Smart recruitment on the way for VPS

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Victorian agencies will enjoy a more user-friendly recruitment system and better statistics thanks to an IT upgrade being led by the Victorian Public Sector Commission.

Changes undertaken to the eRecruitment system, used by all VPS departments and Victoria Police, will streamline the hiring process, improve analytic capability and reduce the amount of work that goes into taking on new staff from both inside and outside the VPS.

The upgrade will include modifying the eRecruitment system to implement the Victorian government’s hiring de-identification pilot program, removing candidates’ demographic information such as name, age, gender, cultural background during the screening and shortlisting process to counteract bias.

The work, currently underway, is being carried out by recruitment consulting firm PeopleScout at the behest of the VPSC. The majority of improvements will go up over the next six months.

Some of the improvements include:

• standardisation of key workflow steps across the user base, ensuring better measurement of the efficiency of the recruitment and selection process.
• redevelopment of the application form. The new form is designed to collate demographic data and to be user-friendly to minimise candidates’ effort in applying for roles.
• introduction of a more powerful reporting tool. The new reporting tool will provide individual user organisations and the VPSC access to a state of the art reporting overlay that will significantly improve analytical capability.
• improved talent management functionality, allowing organisations to create and maintain their own pools of prequalified candidates for specific role types, assisting in reducing time and costs to hire.
• introduction of an on-boarding module to capture an appointee’s personal data from their original application and feed it directly into a payroll system.

Victorian Public Sector Commissioner Belinda Clark says the upgrade will make life easier for public servants using the system.

“The eRecruitment system is an end to end recruitment system which has proven to be cost effective and easy to use for all aspects of the hiring process,” she argues.

“With its new program enhancements, it will further improve the hiring experience for managers, recruiters and candidates.”

The commissioner says the upgrade aims to build on the system’s current success by providing a more dynamic, robust and responsive tool for human resources officers and managers, providing information they need to inform workforce planning strategies across their organisations.

Improved reporting will help agencies understand better who is applying for jobs, a key tool in improving diversity within the public sector. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Willing to Work report on older people and people with disability in the workforce recommended collecting and reporting more demographic data about the public sector workforce to help with making progress on targets.

South Australia’s Commissioner for Public Sector Employment Erma Ranieri identified improved baseline statistics as a priority early on in her tenure to enable her to see what’s happening in the government workforce and advise appropriately.

Victoria and South Australia aren’t the only jurisdictions thinking about upgrading their recruitment tools. The Australian Public Service Commission’s report, Unlocking Potential — the Australian Public Service Workforce Management Contestability Review, recommended an overhaul or replacement of APSjobs.gov.au.