Chapter 6: Learning and development

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used in this report is available in the Glossary

Identification of development needs and access to learning and development

Learning and development is relevant to job satisfaction and productivity. Nearly one-third of employees identify opportunities to develop their skills as one of the top workforce influences on their job satisfaction. Nearly one quarter of employees believe access to effective learning and development helped, or would help, to increase their productivity in their current job.

This section looks at how employees had their learning and development needs identified, and their satisfaction with their access to, and the management of, learning and development in their workplace.

Identification of learning and development

There is a strong focus on learning and development across the APS. The large majority of APS employees(75%) had their learning and development needs identified and agreed with their manager. Around one in five (22%) employees did not.

The fact that three-quarters of employees have reached formal agreements with their managers on learning and development is a very positive result and reflects a strong push across the APS for consideration of learning and development issues in performance management processes. Agencies need to maintain and improve these efforts.

Agency size and classification influence the formal identification of learning and development needs. There are significantly more employees in large agencies who have identified and agreed on their needs with their managers than in medium or small agencies. In contrast, SES employees (64%) report lower identification of, and agreement on, learning and development needs than APS 1–6 and EL employees (75% and 74% respectively). Although SES employees may be expected to take greater responsibility for their own learning, this is still of some concern given the strong focus on SES capability development in the MAC statement One APS—One SES.³

Learning and development needs, when identified and agreed, were generally documented in a formal individual development plan (88% of relevant employees). SES employees who have had their learning and development needs identified (72%) were less likely to have their needs documented in a formal plan than APS 1–6 and EL employees (both 88% of relevant employees). However, documentation does not necessarily mean that plans are acted upon. Only 41% of employees with formal plans had their agreed learning and development needs fully met within the agreed timeframe. Employees in small agencies were least likely to have the agreed learning and development provided in the timeframe.

Those employees whose learning and development had not been provided or only partially provided (56% of relevant employees) cited a number of reasons why it had not taken place within the agreed timeframe. The most common reasons were appropriate learning and development opportunities had not occurred (49% of relevant employees), other things had taken priority (44%), employees had not had the time (28%) and there was no money in the budget (16%). The most common reason cited by SES employees was that they had not had the time. Other things were more likely to take priority for EL employees, and appropriate opportunities were more likely not to occur for APS 1–6 employees.

Some other problems identified by employees affecting delivery of learning and development activities included:

the employee changed jobs or had a new manager or supervisor
senior management or corporate areas overrode agreed learning and development activities
difficulty in access because of geographic location or personal circumstances such as carer responsibilities
lack of staff to cover absences prevented access and if there was training, the backlog of work on return.

Satisfaction with the management of learning and development

Overall, most employees believed that their agencies place a high priority on learning and development. Just over half (55%) of APS employees agreed with this statement, with only one in five employees disagreeing.

It is possible to make a number of broad comparisons regarding the APS’s performance on this issue using survey results from some other Australian jurisdictions. In general, the commitment of agencies to learning and development appears to be perceived as lower in the APS than in the Tasmanian and Victorian public services. Sixty-five percent of Tasmanian public sector employees believed that their agency encourages professional development.⁴ Around three-quarters of Victorian employees (76%) agreed that their organisation is committed to developing its employees.⁵ Results were similar though, to WA where 54% of employees agreed that sufficient training opportunities were available.⁶

The employee survey also asked employees to choose the most important attributes they would like to see in an immediate supervisor. Although the provision of access to learning and development was not one of the most commonly selected attributes, one-fifth of employees did consider provision of access to effective learning and development as one of the five most important attributes in an immediate supervisor. For those employees who rated this as important, the majority were satisfied that their immediate supervisor had these attributes (59%), with around 23% dissatisfied.

Employees were also asked to choose the five most important attributes they would like to see in senior leaders. Twenty-six per cent of employees identified taking a genuine interest and assisting staff to develop through such actions as coaching, mentoring and career planning as one of the five most important attributes in a senior leader. However, only one-third of employees who considered these attributes to be important thought that their agencies’ senior leaders demonstrated these attributes. A larger proportion of employees (40%) were dissatisfied with their agency’s senior leaders. These results are discussed further in Chapter 7.

Individual satisfaction

The majority of employees were satisfied with their own access to learning and development. Overall, 61% of employees were satisfied, with 18% expressing dissatisfaction.

Satisfaction with access varies across groups. Women were more satisfied than men. Location and classification are also important. SES employees had the highest level of satisfaction with access to learning and development, with APS 1–6 employees more satisfied than EL employees.

Employees in the ACT were significantly more satisfied with access than employees outside the ACT. This may reflect concerns about the provision of learning and development in particular geographic locations. The level of satisfaction with access to learning and development also varies depending on the type of work undertaken. Table 6.1 sets out the level of satisfaction against the type of work.

Table 6.1: Satisfaction with access to learning and development opportunities by type of work undertaken, 2005–06
Type of Work	Satisfied %	Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied %	Dissatisfied %
Policy	62	22	17
Research	70	20	9
Programme design and/or management	62	24	14
Service delivery to the general public	58	21	20
Exercising regulatory authority	43	27	29
Legal	73	7	21
Corporate services	66	19	15
Administrative support/clerical	64	20	15
Source: Employee survey

Table 6.1 shows that employees involved in legal or research work reported the highest levels of satisfaction with access to learning and development. Employees exercising regulatory authority showed both the lowest level of satisfaction and the highest level of dissatisfaction with access to learning and development in their agency.

This result is particularly significant given the concerns about the capability of employees exercising regulatory authority in DIMIA expressed in the Comrie Report.⁷ The Comrie Report was primarily about the behaviour of public servants who exercise regulatory authority and it supports the conclusion that regulators need to understand more than just the regulatory provisions they apply. If employees are to understand the nature of their authority, the broad legislative and constitutional framework from which it derives, its limits, the scope of any discretion in its application, and how and when it is appropriate to exercise such discretion, targeted learning and development opportunities are essential. Although the Comrie Report was specific to DIMIA, the employee survey results suggest that there may be broader implications for the learning and development of APS employees exercising regulatory authority.

Satisfaction with access to learning and development was also related to satisfaction with the employee engagement factors identified through factor analysis (see Appendix 4), in particular factors relating to ‘Senior leaders/culture’, ‘Merit’ and ‘Immediate supervisor’.

Satisfaction with access to learning and development opportunities varied across large agencies from a low of 46% to a high of 83%. ABS and Defence had satisfaction levels significantly above the APS average. A majority of employees considered that access to learning and development is fair within the work group. Seventy-two percent of employees agreed that their immediate manager ensured fair access to developmental opportunities for employees in their work group, with only 11% disagreeing.

The consideration of learning and development needs should be an important part of performance feedback. Results concerning this issue were generally positive, with nearly two-thirds of employees who reported having received individual performance feedback agreeing that their learning and development needs were adequately considered as part of their performance feedback discussion. One in six of these employees disagreed.

Management Advisory Committee 2005, Senior Executive Service of the Australian Public Service: One APS—One SES, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.
State Service Employee Survey Report 2005, State Services Commissioner, Tasmania.
People Matter Survey 2005, State Services Authority, Victoria.
Annual Compliance Report 2005–06, Office of the Public Sector Standards Commissioner, Western Australia.
Commonwealth Ombudsman, Inquiry into the Circumstances of the Vivian Alvarez Matter, (Report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman of an inquiry undertaken by Mr Neil Comrie), September 2005, <http://www.ombudsman.gov.au>