Right place—Creating an agile and mobile workforce

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• Introduction
• Key findings
• ICT career structure
• Attraction
  • Top three attractors for employees
  • Most important attributes in attracting ICT and APS employees to their current roles
• Retention
  • Attributes/benefits influencing employees to stay in the APS
  • Factors influencing employees to leave the APS
  • The five most important factors that impact job satisfaction
  • Opportunity to progress career goals in agency/APS
  • Most likely career plan for next three years
  • Attraction and retention measures
• Recruitment of new ICT employees
  • Programs to recruit new ICT entrants in 2008–09
  • Level of success an agency has had with programs in recruiting ICT employees

Tables and figures

• Table 1: Top three attractors by classification
• Figure 1: Critical attraction attributes
• Figure 2: Critical attraction attributes matched to job roles
• Figure 3: Extent to which expectations were met (ICT employees only)
• Figure 4: Attributes/benefits influencing employees to stay in the APS
• Figure 5: Factors influencing employees to leave the APS
• Figure 6: Five most important job satisfaction factors
• Figure 7: Opportunity to progress career goals in agency/APS
• Figure 8: Most likely career plan for next three years
• Figure 9: Measures used to attract and retain ICT employees
• Figure 10: Effectiveness of retention measures
• Figure 11: Programs used to recruit new ICT employees in 2008-09
• Figure 12: Level of agency success with ICT programs

Introduction

The Australian Public Service (APS) will need to adopt a range of strategies to ensure it attracts and retains people with the right ICT skills, in the right place, at the right time.

Key findings

• To maximise the retention of ICT employees, APS agencies needs to continue to focus on the two top attraction factors identified in the 2009 APS employee survey of APS ICT staff —i.e. the individual’s interests/experience match the responsibilities of the job/agency and the technical challenge/complexity of the work.
• Other key retention factors are improving opportunities for career progression and increasing levels of job satisfaction through using and developing employee skills and capabilities, and having good management practices in place.
• The APS needs to develop new ways of sharing scarce ICT resources within and across agencies—such as creating cross-agency hubs in locations where there is a supply of qualified ICT labour.
• The APS should adopt a common APS brand/identity for attracting and retaining its ICT workforce.

ICT career structure

To address the key findings, the Australian Public Service Commission, in partnership with the Department of Finance and Deregulation (represented by the Australian Government Information Management Office) have developed a suite of tools.

The ICT career structure provides the APS and individual APS agencies with two powerful tools:

• the whole‑of‑government ICT capability framework—The framework represents an anchor point for people management processes within agencies and for the career planning of ICT professionals.
• the ICT career navigator online tool— which defines and classifies ICT job roles and the capabilities necessary to perform these roles in a single APS‑wide capability framework.

The capability framework is a two level structure that identifies 19 ICT occupational groupings (contribution profiles) in six contribution domains.

The ICT career structure is built upon an internationally recognised ICT capability model—the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).  SFIA is used worldwide across all ICT industry sectors to define and categorise ICT skills.

The use of a recognised ICT capability model ensures a consistent approach to recruitment, development, education and the assessment of employees skills—across the APS.

The ICT career structure will maintain a consistent approach to ICT professional development in the APS by linking the existing leadership capabilities of the Integrated Leadership System with the ICT technical capabilities of the ICT career framework. This will assist individual APS employees to plan their APS ICT careers by providing guidance on the capabilities and performance requirements at each classification level.

The career navigator online tool allows agencies and employees to access the ICT capability framework in a way that allows them to:

• create contribution profiles;
• perform self assessments;
• compare the skills required for their current role with another role to identify transition points; and
• view learning and development opportunities for both APS and ICT capabilities.

Attraction

Top three attractors for employees

The 2009 APS employee survey found that interests/experience matching the job/agency was one of the top three attractors for all ICT APS classifications. However, there was some variation in attraction factors between classification levels:

• for APS1–6 level employees—job security was one of the top three attractors;
• for APS5–6 and EL employees—technical challenge/complexity of work was one of the top three attractors; and
• for SES and EL employees—making a difference was one of the top three attractors.

Table 1—Top three attractors by classification

Attractor	APS 1–4	APS 5–6	EL	SES
Source: ICT Workforce Capability and Assessment, Report of Employee Survey Findings, Orima Research, November 2009
Interests/experience matches job/agency	56%	61%	67%	82%
Job security	56%	49%
Desire to gain experience in different environment	47%
Technical challenge/ complexity of work		48%	47%
Making a difference			43%	74%
Working on ‘leading edge’ projects				46%

Most important attributes in attracting ICT and APS employees to their current roles

According to the 2009 employee survey, the key attributes that attract ICT employees differ to those of APS employees overall and include:

• interests/experience matching job role/agency—63 per cent
• technical challenge/complexity of work—47 per cent
• job security—44 per cent
• ability to make a difference—37 per cent, and
• desire to gain experience in a different working environment—35 per cent.

