Resource material › Corporate Publications › Statement of Intent 2014-18Tauāki Whakamaunga Atu
Organisational Health and Capability
On this page
- Building organisational capability
- Developing our People Capability
- Organisational Culture
- Māori Strategic Framework
- Employment Relations Strategy
- Developing our systems and infrastructure
- Property strategy and implementation
- Security framework
- Being a good employer – equal employment opportunities
Strong organisational health and capability provides the foundation for us to achieve wider strategic priorities and outcomes within a complex and changeable operating environment.
Building organisational capability
Ensuring the Department is a robust, sustainable and fit for purpose agency is one of our strategic areas of focus over the medium term. We are building our organisational capability to deliver core services, give affect to our leadership role, and deliver on government and public expectations.
Developing our People Capability
A strong and committed workforce is critical to achieving our priorities and progressing our strategic areas of focus. The Department has developed a workforce strategy that sets out a planned approach to building and sustaining the workforce required to deliver on the Department’s strategic direction, core functions and leadership responsibilities. This strategy is supported by an Organisational Development Plan which outlines specific actions that will be implemented across the Department.
Building our people capability will be driven through four focus areas:
- Developing leaders to meet the challenge of change
- Building a strong organisational culture
- Developing workforce capability to meet changing business needs
- Optimising workforce capacity to deliver results.
We will continue to invest in developing and growing strong committed leadership, in alignment with the Leadership Strategy for the State Services, through the ongoing implementation of our Leadership and Development Framework. This Framework sets the expectations for what it means to be a leader in tomorrow’s public service and provides the tools and opportunities to shape our future leaders. These initiatives will support the development of an inclusive and high-performing organisation.
Implementing a capability framework is also a key focus for the Department. This will enable a consistent approach to understanding and developing the capabilities the Department needs to achieve high performance, and will support improvements to recruitment, talent development and succession planning. The capability framework will also provide a vehicle to link technical capability needs across the organisation.
There will be a strong emphasis on building the Department’s financial and resource management capability both within the Finance Team and in managers and staff across the Department.
Organisational Culture
The Department recognises that a strong organisational culture where people feel valued, connected and engaged is essential for us to deliver on our strategic direction.
Our recent 2014 engagement survey continued the improvement we saw in 2013. The number of people feeling engaged went up from 14.2 per cent to 20.2 per cent compared to last year (a 42 per cent increase), while the number of people feeling disengaged dropped from 28.9 per cent to 23.1 per cent (a 20 per cent decrease).
In two years the Department has gone from being almost at the bottom of the State sector organisations surveyed, to being slightly above average. But we don’t want to be just average. We want the Department to be a great place to work, and we remain committed to building and developing our culture.
We will do this through a range of activities that will continue to embed our culture such as leader-led activities, improvements to performance and development planning, and celebrating success.
In addition we are involving our people in ‘Building Our Story’ events where they can take part in discussions about the opportunities and challenges ahead, and connect with our four key focus areas. This is an opportunity for staff to understand how their work contributes to, and connects with, the Department’s vision and direction, and for them to contribute to our future.
Māori Strategic Framework
In 2013 the Department agreed the way forward on a new Māori Strategic Framework. In 2014/2015 we will begin implementing the framework through branch business plans. The first step has been to launch a series of core training opportunities for all staff, aimed at lifting te reo and tikanga skills relevant to their work.
Employment Relations Strategy
The Collective Agreement will expire in March 2015, so to position the Department for collective bargaining in late 2014/early 2015, an employment relations strategy will be developed.
Developing our systems and infrastructure
As the home of the GCIO, the Department aims to demonstrate good practice in government information management. We have a significant programme of change underway to ensure we have the systems in place to support this aim. We realise that to be credible in our GCIO role, we must have a coherent, well articulated ICT development plan capable of achieving milestones.
To support the development of our internal ICT capability, we have developed an ICT Strategy and Roadmap that sets out what and how we need to progress our ICT infrastructure. Our evolving Corporate Foundations Programme is the key to achieving efficiencies and improving productivity within the Department through reduced duplication and better aligned ICT systems. This programme has been commissioned to carry out the coordinated organisation, direction and implementation of a number of projects such as consolidating and strengthening our cyber-security; and leveraging off the all-of-government Desktop as a Service work to provide a modernised desktop system.
The Corporate Foundations Programme will be about both refreshing technology in the Department and introducing new and innovative all-of-government common capability approaches for the delivery of technology solutions. This will ensure that the Department demonstrates the changes it is leading in the Public Sector.
The Department will also release any high-value public data for reuse in accordance with the Declaration on Open and Transparent Government.
Property strategy and implementation
We currently have a considerable property footprint throughout New Zealand, occupying 50 premises across 20 cities and towns including two sites overseas. We have developed and will be implementing a property strategy that provides a high level roadmap for future management of our property portfolio and a consolidation of our Wellington locations commencing in 2017. We expect to see improvements to our physical environments to better support our culture and strategic direction, and in due course a reduced property footprint that is more efficient.
Security framework
We have developed and will implement a security framework that will see a strengthening to our physical security practices and a review of our information management practices. We are continuing to review and enhance the security of our IT systems and our cyber-security, with a particular emphasis on ensuring the security of personal information we hold on behalf of New Zealanders.
Being a good employer – equal employment opportunities
We aim to be a good employer and an employer of choice. Our organisation provides opportunities for development and growth of staff within the organisation, and also seeks to develop skills useful in the wider public sector by developing leaders.
As a good employer we recognise the importance of promoting diversity and equal employment opportunities in the workplace. We will continue to support the Equality and Diversity: New Zealand Equal Opportunities Policy and a number of equal employment opportunity groups within the Department.