Organisational Health and Capability

Key impact sought

To be able to effectively deliver our outputs and contribute to our outcomes the State Services Commission must have effective and strategically aligned capabilities. This means being agile, having the right people, skills, processes and infrastructure.

Our organisation

As a result of the organisational restructure that took place 2009, the State Services Commission is a smaller and more focused organisation with approximately 145 FTE employees in the core organisation. However, the size of the Commission as an entity does not reflect the Commissions reach of influence. Harnessing external capability and relationships means that the Commission, through intermediaries, can exert more effective levers on individual, agency, and system performance, for example through the use of expert Gateway reviewers or through setting up mentoring arrangements for senior leaders. This extended sphere of influence is illustrated in the diagram below.

Our people

The size and complexity of the Commission's work programme over the next three to five years will place pressure on the organisation and its staff to deliver. The Commission has a limited number of skilled practitioners across a number of specialty fields and it is critical for our success that we recruit and retain the right people with the right skills and that all of our staff are engaged, developed and supported to do what they do best every day. The Commission's three year People Strategy will provide a platform for ensuring that both productivity and engagement within the Commission are raised.

The Commission's employees demonstrate our core behaviours of respect, innovation and credibility, and we will work to embed these behaviours in areas such as recruitment, performance management and development opportunities.

The Commission recognises that high employee engagement leads to increased productivity via lifts in individual and organisational performance. In particular we recognise the impact of the manager / employee relationship on engagement and performance. Over the next three years the Commission will therefore also focus on ensuring first class appointments to managerial positions. We will continue to use the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey as a key measure of engagement.

Our processes

To be able to deliver on a day to day basis the Commission must have robust and high quality processes in place across the core corporate services. These processes provide assurance that taxpayers' funds are being used within appropriate parameters. This is especially important in the current fiscal environment - agencies need to find efficient, cost effective means of delivering the core corporate functions that support their business. The Commission will continue to investigate options for shared services and outsourcing of corporate functions in the central agencies and more broadly across the Public Service, in particular drawing on the Better Administrative and Support Services (BASS) programme to identify opportunities to achieve efficiencies.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure that we use is critical not only to how well the Commission delivers its outputs but also to the engagement of our people. The Commission is implementing a new telephony infrastructure and is reviewing its accommodation requirements to ensure they are cost effective and fit for purpose.

Demonstrating our success

Employee engagement

The Commission recognises that high employee engagement leads to increased individual and organisational performance. We will use the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey as a key measure of engagement and organisational health and aim to be at or above the 75^th percentile in 2011.

Stakeholder Survey

The 'service' we provide to our stakeholders (Ministers, chief executives and senior managers) is a direct reflection of the health and capability of the Commission. We are seeking to increase the proportion of stakeholders who are satisfied with their interactions with the Commission.

Key commitments

Equal Employment Opportunities

We will continue our commitment to the four groups identified in the Equal Employment Opportunities policy for the Public Service - Maori, ethnic and minority groups, women, and people with disabilities - and to appointment on merit, ensuring we meet the needs of our diverse workforce.

We will evaluate our employee engagement survey findings by age, gender and ethnicity and will monitor our workforce by collecting data on gender and ethnicity distribution at each tier of management. We will develop response plans to issues raised as a result of our findings.

Diversity

The Commission is committed to ensuring that staff are well equipped to work with Māori as partners with the Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi and to ensure that the Commission is a welcoming and supportive working environment for Māori staff members. The Commission has initiated Te Rerenga - The Voyage as a means of exploring its approach to tikanga Māori, and its commitment to Māori responsiveness, with particular emphasis on the role of te reo Māori and Māori culture within the Commission and its activities. 

Managing risk

Our risk management framework includes a set of elements within the Commission's management system that we use to manage both operational and strategic risk. In addition to standard management reporting of operational risks, internal and externally contracted assurance of policies, control frameworks and processes, the Commission's Senior Leadership Team has begun a regular review of risks associated with the Commission's system leadership role. This risk assessment is informed by the relationships and information gathering networks that our staff have with their colleagues in the wider State sector.

Our key risk is that through not fully delivering our outputs and key programmes of work we do not achieve our outcomes and that the system does not improve its performance, and the delivery of services to New Zealanders does not improve. We have identified four key externally-focused programmes aligned to our outcomes that must be appropriately managed:

• Employment relations (State sector pay and conditions)
• Machinery of Government and system design
• Public Service chief executive appointment and performance management processes; and
• The Performance Improvement Framework.

Alongside these work programmes we have identified our internal capability programme as critical to the effective delivery of all Commission programmes, including those mentioned above.

The monitoring of these programmes forms part of the Commission's internal risk management programme. Their management and risk mitigation strategies for these programmes will be reported regularly to both the Senior Leadership Team and the Commission's externally chaired Risk and Audit Committee, to ensure that risks are appropriately managed, mitigations are in place and that learnings are developed and used.