2017–18 Annual Report - Part 4: Management and accountability - Human resources

Human resources

ARPANSA’s People and Culture section is responsible for the delivery of a wide range of people services including workforce planning, recruitment, pay and conditions, performance management, learning and development and workplace diversity.

During 2017–18, key achievements in the section included:

• implementing ARPANSA’s Workforce Plan 2017–2021
• launching the ARPANSA Learning Strategy, including implementation of an online learning management system.

Workforce Plan 2017–2021

ARPANSA’s Workplace Plan 2017–2021 (the Plan) was developed during 2016–17, with implementation commencing during 2017–18. The Plan was developed to enable ARPANSA to achieve its objectives through its people. The objectives of the Plan are based around:

• our people: a workforce of high performing professionals
• our managers: leaders of engaged and agile teams
• our employee experience: a collaborative and innovative culture
• our strategic alignment: leading practice services which deliver on ARPANSA’s purpose.

In the first year of the Plan, a number of initiatives and activities were undertaken in support of the six people management strategies and four supporting frameworks.

Workforce and succession planning

ARPANSA has developed a strategic and future‑focused workforce planning and succession strategy. The strategy describes the capability and capacity required to deliver ARPANSA’s future strategic agenda and respond to internal and external change drivers. In the first year, a succession planning exercise was undertaken with the objective of identifying the vacancy risk and potential future successors. A key outcome of the processes undertaken to date has been the encouragement of mobility across the agency. APRANSA has identified
opportunities for collaboration and sharing of resources across branches and offices to achieve strategic objectives.

Attraction and recruitment

The attraction and recruitment processes undertaken by ARPANSA are continually revised to ensure they allow for a standardised, effective and objective approach to all recruitment activities undertaken. During the year, 29 successful recruitment campaigns were undertaken. These campaigns included the engagement of 12 new starters. To support new starters to understand ARPANSA’s purpose and the obligations of individuals employed by the APS, a new induction program has been developed and implemented.

Learning strategy

In October 2017, ARPANSA implemented a learning strategy, with the objectives:

• enable the capability, productivity and performance required to achieve ARPANSA strategic objectives
• enable high quality, purposeful and application-ready learning and knowledge sharing experiences
• leverage a wide range of leading practice learning and knowledge sharing methodologies.

Two key activities that have been delivered as part of the learning strategy have been the implementation of an online learning management system, LearnHub and the development of ‘ARPANSA Knowledge’. ARPANSA Knowledge has been developed as a resource within LearnHub to support the sharing of scientific and technical knowledge and skills. The benefits of this knowledge sharing tool include increased visibility of knowledge and capabilities between organisational units, greater collaboration across ARPANSA, and more comprehensive support to managers as they undertake staff development and enable employability. Further details are provided in case study 4.

Diversity and inclusion

ARPANSA implemented a Diversity and Inclusion Plan which came into effect on 1 July 2017. This plan set outs initiatives across the six key areas of inclusion: gender equity, flexibility, LGBTIQ+, people with a disability, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Branch and office heads have taken up the opportunity to be a champion of each initiative, with a range of activities having been undertaken within ARPANSA, and more broadly across the APS. In support of the commitments that ARPANSA has made in the Diversity and Inclusion Plan, all employees completed a respectful workplaces online learning module in February 2018.

Health and wellbeing

Throughout the year, ARPANSA undertakes a number of activities that aim to support the wellbeing of its staff. These activities cover aspects of psychosocial health, relationships, finance and physical protection and include onsite Employee Assistance Program sessions, and promotion of activities in support of key awareness campaigns such as R U OK? Day.

Employment arrangements

As at 30 June 2018, ARPANSA employed 129 employees, and one statutory office holder. All ARPANSA employees are engaged under the Public Service Act 1999. The types of employment arrangements in operation by the agency during 2017–18 are outlined below.

Enterprise Agreement

The ARPANSA Enterprise Agreement 2017–2020 (the Agreement) came into effect on 31 August 2017. The Agreement outlines the terms and conditions of employment for all non-SES staff. The Agreement contains an individual flexibility arrangement term, which enables the Agency to vary the operation of specified terms and conditions provided under the Agreement for individual non-SES staff where necessary and appropriate. At 30 June 2018, eight such arrangements were in place.

Individual determinations under the Public Service Act 1999

No employees are covered by Section 24 — all details of SES pay are covered by ‘remuneration for senior officials’.

Australian workplace agreements

No ARPANSA employees are covered by Australian workplace agreements.

