Welcome to the second edition of Human Capital Matters for 2012—the digest for time poor leaders and practitioners with an interest in human capital and organisational capability. This edition focuses on the challenges of mobility within the public sector and between sectors.
Workforce ‘mobility’ is often referred to in human resource literature and practice as an important element of organisational performance. For example, it is frequently linked to employee development, knowledge sharing, diversity and innovation. In the Australian Public
Service (APS), the Blueprint for Reform reflects these linkages. The Blueprint calls for increased mobility across the APS as a critical enabler in building a highly capable APS workforce.
Mobility is seen as a factor in retaining quality employees and an important workforce planning consideration. Moreover, a lack of mobility opportunities is perceived as a barrier to talent management.
In practice, workforce mobility is a complex issue. Mobility within an agency is highly regarded, but the diversity of organisations in the APS means that, in practical terms, it can be difficult to achieve. For example, the Blueprint identified structural barriers to mobility such as the wage and condition disparities between agencies.
The tension between the benefits to be gained from employee mobility and the challenges inherent in implementing strategies to improve workforce mobility has yielded a small but vigorous area of research interest. A selection of papers from this field is presented in this edition of Human Capital Matters .
The literature reviewed in this issue ranges from Drew and Cooper’s paper addressing issues specific to Recommendation 7.5 of the Blueprint to a broader paper from Gajduschek and Linder that examines the impact of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on mobility between the public and private sectors. There is a very practical paper from the Northern Territory Government and the PPS/McKinsey report looking at the role of mobility in capability building among the US
Federal Government SES, a Canadian Government research project commenced in response to concerns about mobility internal to the Canadian Public Service, and a paper from Randstad looking at, among other things, international mobility among public servants from 30 different countries including Australia.
The research papers summarised here showcase the impact of mobility on public sector employees which, when coupled with its prominence in the Blueprint, reinforce it as a critical consideration for all APS managers.
Human Capital Matters seeks to provide APS leaders and practitioners with easy access to the issues of contemporary importance in public and private sector human capital and organisational capability. It has been designed to provide interested readers with a monthly guide to the national and international ideas that are shaping human capital thinking and practice.
Thank you to those who took the time to provide feedback on earlier editions of Human Capital
Matters. Comments, suggestions or questions regarding this publication are always welcome and
2

should be addressed to: humancapitalmatters@apsc.gov.au
. Readers can also subscribe to the mailing list through this email address.
The report analyses the findings of a review of the literature on workforce mobility as well as the results of six case studies (‘exemplars’) of mobility initiatives in the public and private sectors and academia. It is also designed to inform implementation of Recommendation 7.5 of Ahead of the Game: Blueprint for the Reform of Australian Government Administration (2010)—
‘Encouraging Employees to Expand their Career Experience’ (p. 62). Although wide-ranging in its scope, the report does not encompass industrial relations-related issues such as wages, entitlements and ‘technical industrial’ conditions of employment.
The authors’ key message (as with other findings) is qualified with the caveat that support for job mobility as such is a ‘valuable’, indeed an ‘essential’ element in talent management, workforce planning and professional career development but it must be adequately framed. Their research suggests that intra-organisational mobility addresses all major components of Human
Resources Development (HRD), including training and development, career development, organisational development and learning. However, the authors also state that rarely are mobility initiatives attached systematically to organisational plans and thus incorporated into core business and culture.
In addition, the literature review revealed that mobility programs:
 are seen as professional career development opportunities that need to be equitable and untainted by perceptions or instances of favouritism or discrimination;
 are perceived as being a valuable part of organisational workforce planning;
 deliver better results if individual participation is voluntary and organisational participation is mandatory;
 are most effective in developing talent if accompanied by induction, work placements, coaching, mentoring and performance review in the host organisation or area;
 are a useful tool for equipping public servants with the variety of skills needed to perform effectively; and
 when reported on and written up comprehensively provide the opportunity for organisations and individuals to benefit substantially from them.
The study identifies the main advantages and disadvantages to the employee, the host employer and the ‘receiving’ employer of mobility initiatives, as well as three barriers to employee mobility:
 concern that a host employer will try to poach the visiting employee;
 the notion that busy work environments may be disrupted by participation in mobility initiatives; and
 the absence of a workforce plan legitimising and integrating job mobility as a workforce talent/organisational development initiative with a dedicated system and personnel supporting job mobility.
Glenys Drew is a Senior Leadership Development Consultant at the Queensland University of
Technology (QUT). Rosemary Cooper is a Lecturer at the QUT and Executive Director of a
Strategic Human Resources/Organisational Development Consultancy.
3

