Organisational health and capability

We deliver services that touch the lives of almost every New Zealander in their lifetime. At the same time we are driving large and complex policy and system changes to achieve more effective and efficient outcomes for New Zealanders. The Ministry must achieve a significant step-change to deliver Government priorities – supporting our people and streamlining our processes is key to our success. 

Our people

Our work is both challenging and meaningful. The Ministry employs over 20 per cent of the public service across a range of professions.

The Ministry is made up of a diverse range of staff: 

• 23 per cent of staff are Māori
• 13 per cent are of Pacific descent
• 7 per cent are of Asian descent
• 64 per cent of managers are women
• 67 per cent of tier two (Deputy Chief Executive level) are women.

Our staff turnover was 10.2 per cent to June 2012 compared with the public service average of 11.4 per cent.

The Government announced a new cap on the size of core government administration in March 2012. The Ministry’s service lines Child, Youth and Family, and Work and Income were excluded from the definition of core government administration.

Between December 2008 and December 2012 the Ministry reduced the number of positions in core government administration from 2,506 to 2,269 (full-time equivalent staff numbers and vacancies).

Strengthening our culture

We recognise that we have ‘strong cultural alignment’ within our organisation, and this new approach will require changes to the way we think and behave.

In the past we have been structured on a model with strong autonomy. We will be moving towards a new way of working where there is less duplication, increased cross collaboration, and accountability is distributed to lower levels of the organisation.

When staff are engaged at work it shows in the results they achieve. This is good for us as an organisation and good for the people we work with.

We ran our third whole-of-Ministry engagement survey in March 2013. On the back of this work and our new underlying principles we are looking at tools to help us shape our culture, our behaviour and our leadership – culture must be aligned with our strategy and what we must deliver.

The Chief Executive engages regularly with all staff through the Intranet and email when face-to-face communication is not an option. These channels are used regularly to post announcements, marking special occasions and acknowledging significant achievements. Each month staff are connected to key management decisions through the e-LT electronic write-up of key governance meetings.

The Chief Executive holds a series of staff forums in the Far North, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin each year. He will also meet staff during regional visits and floor walks around Ministry offices.

Positive and stable industrial relations

We know that positive and stable industrial relations support a high-performing organisation. Across the Ministry, we have more than 60 per cent of our staff on five separate collective employment agreements.

Three collective agreements expire in 2013 with the Public Service Association (PSA) and the Work and Income Northland Staff union.

The PSA have almost 6,000 members across the Ministry, including 500 delegates.

How we work with the PSA

Our Innovative and Productive Public Services Agreement with the PSA confirms our positive working relationship. The agreement outlines our shared commitment to work together on innovation, productivity and value for money.

It outlines how we will engage and develop our joint work programmes. Recognising that this is a time of profound change for the public service our agreement with the PSA helps us work together to achieve the Government Priority Delivering Better Public Services.

The joint working parties are focused on:

• managing workloads across the Ministry
• reviewing pay and progression systems within the Ministry.

A new engagement framework has also been agreed with the PSA within Child, Youth and Family.

Health and wellbeing

We continue to work towards Tertiary Level Accreditation in the Accident Compensation Corporation Partnership Programme. Through this programme we are achieving significant discounts on our levies. In addition, the programme supports injured staff to return to work as soon as practicable, reducing the cost and impact of work-related accidents.

Canterbury people – leading through the recovery

Canterbury managers, staff and clients continue to experience the after effects of the earthquakes and the on-going challenges of the recovery phase, both psychosocial and environmental.

We commissioned a wellbeing review completed in February 2013 and its resulting recommendations have been adopted by the Canterbury Leaders Group to form its wellbeing planning for 2013 and beyond. The key areas of focus in this plan include:

acknowledgement and recognition, leadership visibility and manager coaching, training and support

• resilience training for staff and managers
• effective communications and support for change management activities
• support for staff dealing with stressed and angry clients. The outcomes these initiatives are designed to achieve include maintaining or improving core service delivery and stronger staff and manager wellbeing.

