tools and opportunities.

The top level Key Performance Indicator for this goal is the satisfaction of Centrelink staff with their work. Our target for 2003–04 was a satisfaction level of 70 per cent, which is measured by staff polls. (Centrelink’s staff poll is conducted twice yearly and is available to all staff. Participation in this poll remains high with around 70 per cent of all Centrelink people regularly taking part.) Staff poll results show a satisfaction level of 67 per cent.

Sicore International advises that the external benchmark mean and median results for satisfaction polling are 69 per cent. They also advise that trend variations in the order of five per cent are not statistically significant. With this in mind, the overall result is encouraging as it continues to track very close to industry average. It is within an acceptable statistical variation and at the same time, 88 per cent of staff poll participants intend to be still working for Centrelink for the next 18 months. Some staff pointed to issues like the extent of change in Centrelink’s business—this will continue to be a challenging part of Centrelink’s ongoing and future service delivery.

One of the eight key areas that customers want Centrelink to focus on to improve the customer experience is the area of our staff capability—particularly attitude and knowledge. The promptness and consistency of our service is also important to our customers. The strategies in this chapter seek to respond to these areas of customer concern and to ensure that Centrelink staffs have the capability to meet our customers’ needs now and into the future.

KEY STRATEGIES

• 
  add value to business (page 158)
  
• 
  ensure Centrelink has a skilled workforce (page 166)
  
• 
  create a rewarding, safe and healthy work environment (page 173)
  
• 
  enhance leadership capabilities and succession planning (page 185)
  
• 
  provide the tools, knowledge and business intelligence needed to work effectively(page 188)
  

Our people

Centrelink’s Future Directions 2003–2006 identifies five key strategies that underpin our aim to meet the challenges of current and future business by supporting our people with knowledge, skills, tools and opportunities.

The National People Plan provides the context for addressing these priorities across the organisation.

The plan’s six areas of focus align with and support Centrelink’s Future Directions. The six areas are:

• 
  adding value to business decisions
  
• 
  ensuring strong leadership through leaders leading and managers managing
  
• 
  ensuring Centrelink has a skilled workforce
  
• 
  committing to safety, health and wellbeing
  
• 
  focusing on learning as a business investment
  
• 
  fostering a culture committed to values, outcomes and innovation.
  

ADD VALUE TO BUSINESS

A number of changes are underway or planned that will provide an expanded range of options to Centrelink’s customers and the community, better returns to Government, and that will, in turn, ensure Centrelink’s future and assist in providing job security and better jobs for its employees. One response is to improve workforce planning so that new capabilities are developed to ensure retention of the high quality, diverse workforce needed now and in the future.

Implementation of the CDA and improving workforce planning arrangements are two aspects that have received significant attention over the reporting year.

Centrelink Development Agreement

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission Certified the agreement on 7 May 2003. It is a two and a half year, comprehensive agreement that provides a framework to support Centrelink’s future directions. The agreement contains employment conditions for Centrelink employees and operates in conjunction with other employment related legislation.

This agreement focuses on achieving business productivities in return for improved conditions, with quality customer service, better jobs, and increased job security as key objectives. Four major initiatives, listed below, have been introduced and implementation of other elements of the agreement is also well under way.

Expanded service delivery hours

Customer Service Team Leaders

The agreement recognises the importance and influence of Customer Service Team Leaders who directly supervise around 18 000 Customer Service Officers in Customer Service Centres (CSCs), Call Centres and Compliance Units.

The agreement aims to ‘more clearly define for Customer Service Team Leaders their role in terms of leadership in the management of people, business and strategic change’. To achieve this, Centrelink is developing and extending the capability of Customer Service Team Leaders to ensure high quality Centrelink business outcomes. (See page 186 for more information on CSTL initiatives under ‘Support and development for Customer Service Team Leaders’.)

Senior Practitioners

In another agreement initiative, the new Senior Practitioners role is to support team leaders in ensuring the delivery of quality customer service. After extensive trials and consultation, Senior Practitioners were working throughout the customer service network by June 2004. (See page 47 for more information about Senior Practitioners.)

Accredited learning

The agreement reaffirms Centrelink’s commitment to developing its employees and promotes nationally accredited learning opportunities. It also includes new learning pay points awarded to employees who successfully complete approved accredited learning programs and satisfy work performance standards.

The year included an examination of Centrelink’s capability to expand accredited learning. The aim is to determine suitable implementation and transitional arrangements for additional links between accredited learning and pay. This will involve consultation with employees and their representatives.

Matching the workforce to business needs

Consultations undertaken in the development of Centrelink’s National People Plan consistently highlighted the need for targeted workforce planning linked to business requirements. The Australian National Audit Office strongly supports the need to ‘align workforce planning processes with business planning processes and implement these at the business and Area levels’.

Workforce planning is a strategic component of the National People Plan and the links between workforce planning and other key human resources strategies are closely monitored. Some of the issues included in the strategies are leadership and succession, recruitment, performance management, learning, work and family, and career pathways.

