Our organisations exist to deliver high-quality services to the people of NSW. To do this, they need to attract and recruit top talent and ensure that organisational structures are effectively designed to achieve stated strategies and missions.
Mission, vision and strategy
Employees in the public sector should understand how their role fits into their organisation’s overall mission, vision and strategy. Understanding their role in the context of the wider organisation will enable every employee to understand how their individual contribution adds value in the overall mission of delivering for our customers. This, in turn, will increase employee engagement.
My manager communicates how my role contributes to my organisation's purpose
67.8% in 2021
Source: People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) (2021)
Governance, risk and innovation
To ensure we deliver the highest quality services, our approach to governance, risk and innovation is critical.
- Governance revolves around the rules, processes and systems by which an organisation is controlled and operates. It includes decision-making processes and how the organisation and its employees are held accountable. Accountability is one of the four core NSW public sector values. It is about taking responsibility for decisions and actions, and can add meaning to work and foster engagement.
- Risk refers to the effect of uncertainty in achieving work goals. Risk can also be an opportunity.
- Innovation in the public sector context means creating new and better products, processes, services and technologies to improve outcomes for the people of NSW. A healthy risk appetite can help promote innovation.
Employee perceptions of decision-making and accountability
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| I have confidence in the decisions my manager makes | 72.6 | 0.2 |
| People in my organisation take responsibility for their own actions | 49.8 | 2.1 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Employee confidence in the way their organisation handles grievances: 46.1%
up from 44.8% in 2020
Employee perceptions of risk and innovation: 74.8%
favourable overall
up from 74.6% in 2020
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Employee perceptions of risk and innovation
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| I am comfortable notifying my manager if I become aware of any risks at work | 87.3 | -0.9 |
| My manager encourages people in my workgroup to keep improving the work they do | 75.9 | 0.6 |
| My manager encourages me to learn from my mistakes | 72.7 | 0.4 |
| My organisation is making improvements to meet future challenges | 62.3 | 0.2 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Case study: Infrastructure traineeship program boosts job opportunities for NSW youth
School Infrastructure NSW introduced a two-year paid traineeship program for NSW school leavers. Find out how the agency collaborated across government to produce a unique program giving trainees valuable exposure to the public infrastructure industry.
Organisation and role design
Organisational and role design refers to defining the organisational structures, employee roles and workforce plans to support the business to deliver results. These are critical to ensuring an agency has the workforce capability and structure to effectively deliver services to customers.
Employee perceptions of job purpose and enrichment
71.8% favourable overall
Employee perceptions of job purpose and enrichment
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) |
|---|---|
| In the last 12 months, I have received feedback to help me improve my work | 64.8 |
| My job gives me opportunities to use a variety of skills | 81.0 |
| I have a choice in deciding how I carry out day-to-day work tasks | 73.3 |
| My manager communicates how my role contributes to my organisation’s purpose | 67.8 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Employee perceptions of role clarity and support
66.7% favourable overall
up from 65.7% in 2020
Employee perceptions of role clarity and support
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| I understand what is expected of me to do well in my job | 85.3 | 0.9 |
| I get the support I need to do my job well | 65.9 | 1.1 |
| I have the tools and technology to do my job well | 71.0 | -0.4 |
| I have the time to do my job well | 56.0 | -0.9 |
| My performance is assessed against clear criteria | 57.3 | 2.0 |
| I have received the training and development I need to do my job well | 64.8 | 3.1 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Employee perceptions of being paid fairly for the work they do
58.8%
down from 62.6% in 2020
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Recruitment
Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening and onboarding people. It is an important, high-volume activity for the sector, which is the largest employer in Australia. In 2021, over half a million applications were submitted through the I work for NSW recruitment system.
Growing the sector’s capabilities means recruiting the right people. Although employee perceptions of recruitment remain poor, they have improved this year. Time to hire has also decreased each year since 2017 and is now at a record low of 38.6 days.
517,929 job applications
completed via I work for NSW in 2021
Source: Recruitment data collection (2021)
Note: The 2021 recruitment data now includes data from Cornerstone for 2019 to 2021, and from SuccessFactors and PageUp for the 2020–21 financial year, for selected agencies, with slight adjustments to time-to-hire methodology.
Source: Recruitment data collection (2017–21)
Employee perceptions of recruitment
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| I have confidence in the way recruitment decisions are made | 41.5 | 3.3 |
| My organisation generally selects capable people to do the job | 54.9 | 2.6 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Case study: Department of Customer Service uses 'recruitment accelerator' to deliver world-class recruitment journey for candidates and hiring managers
NSW Department of Customer Service (DCS) wanted to improve the hiring process for its staff and applicants. Find out how it used human-centred design to create its 'recruitment accelerator' – a one-stop shop for fulfilling all its recruitment needs.
