Sustainability, Agility and Flexibility in Employment Arrangements

Developing sustainable and flexible industrial instruments, policies and structures that recognise and reward achievement and capability.

Workplace Relations, Awards and Agreements

SSMO supports agencies and provides advice on workplace relations matters to ensure a collaborative and cooperative approach to workplace relations matters including awards, industrial disputes, terminations and other matters affecting employees.

During the year, 18 interim-salary related Agreements were negotiated to be registered in the Tasmanian Industrial Commission in early 2019-20. The Agreements cover major employment groups, including the Public Sector Unions Wages Agreement, which applies to the majority of TSS employees; Nurses and Midwives; Teachers; Allied Health Professionals; Ambulance Tasmania employees; Tasmania Fire Service employees; Correctional Officers and TasTAFE employees.

Salary increases provided a 12 month back paid increase of 2.1% (back paid to 12 months after the last increase). In addition, a one off payment of either 0.15% for employees paid a base salary of up to $80,000 or $120 for employees on a base salary of $80,000 or more. A further 0.25% increase was included from the date of registration of the new Agreement.

Workforce Planning

The TSS continued to emphasise the importance and value of workforce planning in 2018-19 and investigated ways to support agencies in their strategic workforce planning activities. This included the review of the Workforce Planning Handbook, to be included as part of a set of online resources, and a trial of Microsoft Teams to allow ongoing communication and collaboration by the Workforce Planning Community. Phase one of the trial was successful, with the system allowing the trial group to collaborate on documents and set up working groups to share information on projects.

Ongoing one-on-one support and advice was also provided to a number of agencies on the development of their strategic workforce planning activities, including providing advice on future workforce needs and how to address identified workforce issues, and supporting improvement in workforce planning capabilities.

State Service Vacancy Management

The revised Managing Positions in the Tasmanian State Service framework continued to support agencies to manage their employment needs according to current priorities. A total of 46 Targeted and Negotiated Voluntary Redundancies were progressed, and 26 people left the TSS after accepting a Workforce Renewal Incentive Payment.

Activities Resulting from External Examinations

In 2018-19, the Auditor-General tabled one new performance report in Parliament, Report of the Auditor-General
No. 7 2018-19 Performance Management in the Tasmanian State Service: A focus on quality conversations.

The Report found that overall the participating agencies all demonstrated a commitment to improving the quality of performance and development conversations. It also recommended the application of a tool to assist agencies in further improving the quality of conversations in performance management. From the Report, a self-assessment checklist has been developed to identify key areas to focus on to continue to improve performance management.

There were no reports by the Integrity Commission tabled in 2018-19 which directly related to State Service employment.

The following table outlines the current status of activities in response to recent external examination reports.

Agency Activities

As in previous years, agency workforce planning activities in 2018-19 varied from isolated activities to those that were part of a formal strategic workforce plan. Plans and activities were reported at all levels, and included initiatives aimed at specific occupational groups, business units, divisions and at the agency level. Agency strategic workforce planning priorities covered a wide-range of issues, however commonly recurring issues that plans aimed to address included the implementation of new policies, and:

• identifying and developing workforce, management and leadership capabilities;
• behaviours, values and culture;
• shaping the workforce to meet the needs of the community;
• recruitment and effective working arrangements; and
• improving workplace diversity and inclusion.

Agencies also reported the development of their own workforce planning resources, as well as the recruitment of dedicated business analysts to support workforce planning activities and help improve the data literacy of their managers.

In addition to this, agencies identified workforce planning strategies and activities to address identified issues that included:

• creating a workforce strategy project team;
• building workplace culture;
• activities to support capability development and performance management;
• involving staff in the development of strategies;
• implementing strategies to increase gender diversity; and
• activities to support workplace diversity.

2019-20 Priorities

In 2018-19 a total of 854 employees took paid maternity leave, 143 took paid parental leave and two took paid adoption leave. A further 674 employees took unpaid maternity or parental leave.

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