In this transcript of the Government IQ interview with Benjamin Neal, Acting Assistant Secretary at the Workforce Planning & Reporting branch at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, it demonstrates how the department has created strategies towards an EVP and how the agency is working to retain talent. For more information about this event, please visit www.government-recruitment.com.au or call 02 9229 1000. Or you can email enquire@iqpc.com.au

1. Interview Transcript with Benjamin Neal, Acting Assistant Secretary at
the Workforce Planning & Reporting branch at the Department of
Immigration and Citizenship
Workforce Planning in Government 2011
www.Government-Recruitment.com.au
Government IQ
We’re seeing increased competition for talent in the labour market, so how is the
Department of Immigration and Citizenship really creating strategies to compete?
Benjamin Neal
Well, I suppose if we go back a couple of years in the department, we developed our
first employment value proposition or EVP and this much if you work for [indiscernible]
they will know your ability to attract and retain key talent goes up where the individual
position, they get more in return for their commitment and they’re required to give, so
we’re about equation… is in their favor, you quite can see your ability to attract people
go up. Now, government agencies are very different to each and both practice,
although that officer if you like varies quite considerably, so agencies do face a lot quite
a bit of internal competition within the government so there’s been a lot of time
articulating what it is that makes the lack in Department of Immigration and an attractive
place to work. We over the last couple of years, have reviewed that place to work and
we’re about to launch it again. Clearly, if you’re working in government; job security and
stability is quite often one of the big factors. But things like earning potential or the
salary that you might get is something that we don’t promote as a major incentive
because some agency pay more than we do, in fact, we’re only above the 50%, but we
do of the other things such as the nature and the type of work we do and the find that a
lot of people for the rate for personal and professional labour what to come and work in
the department. I also spent a great deal of time on the diversity side of the equation.
I’m looking at how we can attract and retain people from diversity groups you will have
there.
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2. Government IQ
Beyond this, how is the department planning ahead and forecasting the need for
skill or talent within your agency then?
Benjamin Neal
We have within our business, because we have 8000 people strong, we had many,
many different parts of jobs and different job families. So at the moment, sort of very
strong focus on developing job families and identifying the specific skills and
experiences we need in each of these role. We’re also about to launch out new and
improved local planning process. We’ll take this further – we can take it further by
mapping critical job roles and combining these with an approach around workforce
affordability, workforce capability and capacity and how we sort of take an integrated
approach to talent management. So, we’re really trying to get all those things that we
do in a piecemeal unplanned way and line them all up, so that we’re conducting them
with consideration for each other, and then that will give us further… as I mentioned
before, more sort of a human capital management approach to how we get the best
data available obtained.
Government IQ
Government departments usually have a really high retention rate with mean
tenure of being about 7 years, so what government does really post other risks
such as aging workforce, so what are your workforce and succession plans to
address this issue?
Benjamin Neal
We have very low tenture-dom in the department, but conversely, we have a really high
degree of lateral movement and mobility, so we find that people tend to move around
the department quite a bit. It keeps people from a positive side, just keeps people fresh
and allows them to develop multiple careers in one agency and it gives people a sense
of renewal when they might have a wider look outside of the organisation. So as you
rightly point out, but we do get people with significant tenure and we need to manage
their expectations and their careers as well. We’re taking a much more integrated
approach again to the way we do talent succession management by combining this with
our business and workforce planning processes. So, we’ve got a metrics and analytics
center of excellence here in DIC which does quite a deal of workforce planning and
reporting, particularly on the reporting side and they enable us to analyse the workforce
and look at areas where we probably need to intervene and then we design
interventions around that so we know that we have quite an aging senior executive
service in this department and then in the next 5 to 10 years, a significant proportion of
those like on a turnover, but we’re in the process now of launching senior executive
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3. service succession planning process where we’ll be looking at the junior cohort and
looking at individual readiness over the next 18 to 36 months for people who are likely
given the appropriate development opportunities going to be able to step up into those
leadership roles. So we’ve previously allowed that to be line management-led function
and succession management has been like that. We’re going to take a much more
central and active approach to managing succession particularly in those critical job
roles and leadership roles.
Government IQ
In your response, you mentioned junior employees in your organization. So, how
do you create and design talent management program that promote mentoring
and career progression for them?
Benjamin Neal
Well, I think that’s a little more difficult. The short answer would be, by understanding
both the needs of your organisation from the succession in talents perspective and also
the personal and professional preference of an individual. I think one of the key parts of
any good talent management process is that you think not only to catalog what the
organisation needs from its critical job roles and from its task people, but you
understand the needs of your talent people and their preferences so that you can create
that beautiful mix of where those two can come together. It’s very easy to say and not
easy to do, but that is where we want to get and that’s what we’re trying to do. Some of
the most difficult conversations you can have with staff are those where talent and
ambition is on the line, and need to give out the same with people managers tools to
having those conversations and ensuring that we invest in areas where we realised a
return on our investment and mentoring and coaching and on-the-job training and stuff
that’s a lot involved than just a classroom. But learning is something where really taking
focus on advance.
Government IQ
When you are reviewing your current training, learning, and some initiatives, what
do you really look out for and how do you actually know what needs to be
updated?
Benjamin Neal
This question you’re asking is quite timely, because our learning and development
branch here in nationals in Canberra had to spend a lot of time researching and
developing a new global integrated curriculum. That global integrated curriculum is a
full package of learning and development program that is made to create national
consistency and a program which all of our staff irrespective of which job family they are
in can draw down on the core foundation – training what they need, the specific role,
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4. specific job-ready training that they need, but also the things that we need in the
leadership and management site. So, it’s a fully integrated curriculum and again, which
I want to take a huge capital management approach to how we implement that so that
we’ve got a full appreciation of the training and development opportunity that we have
on offer, and matching those with personal and professional needs of the individual and
the profession.
Benjamin Neal is the Acting Assistant Secretary at the Workforce, Planning, and
Reporting Branch at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. He’s
speaking at the Workforce Planning and Government Conference this August.
For more information about this even, please visit www.Government-
Recruitment.com.au or call 02-922-9100, or you can e-mail inquire at
IQPC.com.au. Don’t forget, you can also follow us on Twitter at IQPC_Australia.
*Please note, whilst all measures were taken to ensure this transcript’s accuracy, please visit the
event download centre to listen to the entire audio interview.
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