Mobility
Exploring new opportunities is an exciting part of the I work for NSW employee value proposition. A mobile workforce makes it easier to redeploy resources to match priorities and respond effectively to change and emerging trends. It is a powerful way to get the right person into the right job quickly and infuse innovative ideas and practices into a workplace. Employee mobility is also widely regarded as one of the best ways to develop leadership capability, provide enriching careers, and build and retain capability and ‘know-how’.
Employees who moved to another agency: 1.8%
up from 1.6% in 2020
Employees considering another role within the sector: 38.0%
down from 40.3% in 2020
Employee perceptions of the barriers to moving to another role
| Question | 2021 (%) | 2020 (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Personal/family considerations | 28.9 | 29.6 |
| Lack of visible opportunities | 28.6 | 32.2 |
| Lack of promotion opportunities | 27.4 | 30.9 |
| Geographic location considerations | 23.8 | 27.2 |
| The application/recruitment process is too cumbersome or time consuming | 21.4 | 23.7 |
| Insufficient training and development | 14.3 | 15.9 |
| Lack of support for temporary assignments/secondments | 13.7 | 15.9 |
| Lack of required capabilities or experience | 11.9 | 12.7 |
| Lack of support from my manager/supervisor | 11.0 | 11.9 |
| Other | 9.8 | 9.8 |
| There are no major barriers to my career progression | 28.8 | 25.7 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Case study: Multicultural NSW supports the community during NSW’s pandemic lockdowns
Multicultural NSW has traditionally focused on supporting the multicultural community of NSW through community engagement and the provision of interpreting and translation services. These services were vital during the first COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, and again in the face of the Delta outbreak and lockdown this year.
Digital and customer service
Customer satisfaction is a key measure of the performance of the NSW public sector. The multiple and varied parts of the sector share a common goal – delivering services that make NSW a great place to live, work, visit and invest in. We want our services to be easy to use, high quality and accessible to all.
The Customer Experience Unit in the Department of Customer Service developed the Customer Satisfaction Measurement Survey (CSMS) in 2013. A key survey output is the Customer Satisfaction Index. The index assesses:
- how satisfied customers are with a government service
- how close their experience is to their expectations of that service
- how close their experience is to an ideal service.
It is scored out of 100. A higher score means that customers are more satisfied overall. Scores can be averaged across services to produce a score for the whole sector.
The Department of Customer Service is redesigning the CSMS in 2021. The data from the redesigned CSMS is not yet available and will not be comparable to previous years’ data. As such, we have used the latest results, from 2020, to highlight the sector’s increasing ability to meet customer needs.
Source: CSMS (2016–20)
Employee perceptions of customer service
72.9% favourable overall
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| I am empowered to make the decisions needed to help customers and/or communities | 70.7 | - |
| Senior managers communicate the importance of customers in our work | 70.2 | -0.1 |
| The processes in my organisation are designed to support the best experience for customers | 60.7 | 3.0 |
| My workgroup considers customer needs when planning our work | 83.3 | - |
| My organisation meets the needs of the communities, people, and businesses of NSW | 69.9 | 1.1 |
| People in my workgroup can explain how our work impacts customers | 81.4 | - |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Case study: NSW Health’s mass vaccination centre increases capacity to vaccinate our employees and the people of NSW
NSW Health had an extraordinary year of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope arrived with an exciting milestone that protects the sector’s frontline workers and the wider community: vaccines. Find out more about the rollout of the NSW Health vaccination program.
Collaboration
The 14 Premier’s Priorities cannot be achieved by a single agency operating in isolation. Delivering for the people of NSW requires agencies to work together and share knowledge, internally and with other sectors.
Well-executed collaboration enables agencies to share knowledge, ideas, resources, skills, networks and assets, leading to better outcomes for our customers. Across the sector, employee perceptions of teamwork and collaboration within and across organisations have improved slightly since 2020. This is encouraging, especially in a sector that has had to adapt to the challenges of hybrid and flexible ways of working.
Employee perceptions of teamwork and collaboration: 67.3%
favourable overall
up from 66.0% in 2020
| Question | 2021 (% favourable) | Change from 2020 (pp) |
|---|---|---|
| My workgroup works collaboratively to achieve its goals | 79.2 | 0.8 |
| There is good team spirit in my workgroup | 75.6 | 1.5 |
| There is good co-operation between teams across my organisation | 56.7 | 2.3 |
| Senior managers promote collaboration between my organisation and other organisations we work with | 56.5 | 0.5 |
Source: PMES (2020, 2021)
Case study: Emergency Services Portfolio Project Team provides rapid support during emergencies
The people of NSW have experienced a range of life-disrupting emergencies over the past two years, from bushfires and floods to a global pandemic. Find out how Service NSW supported the creation of several specific project teams to deliver services quickly to the people most affected.