A further 27.8 per cent identified geographical location as an important attraction factor, with 92.2% of these indicating that this was significant factor.

There was some variation between job roles and the attributes APS employees selected for attracting them to the job. Development and programming, networks and telecommunications, and infrastructure and facilities were the only job roles to select My interests and/or experience match the responsibilities of my job and/or the business of the organisation as their second most important attribute, with the first being Technical challenge/complexity of work.

The opportunity to work on innovative or 'leading edge' projects was an important factor for strategic leadership, program/project management, and training and development roles.

There was some variation in how well APS employees’ expectations had been met for each of the attractors. The attractors where APS employees were most likely to agree that their expectations had been met were:

• job location;
• opportunity to work with particular people;
• technical challenge/complexity of work; and
• interests/experience match the responsibilities of job/agency.

The attractors where APS employees were least likely to agree that their expectations had been met were:

• future career opportunities in the organisation;
• developmental/educational opportunities provided; and
• remuneration package.

Nine out of ten APS employees who selected the top two attraction factors (interests/experience match the responsibilities of job/agency and technical challenge/complexity of work) agreed that their expectations had been met.  

This suggests that APS agencies need to continue to focus on these areas to maximise their retention of ICT employees.  Improving opportunities for career progression was also a factor identified as crucial to increasing the retention of APS ICT employees.

Retention

According to Life Work Solutions:

• Over 50% of the people recruited into an organisation will leave within two years.
• One in four people recruited will leave within six months.
• Nearly 70% of organisations report that staff turnover has a negative impact.
• Nearly 70% of organisations report having difficulties in replacing staff.
• Approximately 50% of organisations experience regular problems with employee retention. [1]

A 2004 Mercer Human Consulting Survey estimated the total cost of staff turnover was 50% to 150% of an individual's annual salary.[2]

So what are the key retention factors identified by APS employees?

The 2009 APS employee survey found that APS employees were more positive about a range of statements about employee engagement with the APS than they were with their agency.  Eight out of 10 employees would recommend the APS as a good place to work and just over seven in 10 are proud to tell others that they work for the APS.  Six out of 10 employees agreed that the APS provides development opportunities for an ICT career.

Most employees recruited from a non-APS employer consider the APS a better employer than their previous non-APS employer.

These responses highlight the importance of a common APS brand/identity for attracting and retaining the APS ICT workforce.

Attributes/benefits influencing employees to stay in the APS

The most common reasons employees gave for remaining in the APS in the next three years were: job security—51 per cent; flexible working arrangements—47 per cent; and interests/experience matching the job—44 per cent.

As was the case for the key attractors, employees at higher classification levels tended to be motivated to stay due to intrinsic factors (e.g. opportunity to work on leading edge projects and ability to contribute to making a difference).

Factors influencing employees to leave the APS

Conversely the most common reasons employees cited for leaving the APS were lack of future career opportunities in their agency (34 per cent)—more likely to be cited by employees in small agencies—or better remuneration (32 per cent)—more likely to be cited by SES than other employees.

Of the top four factors influencing employees to leave the APS:

• the most commonly selected factor can be described as a ‘push’ factor, i.e. a negative aspect of the APS; and
• three factors can be described as ‘pull’ factors, i.e. aspects of the new workplace that attracted employees.

The five most important factors that impact job satisfaction

According to the 2009 APS employee survey, two-thirds of ICT employees are satisfied with their current job, while almost one in five employees are dissatisfied. The 2009 Australian Public Service Commission State of the Service Report found that job satisfaction for all APS staff had remained stable across the last three years at around 80 per cent.[3]

There was little variation in overall job satisfaction levels between employees at different classification levels, and only some variation between employees in different job roles.  

• Employees working in training and development and networks and telecommunications roles recorded the highest levels of satisfaction (over 85 per cent each).
• Employees in web and multi media content development, quality assurance and information/knowledge management roles were most likely to be dissatisfied with their current role (around 20 per cent each).

The four most common factors important to job satisfaction were found to be:

• good working relationships—43% per cent;
• opportunities to utilise my skills and capabilities—39 per cent;
• good manager—35 per cent; and
• opportunities to develop skills and capabilities—34 per cent.

