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Management & Accountability
  In this section:
Corporate Governance
External Scrutiny
Management of Human Resources
·   Impact & Features of CAs & AWAs
·   Performance Pay
·   Training & Development Strategies
·   OHS Performance
Purchasing
Assets Management
Consultants and Competitive Tendering and Contracting
Commonwealth Disability Strategy
Management of Human Resources

Impact and Features of Certified Agreements and Australian Workplace Agreements

The Registry Agreement
The Australian Industrial Registry (New Directions) Agreement 2000 (the Registry Agreement), as certified in February 2000, continued to operate during the course of the 2000-01 year. Negotiations on a replacement agreement are to commence at least by 30 September 2001. The Registry Agreement (a comprehensive agreement which displaces the APS Award) covers all employees below the SES level who are not on Australian workplace agreements (AWAs), although some AWAs call-up the Registry Agreement in respect of certain conditions of service.

There were no major developments regarding the Registry Agreement, rather it was a year for continued implementation and bedding-down of an agreement which provides for:
  • a performance and team-based approach to the work of the Registry with an emphasis on results;
  • very substantial work flexibilities within a dual broadbanded classification structure;
  • a suite of family-friendly and flexible working initiatives; and
  • streamlined processes and transactions which maximise investments and opportunities, consistent with the APS Values, and with effective risk management principles.
The approach articulated in the Registry Agreement has been aimed at supporting the significant investments being made in Registry technology so as to provide for improvements in client service and to reform internal transactions and web and other communications networks.

Clause 8.6 of the Registry Agreement provides for a dual broadbanded classification structure – APS Levels 1-6 and Executive Levels 1-2. Within the two broadbands there are pay point (simply requires a satisfactory performance assessment against the individual plan for the year just ended and a new individual plan) and work level test (a written submission to a Review Committee which requires the aforementioned assessment, a new individual plan addressing the proposed higher level of functionality and, a demonstration of both the availability of work at the higher level on an ongoing basis and the individual’s ability to perform at the higher level) progressions. There are a total of five work level tests within the two broadbands.

Between the two broadbands, that is between the APS Level 6 and the Executive Level 1, there is a ‘hard’ barrier where formal gazettal actions and therefore competitive selection exercises continue.

The effective implementation of a performance progression system based on individual appraisal has been a major challenge for the Registry, in particular as regards the need for employees to demonstrate higher level functionality on a sustained basis (consistent with long established APS classification principles, employees are required to demonstrate that they will spend at least 30% of their working time on their highest level functions and do so on a sustained basis). The new performance framework also requires employees to commit to work across a wider skills portfolio both across and within teams.

Active management of multi-skilled teams is the order of the day, and team managers have been given considerable flexibilities and responsibilities to manage workloads and outcomes consistent with the Registry Agreement and the team and individual planning arrangements. For example:
  • attendance is to be managed by teams within the flextime arrangements and with a focus on performance/outcomes rather than a culture based on the ‘clocking-up’ of hours; and
  • performance indicators are required both in respect to working within and across teams, and there is a further requirement to inform other teams which might be impacted by operational events occurring within a team.
Non-salary benefits in the Registry Agreement include:
  • increased flexibility regarding working hours in particular to accommodate personal circumstances, address fluctuations in workloads and to reduce transactional costs e.g. leave absences of less than one day;
  • access to home-based work;
  • child and dependant care facilities in Melbourne and Sydney;
  • greater flexibility with annual and personal/carers leave including paid ante-natal medical checks without loss to personal leave credits or flextime; and
  • learning organisation (studies assistance) provisions.
Team and individual plans are also able to provide for a range of non-salary benefits/rewards consistent with a team-based approach to operational performance, local considerations and the APS Values.

Australian Workplace Agreements
AWAs are available to Registry staff (unconditionally, subject only to the requirements of the Act) whose personal circumstances, dispositions or patterns of work are better accommodated within the framework of an individual agreement. As regards AWAs, there was a move towards comprehensive agreements that operate completely separately from the certified agreement. Continuing foci for AWAs were:
  • the driving of best practice through effective use of new technology and systems (including teams);
  • the streamlining of processes and transactions, for example, as related to conditions of service, allowances, etc; and
  • individualised leave and other personal/family arrangements.


Performance Pay

Performance or bonus pay is not a feature of the Registry remuneration and performance arrangements. Pay point progression through the Registry’s dual broadbanded classification structure, however, is contingent on satisfactory completion of an individual team member plan and the development of an annual successor plan (see Registry Agreement above).



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