This is a landmark report that summarises the results of a questionnaire-based survey carried out by the authors for the European Public Administration Network (EUPAN). It examines the effects on European labour markets of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)—in particular the
GFC’s implications for Western and Eastern European public sector jurisdictions as well as a small number of other jurisdictions (e.g. Ukraine, Turkey, Iceland and Cyprus). The survey revealed that civil services are in a relatively poor labour market position as a result of the GFC, as workers increasingly prefer private to public sector employment. In addition, the business sector generally offers higher salaries and greater prestige. It also provides better promotion opportunities. However, due to the high number of job losses following the GFC, the advantages of public sector employment—higher levels of job security, better work-life balance opportunities—are being recognised more and more. Today is nevertheless a period of transition and instability for Europe’s public sector leaders and employees as their different civil service career systems attempt in contrasting ways to make the existing employment and industrial relations system more flexible and adaptable. As the authors report, mobility approaches are among the main tools being re-designed and/or modified to meet current civil service labour market challenges.
The authors discuss the various types of mobility present in most countries and sectors, but make the point that intra-organisational mobility is by far the most typical. They classify the civil service systems of the 36 jurisdictions surveyed into three types: 1) the career-based system (e.g. lifetime employment, though not in a specific position, entry via competitive means, mobility provision, formal rules and centralised management) (16 countries); 2) the position-based system
(competitive recruitment to each position, no right of transfer to another position, selection may be based on position-specific competence assessments, recruitment may be centralised) (six countries); and 3) Central and Eastern European (CEE) jurisdictions (14 countries), which have faced unique challenges in transforming their modes and forms of governance post-1989
(Source: OECD, The Pros and Cons of Career- and Position-Based Systems (Proceedings)
(Rabat, 24–25 May 2007)).
This distinction facilitates valuable analysis of mobility trends within each system/tradition. For example, the answers to Question 7, which dealt with whether or not public sector organisations encourage ‘enlisted’ types of mobility such as that within and between agencies, from lower to higher job classifications, between the public and other sectors, and between national public sectors and international organisations, revealed no significant difference between position and career system countries, though career system nations overall reported a lower level of mobility than position system countries. In contrast, mobility between core public administration and noncore public sector organisations (e.g. schools, public companies) is ‘exceptionally rare’.
In addition to the extensive survey findings, the report contains a large amount of research outlining recent workplace mobility developments across Europe. For instance, the authors cite the mobility reform progress made since 2010 when a survey of 25 countries by S. Parrado found that 10 nations had not legislated for mobility schemes, while in seven there existed compulsory mobility schemes and in eight, voluntary schemes (Source: S. Parrado, Sustainability of Human
Resources in Central Public Administration in the EU Member States (Madrid, 2010)).
Gajduschek and Linder found in mid-2011 that few nations surveyed were without a mobility policy or scheme.
4

Innovative approaches to workforce mobility discussed in the report include the fresh emphasis given to mobility by France’s 2009 civil service law. New initiatives associated with this legislation include the preparation of ‘mobility charters’ which set out the key principles to be observed in mobility exercises (including advice by mobility careers counsellors). In Austria, a
Career Database has been established to make possible greater horizontal mobility between various ministries. Those seeking experience elsewhere send in their details and preferences anonymously and the data is stored for three months. After that time the applicant is contacted periodically and asked if he/she would like their details to be retained for longer or deleted.
Gyorgy Gajduschek is an Associate Professor, Karoli Gaspar University, Budapest and a Senior
Researcher, Institute for Legal Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Viktoria Linder is on the staff of the ECOSTAT Institute for Research into the Economy and Society, Budapest.
The paper sets out a policy designed to provide Northern Territory Public Service (NTPS) employees with guidance about how they can better develop and/or refine their skills and perform their duties across a variety of job classifications. It also seeks to give them a broader perspective about the potential for workforce mobility within the NTPS and between the
Northern Territory’s public sector and State, Territory and Australian Government departments and agencies; private and voluntary sector organisations; and academic institutions at home and abroad. The policy enumerates nine principles to be observed in maximising employees’ capabilities beyond the bounds of individual agencies and promoting a highly mobile, flexible workforce able to meet tomorrow’s challenges. These are:

Agencies are committed to having a whole of government and whole of working life approach rather than an individual agency or position perspective.

