Skilling: Training Defence’s civilian workforce | ADM September 2012

Often overlooked in stories about the Department of Defence, the civilian workforce plays an important part in the delivery and sustainment of military capability.

Recent reports in the media about a freeze in the recruitment of civilians in Defence in the wake of the recent federal budget has focussed some attention on this sector of the workforce and raises questions about whether these reports have had an impact on morale and workload.

In addition, does Defence have the right mix of civilian people and skills to deliver what is required of them and is there a formal training and development process to guide them through their careers?

In a written response to ADM, Defence kindly provided answers to these questions, which give an interesting insight into civilian personnel in the workforce.

A career with Defence?

For those considering a career as a civilian within Defence, it is important to understand how Defence manages people across the organisation and where it seeks to position itself in the labour market.

People In Defence is the organisation’s people strategy, for both uniformed and civilian personnel, which seeks to position Defence as an employer of choice in the marketplace. It is intended to guide how people are attracted to, and remain with, Defence in order to deliver Force 2030.

“People are the key to the capability for Defence,” a Defence spokesperson said. “We are continuously looking to recruit and retain capable people.”

Defence asserts it is committed to consistently train, develop and upskill the civilian workforce as a key part of any employment offer.

“We are doing this as part of the current education and training reforms for both Australian Public Service (APS) and ADF personnel. Our commitment is reflected in the recent 2010-11 State of the Service Employee Engagement Report which shows that compared to the wider APS; Defence is performing well in learning and development with respondents more satisfied with their access to effective learning and development,” said the spokesperson.

“In Defence, there is a suite of Personnel Instructions, which provide guidance on a range of learning and development policies, initiatives, programs and activities. Work is currently under way to consolidate all learning and development policies.” The 2010/11Defence Annual Report identified a total of 20,648 APS civilian employees (15,115 Defence and 5,533 DMO) and a further 605 contractors (581/24).

Managing the workforce

Defence relies upon its Defence APS Career and Talent Management (CT M) framework to manage its workforce. The framework is an overarching strategy made up of several interconnected elements, including recruitment, retention, and performance management, the allocation of individuals showing high levels of potential to key roles and targeted learning and development.

In the past, Defence has been an organisation where APS employees largely managed their own careers, but the CT M framework introduces a system which is more focussed on managing development of an individual.

“This framework describes the common leadership, management and administrative skills, knowledge and behaviours for each APS level in Defence, regardless of an individual employee’s Group or geographical location. It has been used to develop learning and development programs to help APS employees transition through key career turning points,” explained the spokesperson.

“Our managers and supervisors are now taking a more active role in the development of the career of their employees and is a part of our employment agreement.” The framework provides the core leadership, management and administrative skills, knowledge and behaviours for each APS classification level in Defence. It also identifies specific requirements for supervisors, managers, and senior executive managers. The launch of the framework was coincident with the roll-out of new mandatory corporate programs.

“New Starters and New Supervisors Program and soon to be developed New Managers Programs were launched at the same time as the Framework,” said the spokesperson. “These learning and development programs have been designed to help employees’ transition through key career turning points.”

Personal development

To provide targeted training and development to APS classifications, Defence launched the Defence APS Core Capabil ity Framework in 2011, used to develop learning and development programs in assisting APS employees with the transition through their career turning points.

In addition, Defence uses the Talent Management Program to identify employees with high potential within the SES Band 1 and EL2 levels and focuses on their career development requirements.

“In Defence, the training and development of personnel needs vary accordingly with the type of role they are fulfilling, some of which are specialised,” explained the spokesperson to ADM. “The Defence APS Job Family Framework which is currently being developed describes the specific technical and learning requirements for all of the different streams of APS work across the organisation.”

Once the Job Family Framework work has been completed it will have determined an occupation profile for each stream. This will then not only provide clarity for workforce planning, but will also identify current work performed. As further benefit, it provides consistency in information for recruitment, career, talent, and succession management.

Training continuum

Training and sustaining a large workforce is a complex task, requiring significant internal processes and procedures. In addition an organisation such as Defence, which has a presence in all states and territories of Australia, must manage complex compliance issues.

“Defence is a Registered Training Organisation and assures Defence wide compliance with nationally recognised training standards including VET legislation, regulatory requirements, licensing and policies that govern education and training,” explained the spokesperson.

The ongoing training of a workforce provides a high degree of capability to an organisation, over and above the personal development needs and goals of an individual employee and external training is one means of achieving this.

In addition to the training pathway identified for a particular stream within Defence, the organisation also supports its employees, should they wish to participate in external education and training.

“Defence APS employees have access to study bank, an assisted study scheme that provides funding and study leave subject to approval,” said the spokesperson. “We also provide a Regional Learning and Development Support Fund to improve accessibility to learning and development for APS employees located outside major metropolitan centres who have limited access to training facilities.”

To freeze or not to freeze?

Reports in the specialist media in the wake of the 2012 Federal Budget focussed in part on a freeze in the recruitment of APS staff over the forward estimates period.

Defence for its part denies any such strategy categorically: “Contrary to public commentary Defence has not implemented a recruitment freeze,” said the spokesperson, albeit without elaboration. Anecdotally, this is not what ADM understands to be the case.

What will certainly happen however is a reduction in the current numbers of civilian personnel employed across Defence, but how this is to be managed is not yet clear.

One example is the Capability Development Group whose Chief, Vice Admiral Peter Jones, is on record as saying that CDG will lose a small number of public service staff as part of the departmental reduction in public servants. In addition the position of Associate Secretary Capability will not be filled. Overall however the cuts are not as bad as had been feared, with around 624 positions to be shed out of a total of over 20,000 equivalent full-time jobs, mostly by way of natural attrition. To place this in perspective, the overall Budget flags a reduction of over 12,000 staff across the public service.

The future of civilians in defence

Managing a civilian workforce into the future is also a complex task and Defence not only has to manage recruitment and retention rates to maintain an adequate level of capability, but it must also ensure that there is the right mix of people and skills in those positions.

Defence says that it has achieved the right mix of skills and has managed to retain an adequate number of personnel to currently meet its needs.

For the future, it points to the range of strategies and initiatives already in place and is developing a Defence-wide mentoring program to complement the Pathways to Change initiative to be implemented across Defence later this year.

The Pathway to Change program was jointly announced by Defence Minister Stephen Smith, Secretary of Defence Duncan Lewis and Chief of Defence Force General David Hurley in March 2012, in response to a number of reviews into ADF culture. Its full title is, Pathways to Change – Evolving ADF Culture (A Strategy for Cultural change and Reinforcement). Defence says that, “As an organisation, in the eyes of Government and the nation, we must be ‘trusted to defend, proven to deliver and respectful always’. This applies as much to the individual Services – Navy, Army and Air Force – as to our APS personnel. And it applies to each of us as individuals – on or off duty, in uniform or not.”

Together the range of programs not only define a career path for a civilian working for Defence in the future, but will guide and shape expectations and behaviour throughout their career.

With the impact of the recent cuts to the Defence budget yet to be felt throughout the organisation, it is perhaps too early to predict future recruitment and retention levels. There is also uncertainty over the domestic economy looking to the future and further budget cuts cannot be ruled out, so how much impact these might have is open for conjecture.