Defence

Defence Personnel Executive

Next DeCA—current status

Progress to date with the new DeCA

"One of my first concerns and the major concerns in the first half of this year will be to complete the new DECA, the Defence Employees' Certified Agreement, and have it voted in, and then to complete our review of [Senior Executive Service (SES) Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs)]."

Secretary of Defence, Ric Smith, at the Senior Leadership Group Summit, 20 February 2006.

Mr Peter Sharp, FASPERS addressed the 22–23 February 2006 meeting with the unions.
Photo by CPL M Dowling

The current Defence Employees Certified Agreement (DECA) 2004–2006 is due to be replaced by 30 June 2006 and Defence is working towards a replacement agreement, to be called the "Defence Collective Agreement" (DeCA). The November/December 2005 issue of Defence explained the key issues facing Defence in improving productivity and the major areas of focus proposed by the Secretary and senior leadership for the DeCA, namely:

• improving performance management, including managing underperformance;
• strengthening the sense of mutual obligations between management and staff;
• improving the skills of the workforce, through such avenues as training and development, to meet capability requirements;
• improving management of personal and annual leave, including the provision of mechanisms to employees to take adequate annual leave; and
• in keeping with directions from Government, looking at how a greater number of AWAs may be used over time to achieve even stronger performance outcomes, and to assist in attraction and retention in those areas where there are market and skill-set pressures.

Workplace Relations Newsletters, produced every fortnight, have acted as a vehicle to ensure staff are kept informed of the more specific aspects of this process and the policy proposals. The newsletters are available at http://intranet.defence.gov.au/dwr, then click "DeCA 2006 Onwards" link and "Newsletters and other updates" link).

Common questions about the DeCA

Why does Defence have to show productivity gains in order to fund a pay rise?

As well as the Secretary and CDF seeking continuous productivity improvement for Defence, government policy requires that improvements in pay and conditions be linked to particular productivity gains and that pay rises must 'be funded from within agency budgets'. Some employees report that, over the years, they have seen Australian Public Service (APS) conditions degraded in order to support pay rises. This is not the approach that we are taking. Rather, we are working to further some current initiatives, and introduce some new, key productivity initiatives under the next agreement and these will inform decisions as to an appropriate pay outcome for the next agreement.

Our aim is to further organisational initiatives such as travel reform, improve the way we target our training effort, develop critical skills sets, improve the skills of managers and supervisors as well as performance management. The improved performance management framework is particularly critical. Individual results will be better tied to organisational goals and improved productivity, and individual performance will be enhanced through comprehensive feedback and properly developed and funded learning and development activities.

If the new agreement includes provisions to ensure that employees take more annual leave, how will the workload be managed during employee absences?

In the current agreement, Defence has encouraged employees to take a regular well-earned break for health and safety reasons by suggesting that employees take an average of 15 days per year. In addition, as part of the performance agreement, employees are required to provide their leave intentions in order to assist managers to plan for their staff's annual leave requirements and to ensure that a break is taken.

Many employees are either unable or unwilling to use their annual leave as it is intended. For example, in some Groups, around 50 per cent of employees did not take at least 15 days' annual leave in 2005. Against concerns regarding health and safety, the wellbeing of employees and the need to improve the management of a large leave liability, we propose to make further changes to the requirement for employees to use their annual leave. The proposal includes:

• a requirement for employees to take at least 15 days' annual leave each year or 30 days over two years;
• a greater focus on planning for annual leave within business units;
• a 70-day annual leave cap as an added method of ensuring that employees take a necessary holiday away from their jobs. (For those who have leave balances already over 70 days special provisions would apply—see Workplace Relations Newsletter 8/2006)

Defence and the unions are particularly aware that when staff use leave there can be an impact on the employees remaining in the work area. To manage such situations, the following mechanisms are proposed:

• a DeCA Guide for SES and Star Ranks to assist in understanding the issue;
• a campaign to train all managers that workload management is critical, and that tasks need to be prioritised and reflected through performance agreements; and
• a requirement that annual leave planning be included in the Performance Agreement process to ensure that the greatest level of visibility and business planning occurs.

What are the proposed changes to Performance Management arrangements?

To improve the quality of feedback, the introduction of a more comprehensive rating scale is proposed. Such a scale would enable supervisors to recognise performance that is "effective" or "not effective", but also "sustained outstanding performance", and performance that is "partially effective", where employees may require particular assistance to raise performance. The new arrangements would also include an enhanced role for the "2-up supervisor" in the development and approval of performance agreements. The aim of introducing such an arrangement is to improve accountability and alignment of Key Expected Results areas (KERs) with organisational goals, to increase commitment to learning activities and annual leave plans, along with managing associated workloads, and to ensure that comprehensive feedback is being provided. The new arrangements would also see changes to the plan on a page and required KERs, so that it is clearer what behaviour is expected in terms of Defence and APS values, with more focus on supervisor and leadership proficiency.

What is left to do in developing the DeCA?

A draft agreement needs to be finalised before the approval process can begin in late March or early April. The Minister is the final step in that process, alongside clearance from Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), which ensures that policy parameters have been followed.

If all goes to plan during the final phases of development and clearance, the draft agreement will be released to staff in early May. Hard copies will be made available in most locations and it will be accessible via the Defence intranet site. There will also be a series of presentations across Australia to explain the major changes and benefits for employees and for the Defence organisation. Employees will then have an opportunity to cast a deciding vote on the DeCA, probably in mid to late May.

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