To be a sustainable organisation, we must value our people and results equally. It is essential that we attract and support highly skilled, dedicated and productive staff so we can achieve our purpose of improving the lives of Australians.
To this end, during 2008–09, we:
- developed our People Strategy 2009–10: Great People, Great Future
- introduced a new integrated systems of staff surveys
- negotiated our new collective agreement
- developed our Organisational Learning Strategy 2009–2011
- increased our already above-average diversity levels
- trained more mentors for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees and introduced a Cultural Appreciation program
- developed a traineeship for people with intellectual disability, created a dedicated disability access coordinator position, and established a senior disability champion role
- established the FaHCSIA Leadership disAbility Group (FLAG)
- through the new collective agreement increased the annual health and wellbeing payment to employees to $300
Our efforts have enhanced our social performance and set the benchmark for further improvements next year, including in the areas of organisational wellbeing, staff absences, and recruiting people with disability.
Our People Strategy 2009–11
FaHCSIA’s future success depends on the skills, energy and commitment of our staff. As a result, we put a lot of effort into developing our People Strategy 2009–10: Great People, Great Future. The strategy:
- provides an overarching vision for working in FaHCSIA
- focuses on ensuring FaHCSIA is a great place to work and has a strong performance culture
- guides and aligns people management efforts across the organisation
- supports the outcomes in our Strategic Framework 2008–2010.
Implementing this strategy will enable the Department to attract the right people, and support our staff to achieve their full potential.
As part of the People Strategy, we introduced a new integrated system of staff surveys. This includes six-monthly surveys, pulse surveys and entry and exit surveys. The new survey system enables us to monitor our progress and take local and strategic action where needed.
We will use the results to refine the strategy as needed to meet emerging work challenges.
FaHCSIA’s People Strategy 2009–10
Our work conditions
We are a people-oriented department. We know many people are attracted to FaHCSIA by our work and are motivated by flexible working conditions rather than simply pay scales.
Our new collective agreement acknowledges the contribution of our staff by offering competitive remuneration and work conditions that reflect and build on our reputation as a family-friendly organisation. Options include:
- flexible salary packaging
- work-life balance information and referral services (for example, links to child care, elder care, and lifestyle management)
- school holiday family care subsidy for employees who have to return from leave during school holidays
- family care rooms (where possible)
- flextime, part-time and home-based work
- various types of leave—for example, cultural leave, NAIDOC Week leave, community volunteering leave, purchased leave, sabbatical leave, adoptive leave, parental leave, compassionate leave
- executive level employee time off in lieu
- time off after long business travel.
FaHCSIA’s Collective Agreement 2009–2011
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