There was some variation in the most important job satisfaction factors between classification levels, although good working relationships was in the top three factors for employees at all classification levels (except the SES).

Increasing levels of job satisfaction has been identified as one way to enhance the retention of APS ICT employees, particularly in the areas of the chance to use and develop skills and capabilities and good management.

Opportunity to progress career goals in agency/APS

Employees were more likely to agree that they have the opportunity to progress their career goals in the APS than in their agency.

• Around two‑thirds of employees agreed that they have the opportunity to progress their career goals in the APS, compared to just over half of employees who agreed that they could do so in their agency.
• Almost one-quarter of employees disagreed that they could progress their career goals in their agency.

Employees from larger APS agencies were more likely to be positive about opportunities to progress career goals within their agency than those in small APS agencies—52 per cent of employees in large APS agencies compared to 40 per cent in small APS agencies. Similar results were evident for employees working in training and development and business process analysis/design and testing roles. Higher levels of disagreement were recorded by APS employees working in web and multi media content development, security and information/knowledge management roles.

ASP employees working in procurement and vendor relations and service management roles were most positive about their opportunity to progress their career goals in APS. Higher levels of disagreement were recorded by employees working in systems integration and deployment, web and multi media content development, and quality assurance roles.

APS employees who disagreed provided a range of reasons for their views, which can be grouped into five main areas (in descending order):

• limited positions at higher levels, limited career pathways and opportunities;
• a lack of support from management, no training and development opportunities and a lack of funding;
• there is no technical specialist stream and you have to become a people manager to progress;
• politics, discrimination, injustice, favouritism, and flawed or unfair recruitment processes; and
• is satisfied in current role and have no interest in progressing further, or plans to leave the APS or retire.

Most likely career plan for next three years

Over half of APS ICT employees (55 per cent) indicated that they intend to continue to work in an ICT role within their current agency for the next three years.  Other APS employee responses included:

• intend to leave their agency for another public sector organisation in an ICT role (11 per cent);
• didn’t know (9 per cent); or
• intended to work in a different area of their agency, but not in an ICT role (7 per cent).

Employees working in large APS agencies were more likely to indicate that they would continue to work with their current agency in an ICT role, whereas employees in small APS agencies were more likely to indicate that they intended to work in another APS agency in an ICT role.

Attraction and retention measures

The most common measures used in the 2009 APS survey were: higher base salary (49 per cent of agencies) and performance-related bonuses (37 per cent), with 34 per cent of agencies stating they use development opportunities such as study awards, fellowships and secondments as their chosen attraction and retention measures.

The higher base salary was the most effective measure used, with 64 per cent of agencies who used it reporting that it was successful.

Only 38 per cent of agencies who used performance-related bonuses reported that they were effective.

Privately plated vehicles and car parking spaces, while only used by relatively few agencies, had quite low rates of success.

Recruitment of new ICT employees

The APS will not always be able to meet its existing or emerging ICT capability requirements by developing existing APS ICT employees—either because of the number of staff required or the type of skill needed.

To date, agencies have trialed a number of approaches to recruit new employees including apprenticeships, school-to-work transition and trainee programs, and cadetships to help fill the gaps.

Programs to recruit new ICT entrants in 2008–09

Large agencies were the most common users of the programs mentioned above, with half using apprenticeship programs, and 38% using cadetships and/or e-graduate programs.

Just over 23 per cent of ICT employees indicated that they were recruited into the APS as part of an ICT graduate or apprenticeship program. The remainder had not been recruited into the APS using these programs.

Employees working in large agencies were more likely to be recruited through these programs and they were more likely to agree that their program had helped their ICT career progression.

Of the 23% of ICT employees who had been recruited into the APS through an ICT graduate or apprenticeship program, 54 per cent thought that participation in such a program had assisted their ICT career progression. Twenty-three per percent each of ICT employees were just as likely to be unsure or not believe that participating in such programs had helped their ICT career progression.

Employees who were recruited into the APS through an ICT graduate or apprenticeship program were asked to describe how these programs have impacted on their ICT career progression. Employees provided a range of reasons, which can be grouped into five main areas (in descending order). The programs:

• assisted the development of industry skills, knowledge and confidence;
• provided a foundation for long-term career development;
• helped develop insight about agency and government structures, work culture and work roles;
• allowed opportunities for, and accelerated career development; and
• helped identify career interests and shape their career path.

Level of success an agency has had with programs in recruiting ICT employees

While only a small proportion of agencies had used the school-to-work transition program, all of those that did found it to be very successful. Apprenticeship and trainee programs had more moderate success.