Australian Public Service Commissioner, John Lloyd (pictured) has shared his view of the future APS workforce, seeing it as more flexible than today, less hierarchical and with a greater emphasis on teams and on-demand work arrangements.
Speaking to a conference of public sector managers and leaders in Melbourne last month, Mr Lloyd said the APS was already moving in that direction.
“The APS is embracing change in the nature of work and the way work is undertaken,” Mr Lloyd said.
“Our employment profile embraces ongoing employment, non-ongoing employment, part time, casual, working from home, job sharing, contract employment, independent contracting and labour hire modes of work.”
He said the on-demand economy offered consumers greater choice while letting people work whenever and wherever they wanted and that as it grew, jobs would be impacted.
“Some will go, others will be modified and new ones created,” he said.
“The contingent, platform and on-demand modes of work will continue to grow.”
Mr. Lloyd said a basic misconception was that contingent work was neither desired nor beneficial.
“Many people prefer to work in this manner,” he said.
“They embrace the independence, choice, flexibility and rewards it offers.”
He said that over time, workers would be looking for remuneration with “reward structures more closely tied to individual and/or team performance.”
“A linear career will become the exception. Retraining and upskilling will be common.”
He said an organisation that retained a structured system would find it more difficult to attract higher calibre workers.
Mr. Lloyd predicted that leave and engagement strategies would change as people blended their career and private lives by taking career breaks and devoting fewer hours to work.
“Similarly the challenge to retrain and upskill may result in time away from the job front,” he said.
“Organisational culture was constantly changing.”
“We will seek a culture that supports notions like innovation, learning, adaptation, experimentation and resilience,” he said.
“It will be important to find ways inculcate the culture across diverse and dispersed work forces.”
Mr Lloyd’s comments can be accessed on the APSC website at this PS News link.