Agencies support employees in identifying their capability needs.

Employees are entitled to equitable access to career development opportunities.

Managers are committed to developing their employees to their maximum potential.
 The investment in an employee’s capability development will benefit the employee, the agency and ultimately the whole of the public sector and the community.

Agencies develop a collaborative approach with other organisations in order to achieve key objectives.

Opportunities for all movements should be open and transparent.

Senior management is committed to breaking down agency silos and fostering mobility.

Employee involvement in development opportunities is voluntary.
The paper outlines a number of benefits of pursuing well-targeted labour mobility initiatives. For employees, these include: enhanced career development; a broader knowledge of complex public administration issues; developing different perspectives on work and the workplace; personal and professional growth; stimulation of testing skills and abilities in new circumstances; developing leadership skills; the capacity to operate within a new organisational culture; and increased career choices. In the case of the home organisation, three main requirements benefit the department or agency in the short-, medium- or long-terms: aligning resources in accord with organisational direction; encouraging employee development in line with strategic organisational needs; and providing challenging and rewarding career options to staff. The host organisation receives an injection of new experience, ideas and perspectives; cements lasting partnerships for
5

the future; is able to access fresh approaches to service delivery; and often improves its ability to actively target specific clients (e.g. diversity groups).
The Office of the Commissioner for Public Employment (OCPE) is responsible for providing an effective employment framework for members of the Northern Territory’s public sector.
The authors investigate mobility both within the US Government’s Senior Executive Service
(SES) (established in 1978) and with other sectors. Their inquiry arose from concerns among some legislators—shared by a number of public administration think tanks and commentators— that SES capability is declining, in large part because of low rates of mobility among its ranks.
The report finds that the original vision for the SES as a corps of leaders who would periodically move within and across public sector agencies and with the private, voluntary and research sectors in order to gain ‘an enterprise-wide perspective’ has not been realised.
The study is based on interviews and focus groups involving more than 90 political leaders, SES employees and other government personnel from 39 federal agencies and organisations. The authors investigated the benefits of SES mobility, the extent to which it is pursued and the barriers hindering resort to it. All forms of executive mobility were looked at—from short-term intra-agency rotations to longer-term assignments requiring geographic relocation. The PPS and
McKinsey & Company concluded that mobility was underutilised across the Federal
Government. Almost half (48%) of today’s 7,100 career SES have remained in the same position within the same organisation throughout their entire SES career. Only 8% have worked in more than one agency during their membership of the SES. Even fewer have worked outside the
Federal Government, whether in state and local government, non-profit organisations, or the private sector. The latter is not a trend unique to the SES: less than 1% of federal employees
(1,145 individuals) currently take advantage of the opportunity set out in the Intergovernmental
Personnel Act to pursue exchanges with other sectors.
Government leaders interviewed noted that executive mobility strengthens networks among agencies and increases their capacity to fulfil cross-agency missions; and that it allows individual agencies to build managerial skills and infuse new thinking and practice into the organisation. It could also be of great assistance in filling talent gaps within the SES should there be high rates of retirement among SES (retirement eligibility of current SES is 35% and this is estimated to rise to 53% in 2014 and 64% in 2016). The report makes five recommendations for addressing current SES mobility problems: 1) build mobility into SES selection criteria; 2) agencies should test a variety of mobility program designs in order to determine what works best for their particular needs; 3) create incentives (and reduce disincentives) for mobility; 4) invest in earlytenure mobility programs; and 5) centralise management of executive mobility by establishing a single entity with responsibility for executive professional development.
The Partnership for Public Service (PPS) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation that seeks through research and publication to strengthen the capability of US government at all levels. McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm with consultants deployed in more than 50 countries.
6

