Workplace consultation

The Values include the establishment of workplace relationships in the APS that value communication, consultation, cooperation and input from employees on matters that affect their workplace. These consultative arrangements are critical to achieving good quality results and underpinning productive working relationships. Consultation practices amongst agencies can be expected to vary given differences in agencies’ size and the nature of their business.

Employees’ perceptions of consultation

Regular staff meetings, if well run and focused, can be an effective part of the consultation process and support genuine and constructive employee engagement. The employee survey asked employees how often they attended meetings at their section/unit/team (team/section) level and how often they attended meetings at the broader level (i.e. branch, group, division or office level). The results from this year’s survey were very similar to last year’s results—the most common experience of employees is attendance at regular meetings at the team/section level, with fewer employees attending regular meetings at broader levels.

Sixty per cent of employees reported attending team/section level meetings fortnightly or more often and almost three-quarters of employees reported attending this level of meetings on a monthly, or a more frequent basis. Only 3% reported that they never attended such staff meetings and a further 22% indicated that they attended these meetings on an ad hoc basis. Attendance at team/section meetings on a monthly or more frequent basis increases with classification level—70% of APS 1–6 employees, 82% of EL employees and 87% of SES employees reported this level of attendance. These figures are consistent with last year’s.

Of the agency-specific results available for 21 large agencies, the variation in results was again considerable. The percentage of employees reporting that they never attended meetings at their team/section level or only did so on an ad hoc basis, for example, varied from a high of 44% to a low of 9%. Conversely, the percentage of employees who reported attending team/section meetings fortnightly or more often across all large agencies was 44%, with a range from 31% to 76%. The large agencies with significantly higher percentages of employees reporting attendance at regular meetings at the team/ section level than the APS average were Finance, CSA and the FaCS; the two large agencies with the lowest percentages were BoM and DIMIA.

Eighteen per cent of employees reported attending meetings at the broader level fortnightly or more often, and just over one-third reported attending this level of meetings monthly or more often. Another 5% reported this type of meeting as being ‘not applicable’ to their circumstances. Twenty per cent of employees indicated that they did not attend this type of meeting and a further 39% indicated that they attended these meetings on an ad hoc basis.

The employment status of employees affects attendance at consultative meetings at both the team/section level and the broader level. Full-time employees, for example, are more likely to attend team/section meetings on a fortnightly or more frequent basis than are part-time employees (62% compared to 49%); they are also more likely to attend broader level meetings on a monthly or more frequent basis (37% compared to 26%). Similarly, ongoing employees are more likely to attend team/section meetings weekly or fortnightly (61%) than are non-ongoing employees (49%); they are also more likely to attend broader level meetings on a monthly or more frequent basis (36% compared to 28%).

The employee survey asked respondents if they were satisfied that the meetings they attended provided a forum in which to contribute their views on issues that impact on their work. It also asked about their satisfaction level with the overall say they have in decisions impacting on their work. Compared to last year’s results employees reported being significantly less satisfied in response to both questions. Forty-eight per cent of employees, for example, reported being satisfied that the meetings they attended provided an adequate forum to contribute their views, down from 58% last year. The percentage of employees dissatisfied rose from 17% to 21% in 2004–05. Similarly, 45% of employees were satisfied with their overall say in decisions that impact on their work this year compared to 49% last year. The percentage of employees reporting that they were dissatisfied rose from 25% to 29% in 2004–05.

Consistent with last year’s survey results employee satisfaction with overall say in decisions was related to a number of factors, including:

• attendance at regular staff meetings at both the team/section level and the broader workplace level (for example, 57% of employees who attended a weekly meeting at the team/section level are satisfied with their overall say in decisions compared to only 13% of employees who report never attending such meetings)
• perceptions of their supervisor’s ability to manage people (employees satisfied with their overall say in decisions are much more likely to consider that their supervisor is highly effective at managing people and vice versa)
• overall job satisfaction (there is a very strong relationship between employees satisfied with their overall say in decisions and them having a high overall job satisfaction rating and vice versa).

Agencies’ policies on workplace consultation

The agency survey asked agencies about whether they had policies in place requiring regular staff meetings in their agency (at the team/section level and the broader level).

The percentage of agencies with policies requiring team/section meetings has steadily increased over the past three years (from 49% in 2002–03 to 54% last year and again to 56% in 2004–05). The percentage of agencies requiring broader level meetings increased from around 64% over the past two years to 74% this year, whereas those requiring an agency consultative body remained stable at around 86%.

The increasing trend in the proportion of agencies requiring staff meetings appears to run contrary to the decrease in employee satisfaction with their overall say in decisions that impact on their work, as discussed above. This contradiction can be partially explained by the substantial drop in the proportion of employees who were satisfied that the meetings they attended provided an adequate forum in which to contribute their views. Of course, having a policy requiring a meeting does not necessarily mean that a meeting is held or, if it is, that it provides employees with the opportunity to contribute their views in a considered manner.

This year’s figures confirmed the previous observation that large agencies are least likely to have policies requiring meetings compared to small and medium agencies—which is the opposite of what might be expected given the greater difficulties of communication sometimes experienced in larger agencies. Of the large agencies reporting that they did not have policies requiring regular staff meetings at the team/section and broader work levels, 60% (two-thirds last year) had less than half of their employees satisfied with their overall say in work decisions.

The survey results show that the extent to which agencies regularly consult with their employees on workplace issues continues to vary widely, but that an upwards trend in policies requiring meetings has begun to emerge. However, the increase in the proportion of agencies requiring team/section and broader level meetings on a regular basis may, of itself, not be enough as attested to by the decrease in employees’ satisfaction levels with consultative mechanisms. Those agencies with low levels of employee satisfaction with their say in workplace decisions, particularly those that require regular meetings, should be devoting more effort to developing consultation skills among supervisory staff and within the workplace generally.

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