Over the past year, workforce planning was formalised to give Centrelink leaders a better understanding of the current workforce make-up; the environment in which it works and will work in future; and the necessary skills and capabilities that will be required to achieve business outcomes in an ever-changing environment.

As part of the business planning process for 2004–05, a workforce planning framework and methodology were developed and released in December 2003. By December 2004, workforce planning will be fully integrated with Centrelink’s business planning regime.

Centrelink’s workforce planning framework and methodology provides the strategy and tools to develop a clear picture of its current and future workforce needs. For managers and business planners, a toolkit and information series helps to identify workforce capacity and capability. The series is also designed to put strategies into action and position Centrelink for future success.

A culture committed to values, outcomes and innovation

Extensive research shows a strong relationship between an organisation’s culture and its workforce performance. In Centrelink, this understanding extends to ensuring that its organisational culture is built on the respect its people have for one another, and that innovation and creativity are encouraged so that Centrelink excels in service delivery and customer focus.

In 2003–04, Centrelink engaged Human Synergistic to conduct a pilot cultural mapping exercise in a number of Centrelink sites. Centrelink is now assessing how it can further use cultural mapping techniques to identify the intangible factors that drive corporate performance, and to develop strategies for improvement.

Centrelink values the views of its staff and facilitates this through a six-monthly staff survey. The process is simple and all staff can participate. The eleventh staff poll was conducted in May 2004.

This section highlights staff poll results and activities that take account of the diversity of Centrelink people.

Young Professionals Development Program

The objective of the Young Professionals Development Program is to give Centrelink’s younger staff—aged 30 years and under—the chance to take part in development opportunities and to ensure they have their opinions and ideas heard. The program is also designed to improve recruitment and retention, and includes:

• 
  National Youth Inbound Program, which runs in Canberra during Youth Week and fundamentally aims to find and support Centrelink leaders of the future from among Centrelink’s younger staff. During this residential week, senior Centrelink managers and experts deliver presentations. The participants complete projects that they, in turn, present to a Centrelink panel at the week’s end.
  
• 
  Area Youth Inbound Program is based on the model of the Youth Inbound Program. It provides opportunities at an Area level for CSC and Call Centre staff—aged 30 years and under—to work on strategic projects. During 2003–04, Area Youth Inbound programs were held in Sydney, Queensland, South West New South Wales and Pacific Central.
  
• 
  Centrelink International Exchange Program gives six young staff the opportunity to participate in an international workplace exchange program for up to six months in a variety of countries. Work placements are in project management, community development and information technology. Centrelink also hosts six placements for young professionals from overseas for six months.
  
• 
  Youth Link provides young Centrelink staff with learning and development opportunities, by participating in corporate projects and developing networks with other young staff and senior managers around Australia. This group also contributes to the Institute of Public Administration Australia Young Professionals Network, which involves government and non-government agencies.
  
• 
  YouthLink Virtual Project offers YouthLink representatives from nine Areas the chance to complete a joint ‘virtual project’ sponsored by a business area within National Support Office. Projects take eight weeks to complete within a virtual environment. The group communicates via teleconferences, email and fax, then comes to Canberra for two days to write up the project report and present it to an Executive panel.
  

YOUTHLINK—DEVELOPING NEW LEADERS

Geelong Call Customer Service Officer, Sheridan Bailey, was selected to participate in a ‘virtual’ Youthlink project, where she measured, evaluated and made recommendations about how to effectively communicate key messages about Centrelink’s IT Refresh Program.

Talking about the project, Sheridan said: ‘It was a challenging yet fulfilling experience.It made me aware of different resources available and introduced me to many new areas of Centrelink’.

Belinda Brooks, a Geelong Call Team Leader also developed a Youthlink project, designed to improve the use, functionality and performance of the National Feedback Tool. The Tool is used to improve customer service by providing a means of immediate and constructive feedback between service delivery outlets.

Institute of Public Administration Australia Young Professionals Network

Centrelink is an enthusiastic and major supporter of the Institute of Public Administration Australia Young Professionals Network. The network supports events and activities of interest to people in the public and private sector who are in the early to mid-stages of their careers. The network is a forum for young professionals to exchange ideas on trends, practices and innovations in the public sector. As well, it helps to identify areas that will affect the professional and personal development of tomorrow’s public sector leaders.

Outbound Program

The Outbound Program takes Centrelink employees from National Support Office into Area Support Offices, CSCs and Call Centres. The program aims to help participants better understand and appreciate the work and the services delivered by front line employees.

Client agencies and other government and non-government stakeholders participate in the Outbound Program, including:

• 
  Noah’s Ark Outbound—under this program, Centrelink Officers and staff from client departments and agencies spend time in the Network developing a shared understanding of Centrelink’s business on the ‘front line’. Participants include staff from Centrelink; the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS); the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations; the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council; the Australian Association of the Deaf; the Department of Education, Science and Training; the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR); the Department of Finance and Administration; the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet; and ACROD Limited (the national industry association for disability services). The aim of the program is to strengthen relationships, and to build mutual appreciation of each others’ businesses.
  