This report has three objectives: 1) to describe the nature and level of appointments leading to employee mobility (‘movement’) across the Canadian Public Service (i.e. occupational, interdepartmental/interagency, geographic); 2) to examine the underlying causes and main drivers of employee movement; and 3) to identify lessons learned and areas for improvement. In its 2006–07 Annual Report, the Public Service Commission (PSC) identified the level of movement within the federal public service as an issue of concern. Overall employee movement was estimated to be 40%, up from 35% the year before, and 30% the year before that. Employee movement also varied considerably within the public service’s six occupational groups. It was highest in the Personnel Administration Group (76%) while the Executive Group experienced a movement rate of 58% (the lowest for the occupational groups). This scoping report sets out that the final study would include: a statistical component to be used to describe trends in appointments which contribute to employee movement across the public service; and a qualitative component (i.e. case studies) for the purposes of assessing the underlying causes and drivers of movement trends, identifying lessons learned and providing suggestions for improvement.
The PSC indicated that the final report would be released in late 2008, but it has not been published. Nevertheless, it contains some guidance which remains relevant to labour mobility work. The study authors made it clear that instead of investigating only mobility, they intended to explore other key drivers such as separations, senior management movement, growth and restructures, employee engagement, career progression, and labour market conditions in order to produce a comprehensive analysis of levels of appointment and subsequent employee movement across the public service. A number of examples of this are explored in the scoping study. Three are discussed briefly below. The first concerns the impact of senior management appointments on the subsequent movement of employees in their organisations. The average duration of
Deputy Minister (i.e. Portfolio Secretary) agency appointments decreased to 2.7 years per department or agency during the period 1997–2007, down from four years in 1987–1997 (this contrasted with a high of 8.7 years between 1917 and 1947). Accordingly, the PSC sees management change as one key factor shaping mobility trends in public service agencies.
The second relates to public servants’ receptiveness to move within and between agencies (let alone between sectors), which can be influenced considerably by public sector reorganisations.
As the PSC concludes, ‘ ... major restructuring can have a dramatic effect on employee movement, as new business lines emerge, reporting hierarchies shift and employees are called on to assume new or expanded responsibilities’. The third derives from the close link (especially for
Generation X and Generation Y employees) between mobility, career development and engagement.
The Public Service Commission of Canada has overall responsibility for employment matters in
Canada’s public sector.
The Randstad survey is conducted online among employees aged 18–65 years, working a minimum of 24 hours a week in a paid job (it does not include self-employed workers). The minimum sample size is 400 employees per country. The ‘4th Wave’ (i.e. quarter) 2011 survey was conducted between 24 October and 14 November 2011 in 30 countries: Argentina,
Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France,
7

Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the USA.
A key component of Randstad survey-analysis is the Randstad Mobility Index, which monitors employee confidence and captures the likelihood of an employee changing jobs within the next six months. Respondents are asked 17 questions relating to all aspects of their work (e.g. ‘I expect an improvement in my employee benefits in 2012’; ‘I expect to stop working before my official retirement age’ rated on a four-point scale from ‘Strongly agree’ to ‘Strongly disagree’.
However, the survey’s two mobility-related questions are concerned with an employee’s preparedness to move abroad to secure a job—and not within his/her own country. Nevertheless, notable global and national trends are identified. Between Q3 2011 and Q4 2011 the Mobility
Index globally increased from 103 to 105. It soared in Canada (+12) between these quarters.
Mobility numbers also increased in Belgium, Switzerland and Argentina. Only in Singapore did the Mobility Index decline.
In general, most employees do not wish to move abroad for a job even if it would be one better suited to them—less than one-third of respondents would do so. In China and India, however, employees are not reluctant to relocate overseas: 64% and 58% respectively would move if the right job came along. In some instances, a pay rise serves as an incentive, although employees in
Denmark, Japan, Luxembourg and Switzerland indicated they wished to stay put even if offered a higher paying job abroad.. For the two mobility questions, Australian respondents replied as follows:
 ‘I would be willing to move (abroad) for a job if I was paid more’ (17% strongly agree;
30% agree; 29% do not agree; and 24% strongly disagree).
 ‘I would be willing to move (abroad) for a job which is better suited to me, even if my salary stays the same’ (9% strongly agree; 22% agree; 39% do not agree; and 30% strongly disagree).
The Randstad Work Monitor is published quarterly by the consultancy firm Randstad. It was launched in the Netherlands in 2003, and now covers 30 countries across Europe, the Asia-
Pacific and the Americas. The survey tracks developments in labour mobility and employee engagement as well as a rotating select number
8