WORKFORCE ageing, labour market constraints and evolving career patterns have emerged as the biggest challenges to recruitment and retention in the Australian public service (APS), a new report has found.
WORKFORCE ageing, labour market constraints and evolving career patterns have emerged as the biggest challenges to recruitment and retention in the Australian public service (APS), a new report has found.
Released by the federal government’s Management Advisory Committee (MAC), the report, entitled Managing and sustaining the APS workforce, explored the new employment landscape for the APS and its ability to deliver programs, policies and services.
Among key findings of the MAC report were that staff at all levels and in all areas of the 21st century APS will increasingly need to be multi-skilled, flexible and intellectually agile in order to deal with economic, societal and technological change.
Furthermore, the APS workforce is likely to continue evolving into a ‘graduate’ workforce: “Almost 50 per cent of all staff and two-thirds of new recruits possess tertiary qualifications (defined as a bachelor’s degree or higher). This compares to only 19 per cent of the general population of working age,” the report said.
Fresh workers coming into the APS are also bringing change with them. “New recruits to public service are hungry for chances to contribute to complex policies. But they have different attitudes and expectations”, said Peter Shergold, Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. “I sense that they are prepared to vote with their feet if their work experience does not measure up to their expectations.”
“It’s more likely that people will move in and out of the public service. We are already seeing a growth of new entrants with experience of other sectors,” he said. A rising proportion of recruits are older, experienced workers from outside the APS.
Among the many challenges facing the APS are new information and communication technologies, globalisation of the Australian economy and security and counter-terrorism. It will also have to contend with managing a sustainable environment and supporting communities in rural and remote Australia. As a result the APS will need to work with more closely with its own agencies, with state and territory governments and private organisations.
The MAC report comes a few months after an Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) report found the APS has been slow to implement strategic workforce planning and faces a critical skills shortage.
