Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, , 1:09:04 to 1:23:29
A detailed review of the APS employee census results for NEMA, highlighting concerns regarding senior executive leadership, high staff turnover, and reports of bullying and harassment.
Topics: Workplace culture, Public service staffing
Speakers: Mr Pat Hetherington, Senator David Pocock, Sanandan Dasgupta, Senator Jana Stewart, Unknown Speaker
Um this morning.
Sorry, Senator, before you do, we've just got some media in the room and just seeking the permission of the committee for them to with all the usual rules of playing. Yep, thank you very much.
Thanks, Chair. I've got some questions about this year's APS employee census results. Um I've got some serious concerns reading through them. Maybe we should start with the performance of the senior executive service. Um 46% of respondents said that the SES do not work as a team. With just 24 per cent saying that they do. That's 31 per cent worse than the APS overall and 25 per cent worse than just last year. What's going on? What's what's happening at NEMA?
Yeah, thank thanks, Senator. I touched on some of the census results in my opening statement. Appreciate you you weren't here for that and called out this leadership piece in those opening remarks. It's clearly it's clearly an area where we're going to focus across the coming months. We're in the process of working up our action plan on the back of the census. I think I think there's a few things that are driving that. So firstly, I would say it is not it is not a capability question for our senior executive service employees. If you look at the results around people's perception of their own senior leader, they're really quite high and they remain high. And so teams generally have a good view of their of their own leadership line. As you rightly point out, the concern is whether we're working together as a team. And I think there are a few interrelated findings in the census. So change management and communications are two areas where we know we need to do better. And what clearly the workforce has not been seeing is the engagement across the SES to deliver shared outcomes in the way that they want to see it. Some of that is about how we communicate with the workforce. And so as we consider what our action plan looks like, there'll be a series of very tangible actions associated with this particular part.
Okay. Well, thank you for accepting that there is a problem. That's obviously the first step in trying to address it, but clearly the the former coordinator general is no longer with the agency. What's been the rate of executive turnover in the last four years?
I might just see if the chief operating officer has those figures. I mean, just while he looks for those, I mean, contextually, um, as you know, Senator, contextually, uh, there has been some instability in the agency. So in the context of when the survey was done, there was changeover in leadership at a number of levels, including at a at a deputy level and the impending departure of the former coordinator general. Um, also throughout that same period, the payroll issues that we've discussed here previously uh came to light um amongst other things. So there was a general level of instability in the organization throughout that period that the that the survey was being undertaken that contribute to this, they're not the sole driver, but contribute to this.
In terms of SES turnover, uh Senator, I do not have the like the SES turnover. I have got the overall staff turnover. I have got that.
Sure, maybe give me overall now and then take on notice, SES, please.
Yeah. So the uh for the 25, 26 full financially at 12 months, the ongoing separation rate is 23.77%.
Do you know how that compares to the APS average?
It's higher.
It's higher. Yeah, no surprises there. Um you mentioned in your in your um response to my first question around direction and the lack of direction. I was pretty shocked to read that 36% of respondents said the SES do not clearly articulate the direction and policy for the agency. Um incredibly well paid executives. How is it that NEMA doesn't articulate? Again, Senator The direction.
I think it I think it's more nuanced than that, which is why we've invested the time we have in kind of getting behind the data.
It may be nuanced, but that's fairly stark.
Indeed, but I can't combating. I come back to the point I made before that that actually teams in sort of line line teens um have a great deal of confidence in their SES. That's also evident in the outcome. So they're confident that their leadership has the capacity to direct, prioritize, and lead the teams. Um it is it is this cross organization issue that has come to the fore in the context of these in the context of this census result, and we need to work through that. So the sense that we organizationally understand what all the priorities are and that we're all pulling in the same direction is is part of the missing piece. Sure.
Which seems to point to the fact that you've got some good people in there that people respect and like working with, but clearly that the top is needs to take responsibility here. Why haven't you been coordinating the SES and providing more?
I'm the person that's accountable for that, Senator. And so in the first instance, um I've had some visibility of the census results for a while. We have already started making some changes to make sure that the SES cohort is more clearly working as a team. Uh we've we've instituted uh weekly sync that brings every SES officer together so that we can talk collectively about what are the priorities of the organization. Out of that, they take that information back now to their teams and they're communicating not only their own own priorities but the priorities of the organization. That's a simple mechanism that we've put in place. We'll continue to build on those. And as I say, our census action plan will um have a great focus on this, which will be public in in the coming weeks. I think we're in sort of mid-November. Yeah, mid-November, you'll see our census action plan. We just want to do a bit more work on that, test that a little bit with the workforce and make sure that it's hitting the mark for them before we put that out. But there'll be a series of really tangible things.
So you're doing weekly catch-ups to try and get on the same page. Um I mean, you'd hope that that's happening before. So that's that's one change. What else are you doing? Surely that's can't be the only thing you're doing.
