In my personal experience of ten tears in the Australian Public Service (APS), commencing as a Graduate, I have witnessed fundamental shifts in the Australian workforce and Australian’s notion of work. These shifts include the nature and definition of work, flattening of organisational structures and open corporate culture to accommodate work/life balance in a real sense (and not mandatory conceptual terms to be included into in Business Plans).

In my view, the APS has failed at a systemic/structural/cultural level to keep abreast of these changes as a whole. The federal government organisations that have managed to align to contemporary workplace practices and cultures have generally been Statutory Authorities, focused on contemporary issues/solutions, possessing the ability to stand up a fit-for-purpose workforce to support its objective. In contrast to long-term federal agencies, Statutory Authorities are dynamic organisational structures with contemporary leadership with a strong sense of identity, responsibility and span of influence.

As such, my submission in response to APS Hierarchy and Classification Review Discussion Paper (the Review) draws on my experiences in established APS Agencies as well as time-limited Statutory Authorities.

As outlined in the Review, APS classification structures are hierarchical and impedes an established Agency’s ability to be innovative and agile in an ever-changing global enterprise landscape. In many instances the APS classification structure, coupled with Average Staffing Level (ASL) caps, has successfully caused poor resourcing decisions resulting in reduced outcomes. For example, in my personal experience, teams requiring skilled staff at the APS 6 level, with delegation and decision making ability, cannot fill these roles due to ASL allocation. The Director is only able to sign off on recruiting one APS 4s and one APS 5s, therefore it was decided that “something is better than nothing” so the vacant roles were filled. Although the additional staffing assisted processing work, it did not solve the delegation and decision making gap. Thus, creating a bottleneck for the Assistant Director which led to workflow delays. Unfortunately, this experience is not isolated and results in artificial team compositions due to APS & ASL limitations rather than meeting actual needs.

On the other hand, a Statutory Authority by its very nature can build a staffing profile to meets its actual needs and to support the strategic aims and outcomes. These authorities are given flexibility to establish itself with an APS context, whereby leadership is carefully selected and the remaining compliment determined by business need rather than existing staffing gaps/allocations. As outlined in the Review, the APS is not seen as a career for life therefore these Statutory Authorities accommodate transient and agile workforce structures and empowers management to make immediate staffing decisions. Although Statutory Authorities operates under a level of hierarchy, these structures empower rather than limit the organisation.

In my experience, the current hierarchical structure has limited APS staff span of control and professional growth within established agencies; especially amongst junior employees. The APS response to COVID-19 resulted in a short-term flattening of structures and increased delegations, which propelled agencies to review its business as a whole. Unfortunately, APS management was not supported to best articulate and facilitate this change nor did staff previously experience gradual increases in their responsibilities therefore felt the impacts of the sudden change. It was commonly quoted that staff felt “this is above my pay level” when decision making responsibilities were assigned.

The professional experience where I found the most growth, in a regional office, was one where a Federal program’s Policy Development, Implementation, Communication and Systems Development functions operated within a single Branch, similar to a Statutory Authority model. During this experience, my APS level did not limit my span of influence and Senior Executives were regularly engaged with administrative and junior staff to address immediate priorities. Also, the branch operated in an agile manner whereby I was given opportunities to work on policy development, external communication as well as systems business analysis. This experience has encouraged a flexible, responsive, and growth mindset in my roles and career. Additionally, cultivating a better understanding of the Federal Government administrative system encouraged me to make courageous decisions with sound judgement. This experience was unique, since resuming roles in established agencies my span of influence and decision making has since been limited and restricted by my classification level.

Progressing from its current form, the APS hierarchy can be split into three distinct streams: Administrative, Professions and Management. The administrative stream can consist of roles not requiring technical/specialist knowledge, therefore capturing predominantly APS 5s and below. The professions stream can capture roles requiring specialist knowledge, particularly those demanding continuous learning and professional development. As such, staff under the professions stream may be required to maintain mandatory certification/training to ensure currency of skills and knowledge for a dynamic and agile service. Finally, the Management stream can capture roles with an element of staffing management in either the administrative or professions stream. Again, as per the professions stream, mandatory APSC training and skill development may be attached to the role to ensure empowered leadership whose focus in on fostering the values and culture of an innovative and agile service.

To attract talent and skill, specialists can be hired under the professions stream on salary coupled with a separate time limited “competitive industry” loading. The application of this loading can be applied to roles which meet a number of special criteria, as well as authorisation from the Department of Finance. The loading can be reviewed yearly, and can be adjusted based on competitiveness in the workforce. This will attract in-demand skills using the certainty of permanent employment, and the equivalent salary in a competitive skill market.

The APS can empower junior employees by encouraging all agencies to form a “Shadow Board”, a group of non-executive employees that work with senior executives on strategic projects and real issues. This model will help Senior Executives to gain insights and diverse perspectives, encourage active mentoring leadership within the APS and empower junior staff to engage in strategic initiatives. Currently, decision-making responsibilities is retained at higher levels due to fear of the unknown. Senior Executives fear the ramifications of delegating decisions and failing, and junior employees fear making decisions and failing. Therefore, a “Shadow Board” system will assist in oversight and support of decision making at all levels.