What could be done in Canberra to assist with the current skills shortage

With over 20 years IT Recruitment experience in Canberra, I have never experienced an employment market like the one we are now. More jobs available than people the fill them, and salaries/rates going up due to competition.

With the recent Jobs and Skills summit in Canberra, and the recommendations provided by the government (check them out here https://www.pm.gov.au/media/outcomes-jobs-and-skills-summit), I have been thinking about ways government to attract and retain staff, specific to Canberra.?

Here are my thoughts:

Flexible work arrangements.

Canberra is a rapidly growing city, now closing in on 500,000 residents.?With the surrounding NSW areas, it just adds to the amount of people commuting into Canberra to work.?Whilst the commute time is nowhere near Sydney or Melbourne, it is significant enough to come into someone’s decision when applying for work.

Consider implementing a flexible work plan for staff and contractors that is well defined and communicated which will allow people to work from home on a regular basis.?

?

Allow fully remote work for certain roles.

What Covid had shown us is that productivity didn’t dip whilst being forced to work from home, the exact opposite actually happened. ?Without actual data to back this up, all the conversations I had throughout this time, people were working more hours than ever before due to tighter deadlines and the fact there wasn’t much else to do.?

By opening up some of your roles to remote work (ie Developers, Testers, User Researchers), the entire country is your talent pool.

Public Sector specific – Implement already made recommendations for specialist salary bands.

Government departments are no longer just competing among themselves for talent, the competition is global.?With drastic rises in the cost of living and house prices in Canberra, people are looking at ways to maximum income. Going contracting or private sector is just one option public servants are exploring to increase their income. ??

Having a competitive salary structure that rewards public servants, will go along way in attracting the right people whilst also retaining existing people.?If not, I fear for a continued ‘Brain Drain’ from the public service, based on salary alone.?

People like a variety or work

One of the benefits contractors and private sector employees have is the ability to move company/projects easily.?If a person completes a project, or its not working out, they can apply for another one and typically move within 4-6 weeks.

For a public servant to move to another department, or sometimes even within their own department, can often take 4-6 months (happy to be corrected here).?By that stage, the individual has lost interest, found something else, or been promoted, then you are back where you started from.?

?Some how make it easier for public servants to move department permanently without the need of a full APS application process.?

Train your managers on how to successfully lead and manage teams.

Being able to manage and lead people virtually has become a necessity.?I’m not actually sure if there are specific training courses being developed, or have been developed, however by providing managers with the tools and training to manage a fully remote or hybrid workforce would give them the confidence they need to lead and also give confidence to the people they are responsible for that they know what they doing.

Consider setting up hubs in different parts of capital cities.

Last week it was announced that the ATO are moving out of the city and into Barton.?Anyone working for the ATO in the city will now have to travel into a suburb that already has multiple government departments, which would just put added pressure on road congestion and parking availability.

Why not set up another federal department in say Gungahlin??There is only one out there at the moment, Defence Housing Authority.?

Why not set up a building like Wotso/WeWork etc in Gungahlin and have a floor dedicated for different departments.?ATO, Services Australia, Department of Health and Defence would benefit from the 90,000 odd people who live in the area and who won’t have the need to commute so far for work.?You can set up access controls easily enough so people can’t “accidently” arrive on a floor that are not supposed to be on.?

Consider engaging Specialist Recruitment Agencies for your permanent government positions.

Gone are the days where you can just advertise a role on various Job Boards and wait for applications to come through. ?Treat your recruitment needs like you treat your project needs.?When you need a project delivered, government often engage specialist companies to aid in the delivery along side existing staff members.?Why not do the same with your permanent recruitment?

?By engaging a specialist Recruiter/s, you get access to a greater pool of passive candidates that will be pre-qualified prior to application and can be done in parallel with your own recruitment process.?This will also be good idea when trying to recruit into different states.?Established and well networked recruitment agencies, will be able to assist in local markets.

?

As an added bonus, here some statistics I have gathered which puts the current skill shortage in some context.?

Based on information available from LinkedIn:

410,000 – The amount of people in Australia who have identified as working in IT Technology and Services

76,000 - The amount of people in Australia who have identified as working in IT Technology and Services who have their profile as “Open to Work”.?This represents 19% of the identified workforce.

?

Canberra Specific

17,000 - The amount of people in Canberra who have identified as working in IT Technology and Services

2500 – The amount of people in Canberra who have identified as working in IT Technology and Services who have their profile as “Open to Work”.?This represents 15% of the identified workforce.

?

Some key demographic information relevant to Canberra

462,000 residents in Canberra

88,000 people in Gungahlin, and growing

89,500 people in Tuggeranong

?

Between 2011 and 2021 – Canberra had the highest population growth rate (23%) out of all the capital cities.

?

Unemployment

2.7% unemployment – compared to 3.5% Nationally

4.9% Youth unemployment – compared to 8.4% Nationally

?

Housing

$1.1 Million – Average House price in Canberra

$700 – Average House Rental in Canberra per week

$580 – Average Unit Rental in Canberra per week

I welcome your thoughts and your own observations, and if are interested in discussing some of these points in person, I'm always up for a coffee.