The management of human resources and, in particular, the way the department provides mobility opportunities for staff and undertakes recruitment has resulted in a highly capable and committed workforce that is flexible and able to respond to government priorities.

We recognise that the key to a strong and sustainable mobile workforce is giving staff the chance to build their skills and experience. Finance provides opportunities for mobility to enable staff to work in different roles and undertake different types of work, including project work, ongoing business and surging to high-priority activities. We encourage staff to gain different experiences through temporary or permanent moves within the department and through secondments to other agencies. Providing mobility opportunities supports staff to develop capability in new areas and increases the overall capability of the department.

The department uses a range of mechanisms to promote mobility, as outlined below.

Internal Mobility Register

The Internal Mobility Register enables staff to express their interest in short-, medium- or long- term vacancies within the department. Staff can indicate the areas of the department that are of interest to them. In line with Finance’s approach to increase opportunities for flexible working arrangements, staff can also register their interest in job share arrangements.

The Internal Mobility Register is the main tool used by managers to source staff with particular skills, experience and qualifications to address capability gaps. Human Resources supports managers to fill vacancies by first referring to the Internal Mobility Register to identify possible capability and interest within the department before seeking to source externally.

Stream recruitment

Established in 2017, stream recruitment is a whole-of-department initiative focused on future workforce capability needs. Stream recruitment is designed to assist the department’s shift from the traditional process-driven approach to a contemporary approach where we focus on candidate care and ensuring that we attract, select and retain the capabilities and behaviours we want to see in Finance staff.

During 2017–18, the department conducted recruitment processes for the following professional streams:

• policy
• accounting and financial management
• program and project management
• enabling services.

Stream recruitment is changing the way the department thinks about recruitment to encompass broader resourcing needs and future workforce capability requirements. Business areas now have the opportunity to collaborate across groups to ensure that roles meet broader needs, while still maintaining control over the selection and placement of individuals in their own work areas. As we become more mature in workforce planning, the approach can be tailored to encompass business areas’ existing and forecast resourcing needs, making recruitment more efficient in the longer term. There will continue to be targeted recruitment activities to address technical specialist roles that are not likely to be sourced through the stream recruitment approach.

Surge opportunities

Finance continues to employ its surge model to support a range of additional work associated with the federal Budget, general elections and other peak work priorities across the department. The surge model enables the department to build on its capabilities and provide staff the opportunity to experience different work within the department.

Secondment programs

The department sought nominations from employees from other APS agencies to undertake secondments to support the delivery of the federal Budget. Six staff from five agencies participated in 2017–18.

In 2017–18, two Finance staff members participated in the Jawun APS Secondment Program,where secondees work in an Indigenous business or community.

Consistent with our commitment to stewardship and our support for portfolio entities in 2017–18, we seconded an officer to Australian Naval Infrastructure Pty Ltd to assist with the establishment of the company.

Resource management model

In 2017, Finance established a resource manager role within Human Resources that is responsible for assisting business areas to manage their resource needs. Resource managers have oversight of staff mobility information, recruitment merit pools and the resources available from across the department in order to address vacancies quickly. Resource managers collaborate with business areas to support resource planning and workforce strategy, including strategies to achieve optimal management structures.