Work with Purpose: A podcast about the Australian Public Sector

Happy Holidays! It’s been a big year for the APS and we hope you all have a restful and well deserved break. Here at WWP we are also taking a much needed break. We will be back in your ears shortly, but in the meantime here is one of our favourites from the year, an intriguing conversation on leadership in times of crisis with Dr David Gruen and Dr Ken Henry AC. Happy listening and enjoy the break...

The COVID-driven surge to working from home has given us a taste of what different ways of working can look like. Many are enjoying the flexibility, balance, autonomy and other benefits of not working within the constraints of the nine to five office environment. As we come out of the pandemic many workplaces, including the public sector, are trying to figure how to effectively incorporate working...

COVID-19 has obviously had a huge impact on Australia. House prices have gone up, offices have moved to home, school has become virtual and let’s not forget the great toilet paper crisis of 2020. Every government department has been working hard to embrace this impact and more importantly begin thinking about how to recover from it moving forward. The infrastructure sector is no stranger to this....

The role of the Australian Public Service, as defined in the Public Service Act 1999, is to apolitically, efficiently and effectively serve the Government, the Parliament and the Australian people. With this in mind, what is the role of the APS at Federal election time? What processes and procedures does the APS need to follow to keep the cogs of government turning while continuing to serve k...

For almost two years Australia’s border has been closed off to the rest of the world to help protect Australia from COVID-19. Closing this border was not an easy task and opening it won’t be either. Australia’s Border Force are the ones that are set with these difficult tasks. Working day and night, these important members of the APS help protect Australia from an array of pests and diseases, and...

In this special edition of Work with Purpose brought to you by the IPAA ACT EA Committee, we explore what is involved in the role of an EA. What do they do in their day-to-day role? What made them want to be an EA and why should others consider working in these roles that are vital to the running of our APS? In this weeks episode we are joined by Martin Elliffe, Office Manager for Rachel Stephen-S...

According to the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC), only 4% of the APS workforce identifies with having a disability. Why is this and what can be done to change this statistic to help make the APS a more enabling, collaborative and a more inclusive workplace for those with a disability? In this weeks episode of Work with Purpose episode we are joined by Catherine Seaberg, Assistant Commi...

Now more than ever, public servants are being encouraged to take up mobility opportunities and learn from the different experiences offered within the public sector. The benefits of having an open growth mindset and a genuine commitment to understanding different workplace contexts, help us to be more flexible in our roles, and better prepares us for managing the different pathways that our career...

The pandemic has arguably compelled Australia’s public sector to grow and transform in a way as never seen before. It is more modern, flexible, fit for purpose and up to the task. It should be proud of its stewardship role looking after Australia’s health, social and economic needs throughout COVID-19. Yet there is always more room to grow. In this episode we are joined by Simon Atkinson, Secretar...

The Public Service Medal (PSM) pays tribute to public servants who have gone above and beyond to deliver. It pays homage to outstanding service, including service excellence, innovation, leadership and other achievements.  In this episode we’re joined by Paul Way PSM, Director General at the Department of Defence, Dr Ros Baxter PSM, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education, Skills and...

One of the biggest challenges that we all face in the Australian Public Service is making our voices heard. With over 150,000 APS employees both in Australia and around the world, this can be quite the task, particularly for those considered to be part of a minority group. So how do we get people to listen? How do we ensure that our words and actions are making an impact and what steps need to be...

What does it take to be an Australian Public Servant? What are the skills and crafts that we need in order to serve the Australian Public in the best way that we can? The APS Academy is a place for all members of the APS to help teach and expand their skills by working on their ‘craft’ to improve their skills to do just that. Launching last week, today’s guests discuss its importance and the role...

How do you lead a team during extreme and sudden times of crisis? This is something that many people all over the world have recently had to face including those in the Australian public service. Today’s interviewers, Isabelle Franklin and Megan Aponte-Payne from the IPAA Future Leaders Committee delve into this topic asking our guests how they showed leadership in crises such as the 2007-8 Global...

When it comes to communicating with Indigenous communities, Government needs to be tailored in its approach to ensure messages are clearly relayed and understood. Effective communication, however, is not a one-way street and cannot rely on words alone. Culturally respectful, trust-based relationships, built over time are imperative to ensure every voice is heard, and Indigenous Australians own the...

COVID-19 has created boom time for criminals who seek to deceive for financial and personal gain. These scammers and fraudsters, who've been out in force leveraging the insecurities created byCOVID-19 and the power of digital technology, have launched millions of websites, email, investment employee, supply chain, and charity scams. The global reach of this digital criminal activity has brought go...

This year has seen Australia face many crises including flood, mice plagues and of course the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And this is off the back of a crisis filled 2020. So we've really witnessed an accumulative impact. It's really timely today for us just to take this time in this episode, to really explore how, as public servants or former public servants, how we can really draw from our own re...

The OECD says that the context and challenges of the public sector are changing at such a rapid pace that the capabilities of public servants must keep up. It's a first-order issue as organisations seek to understand just what are the skills, the knowledge, the behaviour, and the attitude that they will need in their people to successfully compete and operate in a digitally-enabled data-led mobile...

In 2020, a year of uncertainty and risk, the Australian public saw the APS rely on the minds of scientists, and others that work within STEM, like they never have before. A field that in the past has been predominately filled by men, is starting to see some powerful and influential women rise to the top. How did they make it? What choices and career moves did these women make to assist in rising t...

This month marks the one-year anniversary of Work with Purpose . To celebrate, we’re releasing a special highlights edition featuring some of the remarkable insights shared with us over the past year, from some of our most popular episodes with speakers from across the public sector. In this special episode, we pay homage to the Australian public sector as it took centre stage delivering the Austr...

Whether you work inside or outside of the APS, it is safe to say that 2020, for the most of us, was quite the challenging year. With our work, home and day-to-day lives being forced to change at such a rapid rate, people around the globe learnt to adjust. However along with this, the world didn’t put the rest of life’s challenges on hold, meaning that some of us had a lot of weight to carry on our...

As life in the Australian Public Service continues to move at a scorching pace in delivering the priorities of the government, the increasing influence of digital technology and data in defining new ways of working to deliver value for citizens has never been more important. At the heart of this transformation is the mission to make the lives of Australians simpler, safer, and better. Nowhere is t...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of being able to find, access, analyse, and share trusted and reliable digital information in a timely and responsive manner. The National Archives, like most of the APS have been extremely busy during the pandemic, ensuring that the governments most important records are documented, so that they can be held as part of the National Archives arch...

2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in Australia, the ferocious bushfires of 2019 that burned well into the new year will never be forgotten. The strain of such significant events was recognised early and the National Bushfire Recovery Agency and the Mental Health Commission worked quickly to deliver necessary support. But more was to come as the full impact o...

For this week’s Special Episode of Work with Purpose we are joined by Jacqui Curtis, Head of the HR Profession, Randall Brugeaud, Head of the Digital Profession and Dr David Gruen, Head of the Data Profession. As part of the 2019 Independent Review of the Public Service, the Government agreed to establish Professions to build capability and support career paths in critical areas. In response, Secr...

COVID-19 presents the perfect example of the modern, complex, and rapidly evolving challenges facing the APS. The government is responding flexibly to demand on high priority, cross-cutting policy and delivery issues, with its ability to act efficiently and effectively hinging on principles of collaboration and mobility.  Recently we’ve seen the emergence of various taskforces and the develop...