Staff integrity and conduct

As public servants we have a privileged role to make a positive difference in the lives of New Zealanders. We are in positions of trust, serving and safeguarding the interests of New Zealanders.

A new Code of Conduct for all Ministry staff was launched in 2011 and is a common baseline for all staff. This Code closely reflects the State Services Commission Standards of Integrity. It emphasises the key standards that staff must be fair, impartial, responsible and trustworthy.

The Code applies to anyone who works for us. It must be read and agreed to by all new employees. It is easily accessible to all staff on our Intranet.

We are focused on ensuring that our systems, processes and practices stay strong to reinforce the behaviour we expect.

Developing our future leaders

We develop our future leaders by offering leadership development opportunities, including workshops, secondments, executive coaching and emerging talent programmes. Our Leadership Development Strategy focuses on:

• supporting people to make successful transitions from one level to the next
• investing heavily in first time leaders, as this is a challenging transition
• building in-house capability to design and deliver training and executive coaching
• joining with other government agencies to design and deliver common training programmes.

The in-house programmes that deliver on this strategy Include:

• the Emerging Leaders programme
• the 12-month Team Leader programme
• Te Aratiatia and Te Aka Matua
• Chief for a Day – a programme which equips managers with the tools to make complex decisions, brief ministers and handle media issues
• Transitions – a cross-agency programme preparing senior managers for greater responsibility.

Developing skills to make a difference

Our staff need to be able to learn and respond well to change, while keeping a clear focus on results. We are making sure staff get the training they need. Our training programmes include the:

• National Certificate in Public Sector Services (Client/Customer Service) – reflecting the changing public sector environment and relationship management skills
• National Certificate in Business (First Line Management) –supporting emerging Work and Income managers
• National Certificate in Public Sector Services (Community Advisor)
• National Certificate in Contact Centre Operations
• National Certificate in Employment Support
• Work and Income Curriculum – a comprehensive in-house system of learning
• Career Progression and Development Framework for the policy cluster
• Diploma in Public Sector leadership
• National Certificate in Public Sector – Induction National Certificate in Business Administration and Computing
• Cadetship – Modern Apprenticeship Programme.

We have also recently initiated an IT Graduate programme.

Child, Youth and Family offer training through our practice curricula which support quality social work practice. We offer on-going professional development by supporting advanced and specialist qualifications, such as:

• Bachelor of social work BSW (including biculturalism in practice)
• Master of social work (including applied)
• Postgraduate certificate in children’s issues
• Postgraduate diploma in child-centred practice
• MA (childhood and youth studies).

Tapping into innovation

In the past we have been fleet footed and innovative in making incremental changes. However, we now face the challenge of significant programmes of work, short timeframes for implementing larger scale change, and increased expectations of what the Ministry can deliver.

We will also need to be consistently thinking ahead and involving more people in thinking about how we meet these challenges.

eliminating waste…

Staff often have valuable ideas about how to eliminate wasteful processes, remove ‘rework’ and reduce the cost of poor quality and to provide better client services. We will look at broadly similar processes that are undertaken across the Ministry to help reduce the workload per client. This will mean fewer transactions though better process and self-service, and faster transactions through better process and systems.

encouraging innovation…

The Ministry provides several ways for staff to submit innovative ideas. We are also discussing the introduction of the PSA’s Sustainable Work Systems programme.

We have instigated an innovation practice within our IT department, which works closely with service delivery units, to seek and trial IT solutions to business problems.

The practice is primarily funded through joint operations with our technology partners. One recent innovation was a pilot for social workers using iPads for home visits in Christchurch following the earthquakes.

We will be extending the number of mobile applications that we support, helping staff use their time to help more people, not doing administration. Other innovations include trialling electronic meeting papers and tablets for our governance secretariat and trialling mobile devices for legal services to use during downtime.