• 
  Partnership Program—builds partnership relationships between DEWR, Centrelink and the Job Network by establishing productive working relationships through communication, cooperation and commitment.
  
• 
  Statebound—which is run in capital cities for staff from Centrelink, FaCS and other state/territory government and non-government agencies.
  
• 
  Auditbound—which includes Centrelink and the Australian National Audit Office.
  

Employees from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds

Centrelink facilitates a National Cultural Diversity Forum, which includes representatives from each state and territory and from FaCS. Meeting each month by phone, the forum assists Centrelink to create innovative and rewarding workplaces for employees from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Forum members help to identify, develop and promote strategies and best practice in raising awareness, and recognising, valuing and celebrating cultural diversity within Centrelink.

disAbility Coalition

Centrelink’s disability Coalition is now 12 months old. The coalition promotes a culture of excellence, equitable inclusion and productivity for Centrelink employees with disabilities.

These aspirations are in line with Centrelink’s Future Directions 2003–2006.

The role of the disAbility Coalition is to:

• 
  promote leadership and management approaches that provide opportunities and support for career progression and development of employees with disabilities
  
• 
  advise relevant areas of systemic and generic barriers experienced by Centrelink employees with disabilities, recommending action to address the barriers
  
• 
  encourage and support employees with disabilities to articulate their needs and to negotiate appropriate resources to maximise productivity.
  

During 2003–04, the disAbility Coalition focused on two priority action areas—improving technology and creating an environment that supports employees with disabilities.

Human Resources Disability Adviser

To take a more proactive and innovative approach to human resource management, in 2003–04 Area North Central Victoria established a designated Human Resources Disability Adviser position.

The adviser’s role is to explore current Centrelink policies, practices and programs that relate to the needs of staff with disabilities. As well, the adviser’s job is to raise awareness about the value of supporting people with disabilities in the workplace.

Appointing the adviser at the Area level is a first for Centrelink and Area North Central has been nominated for an Australian Public Service Workplace Diversity award for this initiative.

Activities with external organisations

In partnership with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government, the disability Coalition is developing best practice guidelines to ensure that people with disabilities are getting the best possible services as employees and service users.

The Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales has invited Centrelink to help evaluate the Commonwealth Disability Strategy.

As well, business partnerships that relate to employing people with disabilities have been set up with FaCS and the Department of Defence.

Staff poll

Every six months Centrelink conducts a staff poll that provides the organisation with feedback on employee commitment and satisfaction and on the effectiveness of its people strategies.

In November 2003 and May 2004, online polls were conducted with around 70 per cent of Centrelink employees taking part.

The May 2004 poll included four sets of supplementary questions for Indigenous employees, employees with disabilities, employees from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and those with caring responsibilities.

Since June 2001, the number of staff participating in the polls has increased by 20 per cent, with a small improvement in the proportion of positive responses (that is, average figure across all unchanged questions).

The May 2004 poll saw a slight increase from 67 per cent to 68 per cent positive responses across all questions.

As with previous polls, Centrelink employees are most positive about understanding Centrelink’s purpose and how it applies to their work (89 per cent), and knowing what is expected of them at work (87 per cent). Table 32 shows the proportion of positive responses for the 2003–04 polls, compared with external industry benchmarks (using median positive responses).

TABLE 32: STAFF POLL OUTCOMES NOVEMBER 2003 AND MAY 2004 COMPARED WITH EXTERNAL BENCHMARKS

Question	May 2004	Nov 2003	External benchmark(a)
Your team leader provides good leadership	70%	70%	63%
You are proud to work for Centrelink	54%	54%	70%
Your work gives you a sense of satisfaction	67%	67%	69%
You would recommend Centrelink to others as a place to work	54%	55%	66%
You plan to continue working in Centrelink for the next 18 months	88%	89%	n/a
Your team values you	72%	71%	n/a
Centrelink is committed to you	37%	35%	41%
At work, you have opportunities to learn and develop yourself	63%	63%	54%
You receive regular feedback about your work	60%	59%	44%
You know what is expected of you at work	87%	85%	77%
You receive recognition and praise for good work	55%	55%	46%
You have the material and equipment you need to do your work correctly	75%	75%	58%
You are appropriately informed of policy/ procedural changes that affect your customers	69%	66%	48%
You have the information resources to do your work effectively	73%	73%	65%
You understand how your work contributes to meeting the objectives in your local Business Improvement Plan	77%	76%	81%
You understand Centrelink’s purpose and how it applies to your work	89%	87%	60%
Centrelink is sensitive to the demands of your personal/family life	64%	63%	54%
Average positive response	68%	67%	n/a

(a) This is the median of positive responses from SICORE Pty Ltd industry benchmark data

Table 32 shows that Centrelink is above the external benchmark median score for most of the poll questions. Centrelink is also above the best practice score of 70 per cent for the question ‘You understand Centrelink’s purpose and how it applies to your work’.

Staff poll data is available at the national, Area and local level. All managers are encouraged to assess their local results and implement appropriate people strategies in response to employees’ concerns.

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