Yeah, so I mean, so as I said before, part of the part of what we saw in the census was comms. Uh, we've been running a series of all staff uh meetings. We do a series of meetings called short and sweet on key topics. Uh we've been making sure that those are well attended by SES officers. We've been doing uh more regular staff stand-ups with people. Um we've been putting out you know uh weekly um reports from the chief people officer. What is it? Fortnite little monthly reports from Chief People Office. So we've we're ramping up all of the elements of communication. Um we recently did, I mean, that's a good point too. We recently did uh a uh whole of EL2 cohort, so one of the one of the um big cohorts in our workforce is this middle management layer at EL2 who on a day-to-day basis are really out there delivering for us. We pulled together a workshop of all the EL2s and actually work through a range of these issues with them, talk through very openly what are the concerns that they've got. And so we're starting to expand that communication piece in the first instance. As I say, in our census action plan, you'll see some very tangible um additional measures that we're gonna put in place.
Okay, it's good to hear. Um I mean I some of that sounds good. I hope it's not just more meetings though, because I think that creates its own set of um problems. I just wanted to touch on retention. And you kind of said, well, people may not think people may think we don't have direction, but actually people really like the person that they report to. Um but 44% of respondents said that they wanted to leave their position as soon as possible or within within the next 12 months, um, much higher than the APS average. Just 14% of respondents want to stay at the agency for more than three years. Um much higher than the APS average. Um that doesn't point to the kind of problems that you're saying where people actually really like the person they're reporting to, but they've just got some concerns about the top. That to me points to an agency that's really struggling culture-wise. Um, how are you gonna address that?
Yeah, I so I'd I'd I'd uh exchange the word like for they have confidence in rather than they necessarily like um I think the way they're framed is they've got confidence in their senior leadership. Um there are there are a few factors at play I'd suggest that uh that speak to the numbers that you've just called out. Um the as said context is important, it's been a rough 12 or 18 months for the organization just in terms of leadership change, uh, in terms of payroll issues, in terms of um poorly communicated change management. So those things feature in the way people respond to the census. There's no there's no question about that. We are also um across the breadth of the organization an operational organization, and so it is the sort of place where people will come in, they will work um uh long hours and hard for a period of time, and so some turnover for us is actually healthy. We need to maintain a um you know the right level of capability and expertise, but equally we do appreciate as an operational organization that people will come in, they'll do a bit of a tour through through the place and then move on. I am probably most concerned about the number of people as you've called out that. Want to leave within the next 12 months, and I think honestly, some of that is related to their experience in the organisation over the last over the last 12 months or so. Some of the things that we're doing to improve culture, for example, is making sure people have a better understanding of the work that's conducted in the constituent parts of the organisation. So on Dr. Charker's side of the house, you've got that kind of resilience and recovery work, and on Ms. Carroll's side of the house, you've got effectively emergency management response. Those things are dedicated to the same outcome at different times on the continuum. So we're doing a lot of cross-training between those two parts of the team, and I think that's going to have tangible results on both our capacity to surge, but also the culture of the organisation into course. Cultural change, though, is a longer term proposition. We're hope, obviously, hoping to see positive results in the next census. We will do we'll do our own spot check, probably in about February to see whether or not the things that we're putting in place are making a difference.
Sure.
But I think it is a longer term proposition to get to where we need to be.
Sure. And I'll take I take your point that you, you know, delivery, there's deadlines, pressures, and all that sort of thing. But I just want to ask about well-being and support because NEMA ranks 103 out of 112 agencies. And my office has been approached by a number of people with stories of bullying and harassment and stories of very poor culture in the agency. And last year, 15% of respondents to the APS employee census reported bullying or harassment at NEMA. That's 50% higher than the APS average. So you've talked about, well, we need more direction, and actually it's a high pressure environment, so that probably accounts for the churn. What accounts for bullying and harassment? How are you going to stop that? That's that's that's totally unacceptable.
I agree. The numbers are way too high. You never you never um have an organisation that has zero cases of bullying and harassment. Um as much as we possibly can, but in the right way, not because people don't want to report it. What we have seen is an increase in reporting of bullying and harassment, which paradoxically is for us um heartening that people are trusting in the systems that they feel confident that they can report bullying and harassment, but the number remains way too high, and it is another area of focus in our census action plan. Again, we've done a bit of a deep dive into the data to try and identify where that's occurring. Um there'll be some targeted action around that, but at a general level, uh we have put in place um greater capacity for people to navigate our policies in the organisation and to understand what their entitlements are. We rolled out a um capability called on point, OMB point, which is a confidential service that um that our employees can go to in addition to EAP, so not EAP, that helps them understand how they can report how what supports are available to them if they do uh experience in bullying and harassment, but I I you get no disagreement from me. It's absolutely an area of focus for us going forward, and we'll be putting in place measures to try and drive that down, as I say, appropriately without styming people's capacity or desire to report those things when they do occur.
So I'll wait for another. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Senator Popock. Senator Polley.