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 Enterprise Agreement 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 that 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 Code of Conduct and values, and upholds professionalism in all capacities when interacting with clients and stakeholders.

The 2018 ARPANSA Award was presented to the coordination team for the Integrated Regulatory Review Service mission undertaken in November 2018 (see: Case study 1: Integrated Regulatory Review Service mission to Australia).

High achievement certificates were also awarded to:

• Australian Clinical Dosimetry Service's Clinical Operations Lead for her work in leading the stereotactic ablative radiation therapy (SABR) project. This project designed the humanoid phantom, including a realistic spine and spinal cord, and developed the treatment plans to test the SABR delivery. (See: Case study 4: stereotactic ablative radiation therapy project.)
• the team who undertook the health study of mobile phone use and incidence of brain tumour. (See: Case study 3: mobile phone use and brain cancer study.)

The ARPANSA Social Club

The ARPANSA Social Club creates a healthy workplace and provides a range of opportunities for staff to be involved in social functions throughout the year.

Social Club hosts a range of events, including morning teas, lunches and fundraising activities. The events are an opportunity for staff from different sections to engage and socialise in a less formal environment. None of the events would happen without the hard work of those staff who volunteer their time and effort to participate in the social club committee to benefit all staff.