APS recruitment

The new federal government led by Anthony Albanese has pledged to revitalise a public service gutted by staffing cuts over the past decade. The public service has been forced to rely on consultants and labour-hire firms partly because of the limit imposed by governments on the number of staff it can have at any one […]

With the pace of technological change accelerating the provision and delivery of public services, it’s difficult to pinpoint specific skills an effective future public servant will need, says Neal Woolrich, director of HR advisory at consulting firm Gartner. Woolrich prefers to take a more dynamic approach. He’s identified three broad skill sets that will likely […]

Would you like to know how difficult it is for the APS to fill key digital roles during a global skills shortage? “Every time we advertise for a cybersecurity vacancy on APS Jobs, there are approximately 250 other employers posting the same vacancy on Seek,” says Rina Bruinsma, acting deputy commissioner of the Australian Public […]

‘COVID showed what your employer really thought of you’, is a statement that captures the undercurrents of employee experience during the pandemic. The early rush to remote working was quickly accompanied by managers questioning employee productivity, the loss of workplace culture (oddly enough through the loss of ‘water cooler’ conversation that the same manager would […]

In February 2022, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president of the Senate fulfilled a key recommendation of a report that exposed the unsafe nature of parliamentary workplaces when they delivered statements of acknowledgement in both chambers. That report, the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces, was the result of consultations and […]

Good recruitment is fine but government departments and agencies have to focus on retaining their high-performing talent, too.

When the screens go dark in the office or the power goes off at home, we’re reminded of the unseen critical infrastructure we rely on every day. The APS is also dependent on hidden workforce infrastructure that is easily overlooked but critical to generating workforce capability and delivering organisational performance. The technologies that enable work […]

Public sector employee surveys help government officials determine if staff are satisfied and what weaknesses need to be addressed to improve workplaces. The APS census regularly taps into employee attitudes on workplace performance, engagement, leadership and personal wellbeing. For instance, 81% of respondents in the service-wide 2021 results said their workgroup had the appropriate skills, […]

‘Great place to work’ lists are regularly peppered with well-established organisations, though they now feature more technology companies than representatives from any other sector. This is because tech companies tend to invest in workplace innovation as a core strategy. Encouraging employees to explore new ways of working can nurture better-connected cultures and accelerate product development. […]

Despite the high barriers to market entry, craft brewers are proliferating and growing. The artisanal appeal isn’t just limited to beer, wine and gin. The ‘great resignation’ has prompted many employees and some businesses to think about how to strike the right balance between work and life through more varied and crafted careers. The drivers […]

Long-standing job vacancies in the Australian Public Service have been harder to fill in the past two years.

A perfect storm of pandemic-accelerated digital transformation, lofty Federal Government aspirations and reduced migration is making life difficult for APS recruiters. As has been endlessly observed, a once-in-a-century pandemic has turbo-charged the digital transformation process across the developed world. As has been somewhat less remarked on, that pandemic has bought this nation’s skilled migration program […]