Common law contracts

There are five common law contracts in place across the agency.

Non-salary benefits

Under its enterprise agreement and common law contracts, ARPANSA staff are able to seek access to a range of non-salary benefits including the following:

• flexible working arrangements, including flextime (APS levels 1 to 6 only), job sharing, and part-time and home-based work
• generous parental/maternity leave provisions
• generous range of paid and unpaid leave options
• study assistance
• employee assistance program.

Remuneration for senior officials

The agency maintained a remuneration position consistent with equivalent public sector entities during 2017–18. Base salaries and inclusions, such as the allowance paid in lieu of a motor vehicle, complied with Government policy and guidelines. Total remuneration for SES staff may have included non-monetary inclusions or reimbursements for mobile phones and laptops/tablets.

As a Commonwealth entity, ARPANSA publishes information detailing the scope and value of remuneration for executive and other highly paid staff on the website.

APS census

The APS employee census is an annual employee perception survey of the APS workforce. In 2018, over 140 000 employees from 101 agencies were invited to participate. In the 2018 APS Employee Census held in May and June, 83 per cent of ARPANSA staff participated, compared with an overall APS participation rate of 74 per cent. While the census reports on a number of topics, one of the key figures reported is the employee engagement score. The Australian Public Service Commission uses the definition of employee engagement as the extent to which employees are motivated, inspired and enabled to improve an organisation’s outcomes. In 2018, the ARPANSA employee engagement score was 73 per cent, compared with the APS overall average of 71 per cent.

Performance and rewards

ARPANSA’s approach to performance and reward is to create a culture of ongoing feedback to support continuous development. This enables the agency to perform even more effectively in the future, focus on those activities most critical to realising ARPANSA’s strategic objectives, and provide recognition of achievements, innovative approaches and enterprise contributions.

There is no provision for the payment of performance pay in ARPANSA’s EA or Common Law Contracts.

ARPANSA award

The ARPANSA Award was first established in 2001 to recognise and celebrate significant contributions to the work of ARPANSA by an individual or team, across the following criteria:

• outstanding service to internal or external stakeholders
• an outstanding initiative which has been implemented
• significant improvements to work procedures or operations systems
• exceptional initiative/achievement involving cross-unit cooperation
• outstanding contributions to enhancing the client experience
• exemplar of the APS’s code of conduct values and upholds professionalism in all capacities when interacting with clients and stakeholders.

The 2017 ARPANSA Award was presented to the UV Network Upgrade team for their excellent multi-section cross-agency teamwork and outstanding performance in the delivery of renewed UVR measurement technology. This included IT systems and website displays ensuring that the Australian community continued to have access to real-time UVR data on transition to the new ARPANSA website. High achievement certificates were also awarded to:

• Michael Litwin for the outstanding work in ensuring that the new BeOSL and TASL-n technologies can be implemented as commercial services within Personal Radiation Monitoring Service
• the Communications team for the delivery of the new ARPANSA website, implementation of the new ARPANSA brand and the coordination of the SunSmart launch
• the ‘SunSmart’ team for the exceptional collaboration across ARPANSA to implement the SunSmart procedures, delivering outstanding service to internal and external stakeholders by raising their awareness of sun protection requirements, which in turn keeps stakeholders, staff and visitors safer from the harmful effects of UVR.

The ARPANSA Social Club

The ARPANSA Social Club endeavours to create a healthy workplace and provide a range of social functions to allow all staff to be involved in events throughout the year. The social events are an opportunity for staff from different sections to meet and mingle.

The social club hosts a range of events, including morning teas, lunches and fundraising activities. None of the events would happen without the hard work of those staff who volunteer their time and effort to be a part of the social club committee to ultimately benefit all staff.

Staffing statistics

As at 30 June 2018 ARPANSA employed 129 staff (not including the CEO). No employee identified themselves as indigenous.

Table 2.1 sets out the salary ranges as at 30 June 2018.

Table 2.2 sets out employees by location, gender and APS classification as at 30 June of the respective year. The table shows that 84 per cent of staff are located in the Victorian office.

Table 2.3 shows that of the 129 employees (not including the CEO), 119 are ongoing and 10 are non‑ongoing. Twelve ongoing staff are part-time and four non-ongoing employees are part-time

Table 2.4 shows that as at 30 June 2018 Radiation Health Services is the largest branch with 43 staff, followed by the Corporate Office (32), Medical Radiation Services (23), Regulatory Services (22) Office the CEO (8) and Legal Office (1).