Requirement F

Ruby is an APS 5 employee who has been asked by her manager, Luka, to attend a meeting on his behalf of an inter-agency committee related to their team’s policy area.

Ruby has never attended an inter-agency meeting on her own before. Ruby prepares for the meeting ahead of time by reading the committee’s terms of reference, minutes of previous meetings, and the papers that have been circulated to members. She ensures she has the papers at hand for the meeting, as well as information she may need to refer to in explaining her own department’s work in this policy area.

Ruby notices in the previous minutes that a discussion was deferred about the setting up of a working group to undertake some research into a pilot project, and she thinks that agencies will likely be asked to agree to participate. Ruby is not sure what Luka thinks their agency’s contribution should be to this discussion, so she checks in with him ahead of the meeting to find out what she is able to agree to in the moment, if necessary. She follows that discussion with an email to confirm his authority in writing.

What happens next?

Ruby contributes to the discussion in a way that is respectful, informed, and consistent with the policy position of her department. When she is asked a question that she does not know the answer to, she undertakes to provide a response out of session, and ensures she follows up on that commitment in a timely way. After the meeting, Ruby briefs Luka on the outcomes.

Luka is pleased that Ruby took on this challenge and demonstrated Stewardship in the way she prepared for and presented herself in the meeting and how she is developing new skills in oral communication and stakeholder engagement. He makes a note to remind himself of this when he and Ruby conduct her end-of-cycle performance discussion and rating.

Jean-Paul is an EL2 lawyer who has been tasked with delivering a one-hour presentation on his agency’s regulatory functions to a public law conference, whose attendees consist of both APS and non-APS stakeholders.

Despite being aware of the date of the presentation for several weeks beforehand, due to conflicting priorities and work demands Jean-Paul has not had time to properly prepare a slide deck for the presentation and instead hopes to rely on his expertise and knowledge. He feels that since so many of the attendees are colleagues and suppliers of legal services to his agency, it is a friendly ‘conversational’ appearance and does not need the preparation of formal remarks.

Because Jean-Paul has not read through the presenter information he was given, he arrives late, and he is flustered. His presentation is unstructured, omits some key information, includes information that is factually inaccurate and is difficult for participants to follow.

At the end of the presentation, Jean-Paul is asked two questions about the subject matter he has presented on, and he realises he doesn’t know the answers. Feeling it would look bad to admit he does not know the answer and take the questions on notice, he provides vague responses based on his personal opinions, which are taken to reflect the agency’s official position.

It becomes clear to the audience that Jean-Paul’s lack of preparation reflects poorly on his professionalism and in turn the audience begins to lack confidence in the agency’s ability to deliver its business, including effectively educating external stakeholders about its regulatory functions.

What happens next?

In the days after the presentation, the conference facilitator receives feedback from a number of attendees, who note the contradictory information Jean-Paul provided. The facilitator then contacts a senior employee in Jean-Paul’s agency to pass on the feedback.

Jean-Paul’s SES Band 1 manager, Gena, is made aware of his poor performance. She expresses her view that his lack of professionalism indicates a failure of Stewardship. By not adequately preparing for a rare opportunity to promote the agency’s important oversight role in the Australian economy and represent and exemplify its otherwise well-regarded legal team, he has let her and his colleagues down and damaged the reputation of the agency. Gena feels particularly disappointed because Jean-Paul was asked to present given his seniority and experience, at the expense of others in her team who had expressed interest in conducting the presentation themselves as a development activity.

Gena directs Jean-Paul to send a written apology to the conference organisers and follow up with further information to attendees on the subject of the presentation that is clear and accurate and fully addresses the questions he was asked.

Tim is an APS 4 employee who is passionate about his agency and the work it undertakes. Tim is a new member of the media team and has been tasked with publishing helpful information posts, approved by his manager, on the agency’s official social media page. Tim’s role is also to provide general information in response to comments or questions about where members of the public can seek further information from the agency’s official public website.

Tim is aware of recent negative media attention in relation to a legislative change that requires his agency to implement restrictions on the types of services that can be provided to members of the public. In reviewing comments on a recent post, Tim notices some negative feedback being provided in relation to the legislative changes.

Tim knows his agency is undertaking the changes due to legislative requirements and he considers the person giving the feedback to be providing false information and inflammatory statements. Tim decides to step in and ‘correct’ the person’s comments in a response on the public page.

Tim is initially professional in seeking to redirect the person to the agency’s website and official statements; however, he soon finds his frustration mounting and he gets drawn into an online dispute with the person. Tim accuses the person of spreading misinformation and lies. He also makes a comment criticising the previous Government as a way to defend his agency’s current actions.

What happens next?

The commenter takes screenshots of Tim’s comments and shares these to various other social media platforms on the internet. Tim’s manager, Karsten, directs him to remove his posts immediately, but despite doing so the story is picked up by media outlets the next day, and a complaint is lodged with the agency’s CEO and the Minister.

Karsten is aware that Tim is mortified about this situation and his actions, as they have drawn very public criticism of the agency and distracted from Tim’s early attempts to provide correct information about the actual policy issue in question.

Given Tim is a junior member of the team, and new to this particular role, Karsten treats this as a learning opportunity for Tim to understand the unique Stewardship position the media team has as the official spokespeople representing the agency, and, in turn, the APS.

Karsten explains to Tim the very specific responsibilities he has to represent the agency in all his engagements through its public social media accounts, and that this responsibility to build and maintain public trust and confidence in the agency’s professionalism and integrity is built into his role and duties as well as being a requirement as an APS employee.