DIMIA Annual Report 2004-05
Management of human resources
The department has 5754 employees, 61 per cent of whom are women (this does not include locally engaged staff overseas administered by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on behalf of the department). This total figure is an increase of 22 per cent on the previous financial year. Details of our staffing profile are at Appendices 3 to 7. A key factor influencing the increase in staffing numbers was the establishment of the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination (OIPC) within the department. The OIPC was established on 1 July 2004. On the same day, programs formerly administered by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS) were transferred to the Australian Government agencies that provide services to the wider community. The department was involved in mapping former ATSIC and ATSIS staff to positions within the various government portfolios, including that of immigration and multicultural and Indigenous affairs.
These machinery of government changes had a considerable impact on the management of our human resources. We successfully negotiated a Certified Agreement with OIPC staff that aligned OIPC conditions with the core conditions of the DIMIA Certified Agreement 2004-2007. The OIPC Certified Agreement will expire on 29 January 2007 in line with the DIMIA Certified Agreement and is intended to be replaced by a department-wide agreement.
DIMIA's Certified Agreement 2004-2007 was certified by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission on 29 July 2004. The new Certified Agreement supports our business agenda by including a provision for small numbers of staff to work patterns of hours that vary from the department's standard hours. These arrangements support changes to the delivery of our business linked to the global working strategy, in particular in the telephone contact centres and e-visa processing units. The agreement also included pay rises at the Australian Public Service average and some enhancements to conditions that help staff balance their work and personal lives.
The department uses Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) for the Senior Executive Service (SES) staff and in a targeted way for other staff to meet identified business needs. AWAs are used to attract and retain employees, especially those with specialist skills or those performing their duties in remote locations or with additional responsibilities.
Ninety SES staff and 215 non-SES staff are covered by AWAs.
Non-salary benefits are provided to staff under AWAs who have particular managerial responsibilities. The benefits may include private-plated government vehicles (usually for senior staff in regional offices with significant representational responsibilities), mobile phones, access to a personal computer and assistance with accommodation(for staff who are relocating for work purposes).
Productivity gains continue to be delivered by global working. Global working is now the core mechanism for delivering a large percentage of the department's work and includes:
- the repatriation of visa processing work from departmental offices offshore to designated visa processing centres in Australia enabling more targeted use of the department's overseas resources, particularly for integrity checking
- the establishment of client contact centres in Sydney and Melbourne which centralise the handling of client inquiries
- electronic lodgement and automated checking/visa decision-making where possible.
These initiatives, in conjunction with a slight growth in demand for departmental visa and citizenship services, have led to an increase in the number of staff working in Australia. We managed this growth in workload through a deliberate increase in ongoing recruitment. We also relied on non-ongoing and contract labour to fill some vacancies as and when the need arose. The flexibility afforded through this process was important for us given the trial nature of global processing initiatives in some offices and the need to quickly increase the number of staff. Many non-ongoing and contract staff have subsequently competed successfully for ongoing entry level vacancies.
The Departmental Online Recruitment System (DORS) has continued to support the department's increased recruitment activity. The online processing and assessment of applicants has reduced the resources required to support the routine components of the recruitment process. This streamlined and more efficient approach has been of particular benefit to state and territory offices which have all experienced growth in staffing numbers. The ongoing use of bulk recruitment rounds has also achieved productivity gains for the department.
The growth in staffing in state and territory offices has substantially changed the structure and nature of work in those offices. Regional offices are continuing to examine their work processes, with a view to combining job elements to achieve a more varied workload and to facilitate career progression. These changes are being supported in some offices by entry-level training and development programs.
These developments are occurring in the context of the department's National Training Framework. The National Training Framework establishes a set of national principles to guide training activity in the department and an annual planning cycle to identify national training priorities. Its focus is to ensure that our investment in training aligns with our business priorities. Our People Management Committee has responsibility for managing the National Training Framework and overseeing its implementation across the department.
The national training priorities for the department in 2004-05 are:
- induction
- client contact
- quality decision making
- contract management
- supervision and management.
Progress has been made in developing and delivering training across the department in each of these five priority areas.
As part of the comprehensive training provided to all officers preparing for overseas service, the department now ensures that staff receive training in the core and accreditation modules of these priority areas so they can deliver this training to locally engaged employees overseas. We have recognised the importance of such training, especially given the changing nature of our overseas network.
The department has a devolved approach to training in which divisions and state and territory offices are responsible for, developing and delivering program-specific training. To support and manage this approach to staff training, we have developed and implemented a Training and Events system. This is a key component of the infrastructure supporting our National Training Framework, making it simpler for staff to know what courses are available within the department and providing the ability for staff to nominate for courses through a standard online process. The system creates significant efficiencies for the department in the administration of training. Training and Events also supports a more structured evaluation of training programs, including having supervisors assess the impact of training on employee skills.
Given the highly dynamic nature of the department's business operations, we have traditionally operated a devolved approach to workforce planning. We have undertaken a workforce risk assessment at the whole-of-organisation level, including scenario planning, demand and supply forecasting, and identifying agency-specific workforce risks. To help business managers undertake this function, we continue to refine our Workforce Planning Framework, which describes our approach to workforce planning as well as the activities to be undertaken as part of workforce planning processes.