Capability
Delivering for Tomorrow: the APS Workforce Strategy 2025 will inform our approach to attracting, building and retaining a high performing workforce to deliver against this plan.
We are working with the APS Centre of Excellence for Workforce Planning to ensure that we have a long-term, evidence-based approach to meeting our current and future workforce needs, aligned with our strategic priorities.
We have grown from a small agency in 2021-22 to a medium-sized agency of 384 staff as of 1 July 2022. This reflects a number of new initiatives that aim to support the APS as a whole, including the establishment of four new APS Academy campuses in regional areas designed to attract staff with data and digital skills while they are still undertaking, or just completing, tertiary education. And, the growth of the APS Academy, which is helping APS people build their capability through 53,804 learner engagements in 2021-22.
Implementing the Government’s plan for the APS will draw on our expertise in workplace relations and employment policy, strategic workforce planning, data collection management and analysis, integrity, inclusion and capability development. The Digital Profession will continue to play a key role in helping our own staff and the broader APS acquire digital literacy, fluency and – where needed – mastery. Our investment into the redevelopment of the Australian Public Service Employment Database will ensure that we can continue to provide analysis and insights into the APS workforce for use across the system.
We understand that our ability to attract skills in demand, and a workforce that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve, means looking outside of Canberra. We have staff working in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. We are committed to an inclusive work culture and to flexible and hybrid work practices to position ourselves as an employer of choice. The implementation of our fifth Reconciliation Action Plan will provide a platform to develop and strengthen practices to attract, recruit, develop and retain First Nations staff.
Our People and Change Committee allows staff to co-design the evolution of the agency, and has identified three priorities for 2022-23: building manager capability, adopting a digital mindset and re-imagining mobility. Staff at all levels are empowered to progress these priorities in collaboration with our enabling services team, which continues to grow in maturity through the systematic review of our policies, processes and systems.
As part of our group planning process, all staff now contribute to a Priorities on a Page document. This will enable us to deliberately assess our work effort against our priorities in 2022-23, and adjust where we need to, to ensure that we meet the objectives laid out in this corporate plan.
We are focused on providing technology, systems and tools that enable digital transformation, are easier for staff to use and support new ways of working. Following a review of our Enterprise Architecture in 2021-22, we have developed a technology investment strategy – this will inform the Commission’s digital strategy, technology roadmap, and cyber security strategy in 2022-23.
A major refresh of our security policies and guidelines, including new training for all staff, completed in 2021-22, demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the requirements set out in the Protective Security Policy Framework and our desire to achieve a higher maturity level rating than achieved in the previous year.