Are you preparing now, to get the most out of 2021’s APS census results?
Originally published in The Mandarin
The APS workforce trusts that what they say will matter. If used effectively, the APS census will improve organisational performance.
When used effectively, the APS census informs the design of targeted, evidence-based strategies to improve organisational performance. That’s important because the APS workforce trusts that what they say will matter, Helena Cain writes.
The Australian Public Service Commission’s annual APS Employee Census provides agencies with a wealth of information across important workplace measures – but how well is it used by agencies to make the improvements their workforces are asking for?
What the APS census is
Any leader seeking to improve organisational performance will be keen to see their agency’s latest APS census results, due out in August.
Here they will see a concise report on the freely-given, experience-based attitudes and opinions of their APS employees on important workplace measures that impact on their organisation’s performance — namely engagement, inclusion and diversity, senior and immediate leadership, workplace culture and conditions, work group performance and performance management, capability, career intentions, risk management, and innovation.
They will also be able to compare their own agency’s performance against these measures in relation to the previous census, the APS overall, and against larger and smaller-sized agencies. They can also see where they rank across the APS and if they have moved up or down the ranks since the last census.
That’s a lot of information to work with — and sometimes it can seem like too much information, making it difficult to know where to start and what you should change to have the most impact, on what really matters.
Why the APS census is important
The census is designed to provide the APS with relevant information in an efficient and consistent way. Internal agency surveys could capture the same but being able to consider your own results in context of the wider APS adds a lot of value — you can shine, but you can’t hide!
When used effectively, census results can also inform the design of targeted, evidence-based strategies to improve organisational performance.
It’s also important because the APS workforce trusts that what they say will matter — as demonstrated through relatively high response rates, with several agencies seeing over 90% of their employees responding. If you ignore it, you’re effectively ignoring them.
How can I make my APS census results really matter?
With the best of intentions, the APS census is often considered an annual event, where each year agencies encourage their workforce to complete the survey, the findings are revealed, shared, discussed and action plans are developed to address the most obvious areas of concern.
All of that is fine — but you could have so much more. Here are a few approaches to consider.
1: Understand the organisational impact
The census report does exactly what is says it will do: it tells you what is going on in your organisation and the minds of your workforce.
It draws your attention to important facts that may not otherwise be available, holding up an annual mirror that reflects what your people think and feel — not just what they deliver — and asks you to look into it.
But this is where it stops — and it’s at this point that organisations usually start to develop their census action plans, to address the what.
Yet we can go so much further than just knowing what, to gain a deeper understanding of how the census results really impact the organisation — then you can begin to understand why changes in certain areas will be more important than others.
Understanding how the results impact on organisational metrics and why that matters to performance provides you with so much more insight when developing solutions for your census action plan.
So, what can leaders do about it?
Analyse your census data in conjunction with your existing HR and other business performance data to understand how and why the census results are impacting your organisation — what are the correlations with efficiency, accuracy, client satisfaction, regrettable turnover, unplanned absences, time to fill new positions and promotions. This will help you fine-tune your responses and initiatives to target specific organisational challenges.
Taking a deeper look at current and previous performance of discrete census items can also start to show patterns and trends emerging over time. Once a pattern has emerged, the real value is understanding why it is occurring, and what actions can be taken to either replicate positive outcomes, or to turn around negative situations.
Learning how to correlate your census results with your own organisational data does require some initial effort, but you only need to set it up once, and if you set it up early you can start to do some predictive work based on past results.
The census is here for the long term, so it’s worth the investment.
2: Respond strategically
The APS census results are quite likely the most powerful tool an agency has to understand their workforce and their organisation — especially in context of peer agencies.
Participants are asked to respond to 72 statements and with 72 data points; how do you prioritise the findings to have the greatest impact on organisational performance?
A challenge is the sheer volume of data that is presented, and the temptation to deal with the most obvious issues — when these may not be your most important issues in terms of organisational impact.
While it is very helpful to see results at group, division and branch levels, making it easier for these managers to identify quick wins at their own level, in isolation — but when an APS Executive has more than 50 branches to consider, with information spread across 50 separate reports, the challenge is obvious — as are the inefficiencies of approaching it this way.
So, what can leaders do about it?
Using analysis tools available in the agency — whether it is Power BI, Tableau, or simply Excel — it is possible to create a model from the census data-set that allows a range of analysis and comparisons to be conducted across and between the organisational hierarchy. This type of analysis provides great insights and understanding, without the need to interrogate a multitude of separate reports to find the real value.
This is especially useful for leaders who may be faced with multiple branch reports, or multiple branch and team census action plans, without ready access to the data to support the decisions.
Census action plans often focus on the lowest-percentage results, at branch levels, when sometimes a collective, more strategic solution that responds to the organisational impact rather than the lowest percentages reported would deliver higher organisational value in terms of performance improvement.
3: Demonstrate that you’ve listened and that you care
The APS census improvements are great for morale; they signal that leadership is listening and that they care about the agency becoming the best it can be, yet it seems to come and go on that annual cycle.
Census respondents show a high level of trust in the process, given the relatively high response rates, and that’s not to be taken for granted.
So, what can leaders do about it?
Make improving your organisation, based on your workforce’s generous feedback, a highly visible priority. Integrate census-response planning with business planning and reporting, and communicate and celebrate the census initiative wins on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
This will remind people that you’ve listened, that the improvements they are feeling on the ground are a direct result of the feedback and ideas they contributed via the census, and it will set you up for more valuable feedback next time around.
How can you prepare now for the August release
For those of you who love census results as much as we do, here are some ideas to get your started right now.
Establish the team or capability you are willing to invest in, to make the census results an important part of your ongoing organisational performance improvement program.
Understand the data you already hold and explore how it can be interrogated in context of your August census results – and you can practice with previous years’ findings to test your hypotheses.
Plan how you will engage your executive to take a new approach to census action planning, and start getting them on board – focusing on how a strong response improves organisational performance, not just percentages in the next census report.
Communicate! Tell your workforce how you will take a fresh approach the census results, show that you recognise their value, and that you’re committed to taking their feedback to improve the organisation.
Develop a mechanism to track and monitor your actions so you can share successes and refine initiatives.
