Home > Embedding the APS Values > Commitment

COMMITMENT

LEADERSHIP

One of the conclusions of the Values in Agencies project was that leadership is crucial to motivating employees not just to achieve particular organisational outcomes but also to do so through engagement with the APS Values. For this reason, a comprehensive understanding amongst the leadership group within each agency of the importance of the Values, and their active involvement in promoting and modelling those Values in the workplace, is critical to establishing a strong values culture.

At a statutory level, s.12 of the PS Act imposes a specific statutory obligation on agency heads to promote the APS Values in their organisations, while s.35 makes it clear that it is part of the role of the SES to promote the APS Values through personal example.

Against this backdrop, the employee survey found that the percentage of SES employees who had been told by their agency head, during the year, of the importance of acting in accordance with the APS Values remained essentially unchanged from the previous year (around 80%). The proportion of SES employees who had been told by their agency head that it was important that they develop in their staff an understanding of the Values remained at around three-quarters.

Last year’s report noted that outcomes of this magnitude were ‘encouraging results overall, which reflect a good level of appreciation of the importance of leadership in fostering a values-based culture, though there is clearly room for improvement’. Although this statement remains valid, this is an area in which a number of agencies should be more active given the agency leadership group’s ongoing role in creating and sustaining an effective values-based culture.

At the same time, it should be observed that virtually all (99%) of SES employees felt that the APS Values were at least moderately relevant to their daily work, and that 88% of them reported that the Values were highly relevant to their daily work. This was the strongest result against this indicator for any classification group, and indicates that senior managers have a high level of awareness of their responsibilities in this area.

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Commitment to the APS Values is also expressed through their integration into training and development programs that address employees’ responsibilities under the PS Act. In broad terms, responses to the agency survey suggest that there has been a small increase in the level of effort to promote the Values and Code of Conduct amongst employees during the last year. The proportion of agencies making use of online training increased from 15% in 2002—03 to 17%; the number of agencies providing awareness raising as part of induction/orientation remained relatively stable at about 97%; the proportion of agencies offering sessions on how the APS Values and Code should operate in practice increased from 55% to 60% (with a particularly strong increase among medium agencies).

Table 7.1: Agency learning and development activities on the Values and Code of Conduct

Source: Agency survey

Note: Not all response options were available in both the 2003 and 2004 agency surveys. Where results are not available, a ‘-‘ has been included.

The percentage of APS employees who reported that they had received training that included an emphasis on the APS Values during 2003—04 was 40%.¹

Employee survey responses continue to indicate a high level of variability among agencies. In the 22 large agencies the proportions of employees who reported having received training during 2003—04 that emphasised the APS Values varied from 19% to 83%. In ten large agencies less than 30% of employees reported having had such training.

A number of the indicators of the success that agencies have had in creating commitment to the APS Values have shown an improvement in 2003—04. For example, it is encouraging to report that most employees (93%) reported that they felt that their agency had a clear set of values about the behaviour expected of employees, an increase from the 89% who reported this last year.

In addition, most employees (85%) were either familiar with the APS Values or had heard of them but were not fully familiar with their detail, indicating a good improvement from 77% last year. The proportions of employees who regarded themselves as being only partially familiar or unfamiliar both declined (from 21% to 14% and 2% to 1% respectively). Of those employees that were familiar with the Values or had heard of them but were not fully familiar with their detail, the majority rated their levels of familiarity as high (57%–a strong increase from the 47% reported in the previous year) or moderate (38%–a decrease from 46%).

The proportions of employees in the 22 large agencies who responded that they were familiar with the Values varied quite widely, between approximately 62% and 94% (a slightly broader range than the previous year). The three large agencies with at least 90% of employees having responded that they were familiar with both the Values and the Code were ATSIS, Customs and DVA.

The results of the employee survey show that familiarity with the Values varied according to classification level with employees at more senior levels more likely to have reported high levels of familiarity. For employees with less than one year of service, level of familiarity with the Values increased substantially, from 67% last year to 88%. While this result should be treated with some caution given the relatively small sample size involved, it may be due to improving induction training in the APS.

This year’s data also confirmed the finding from the 2003 survey that employees who are familiar with the APS Values have a higher level of agreement that their agency has a clear set of values about the behaviour expected of employees than those employees who are not familiar with the APS Values.

In an environment where there are fewer rules and correspondingly increased scope for discretion in decision making, the APS Values can provide consistent guidance to employees. In response to the employee survey, most employees continued to rate the Values as highly relevant to their daily work (in both this year and last, around 77% of employees thought this was true), and only three per cent of employees rated their relevance as low.

Relevance of the Values to the employee’s own daily work was rated highly by the majority of employees in each of the 22 large agencies, with the variation ranging from 59% to 83%. This represents a slight decline from the range reported last year (64% to 88%). It is worth observing that when the analysis takes in the percentage of employees within the large agencies who agreed that the Values are highly or moderately relevant to their daily work, all large agencies fit within a narrow band of 93% to 99% of employee agreement.

Views on relevance of the Values to daily work varied according to sex, location and classification. A higher percentage of women (80% as against 74% for men–a narrowing of the spread between sexes relative to the previous year), employees who are not in the ACT (79% compared to 74%–a result similar to last year), and employees at SES classification levels rated relevance more highly. Views also varied according to familiarity with the Values, as higher percentages of employees who rated their levels of familiarity as high, compared with those who rated their levels of familiarity as moderate or low, also rated as high the relevance of the Values to their daily work.

The level of agreement by employees that other employees act in accordance with the APS Values was generally quite high. Levels of agreement that ‘colleagues’ and ‘immediate managers’ act in accordance with the Values were very similar (around 88%): this compares to around 81% last year, which indicates a substantial improvement.

Responses indicate lower levels of confidence that the most senior managers act in accordance with the Values (68%). While this is an improvement on the figure reported last year (63%), looking at the results of individual large agencies:

• the highest rates of agreement (i.e. 75% or more) were reported in ABS, BoM, CRS, DEH, DEST, DFAT and DVA
• responses from employees in 19 of the 22 large agencies were clustered between 62% and 79%; in one agency, however, the figure was less than 50%
• there was in every large agency a substantially lower level of confidence in the most senior managers than for immediate managers, which may be affected by the distance of many employees from the day-to-day activities of their senior managers, and the tendency of staff in most organisations to be somewhat sceptical about senior management.

Analysis of the employee survey results of large agencies–and in particular where confidence in senior managers was high (i.e. over 75% agreement) and where it was relatively low (less than 57%)–reveals no obvious relationship with size, structure, or the nature of the agency’s business. Nor was there any obvious relationship between this outcome and the apparent investment made by agencies on training about the Values. The personal example set by the leaders in the agency, and their personal style, seems most likely to be the key factor.

In another finding consistent with last year’s report, employees who rated their level of familiarity with the APS Values as high were more likely to have agreed that colleagues in their immediate work area, immediate managers and the most senior managers act in accordance with the Values.

1 Differences in the 2003 and 2004 surveys mean that comparative data for this question is not available.