ARPANSA’s People and Culture section is responsible for driving the development and delivery of a wide range of strategic and operational human resource management functions. Working in partnership with ARPANSA’s Executive, branches and offices, the People and Culture section provides services and advice on the agency’s employment framework, including workforce planning, recruitment, pay and conditions, performance management, workplace diversity, and learning and development.

ARPANSA's Workforce Plan

ARPANSA’s Workforce Plan 2017–2021 (the Plan) was developed to enable ARPANSA to achieve its objectives through its people. The objectives of the Plan are based around:

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

Workforce and succession planning

ARPANSA has developed a strategic and future‑focused workforce planning and succession strategy. The Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) identified that ARPANSA has a well-developed strategy to compensate for the departure of qualified staff. The strategy systematically assesses succession risks for every position in the organisation and prioritises the development of competencies that are found to be vulnerabilities to the long-term capability of the organisation. ARPANSA has committed to undertake a workforce planning and succession process on an annual basis.

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. During the year, 14 external recruitment campaigns were undertaken. These campaigns resulted in the engagement of nine new starters.

Learning strategy

ARPANSA’s vision is for employees to have access to capability development programs that clearly link to ARPANSA’s strategic objectives, represent good investment, and are leveraged through pre- and post-training workplace activities. The objectives of the learning strategy are to:

• 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.

ARPANSA's online learning management system, LearnHub, is a key resource for all staff and is supplemented by on-site face-to-face or external conferences. A high-level evaluation of the agency’s capability requirements undertaken in 2019 will drive the learning programs delivered in 2019–2020.

Diversity and inclusion

ARPANSA is a culturally, linguistically and generationally diverse organisation. In 2017, ARPANSA implemented a Diversity and Inclusion Plan which set outs initiatives across 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, undertaking and promoting a range of initiatives within ARPANSA. This has included International Women’s Day; International Day of People with Disability; Flexible Working Day; International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia; NAIDOC Week; National Reconciliation Week and ‘Bright Sparks’—an initiative which aims to improve science communication by presenting technical scientific information in a way that is suitable for a general audience.

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 on-site Employee Assistance Program sessions. Promotion of activities in support of key awareness campaigns are also an important part of the wellbeing program which this reporting period included World Mental Health Day, Men’s Health Week, Women’s Health Week, Skin Cancer Action Week and R U OK? Day.

APS census

The APS employee census is an annual employee perception survey of the APS workforce, with over 130 000 employees invited to participate. At ARPANSA, 83% of employee’s participated in the survey. ARPANSA has continued to strive to create an engaging, supportive and innovative environment through various activities and strategies. The results demonstrate the agency's continued improvement in employee engagement, with ARPANSA having achieved positive outcomes above the APS average on all three indices measured: employee engagement, wellbeing, and innovation.

These results demonstrate that ARPANSA is increasingly committed to driving improved performance, productivity and work outcomes through innovation, and is focused on enabling the practical and cultural elements that allow for a sustainable and healthy working environment.

Employment arrangements

As at 30 June 2019, ARPANSA employed 130 ongoing and non-ongoing employees, and one statutory office holder. ARPANSA also employees staff on an irregular or intermittent basis to support the delivery of our objectives. All ARPANSA employees are engaged under the Public Service Act 1999.

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 non-senior executive service (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. As at 30 June 2019, nine such arrangements were in place. ARPANSA also utilises common law contracts to support the employment arrangements.

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:

• flexible working arrangements, including flextime (Australia Public Service (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
• salary packaging for cars (novated lease), with fringe benefits tax (FBT) applicable
• employee assistance program.

Executive remuneration

As a non-corporate Commonwealth entity, ARPANSA has the following categories of officials covered by the executive remuneration disclosures:

• Key management personnel—this includes the Chief Executive Officer
• Senior executives—Branch and Office Heads and Chief Financial Officer who are responsible for making decisions, or having substantial input into decisions, that affect the operations of the agency.

ARPANSA does not have any other officials who are neither key management personnel nor senior executives and whose total remuneration exceeds the threshold amount ($220,000) for the reporting period.

Remuneration policies and practices

ARPANSA’s CEO is responsible for determining the remuneration policy and the remuneration structure for senior executives. In practice the CEO is supported by ARPANSA’s Executive Group to make remuneration recommendations.

Remuneration governance arrangements

ARPANSA’s framework for determining remuneration is set out in the ARPANSA Enterprise Agreement 2017-2020 and the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973. The employment instruments for determining remuneration for the different categories of ARPANSA officials include:

• The CEO is remunerated under the Remuneration Tribunal (Remuneration and Allowances for Holders of Full-time Public Office) Determination 2018.

• Senior executives are remunerated through a common law contract of employment, or under Annex 1 of the ARPANSA Enterprise Agreement where Clause 32 is applied to provide additional remuneration benefits under an individual flexibility arrangement.

ARPANSA’s remuneration policy and practices are linked to the achievement of the agency’s objectives and performance. Officials’ salaries only increase, generally, on an annual basis as part of a performance review process.

Executive remuneration information