A record number of SA public sector employees participated in the 2021 Your Voice survey, which opened on Tuesday 27 April and closed on Friday 4 June. A sector action plan was launched in February 2022, to respond to employees’ feedback.
The high-level overview below captures the survey’s results, which were communicated to all public sector employees in a message from the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment on Friday 16 July 2021.
Action planning
The sector action plan is designed to create wide-reaching improvements across the sector. Alongside this, individual agencies' action plans have been developed to respond to the issues identified in the survey that are unique to each workplace and context.
You can read the full action plan, here.
The sector action plan will focus on these key areas in 2022:
- Defining what makes a good leader in the sector, ensuring leaders have the skills and training to deliver, and holding them to account when they don't.
- Providing greater support and more relevant tools so employees can nurture and manage wellbeing.
- Ensuring the sector is respectful and inclusive, and its recruitment processes are fair and transparent.
The sector action plan was communicated to all public sector employees in a message from the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment on Thursday 17 February 2022.
The Highlights Report presents key survey themes and results for all questions, it also includes trend mapping to the 2018 results.
The 2021 survey revisited employees’ views on:
- Employee engagement
- Enabling high performance
- Leadership
- Values
- Employee’s alignment with their workplace
- Career and working conditions
- Employee wellbeing
The results will be used to develop and implement initiatives to improve the employee experience across the public sector. The sector-level action plan will be communicated to all employees by the end of November 2021.
In addition to the sector-level Highlights Report, every South Australian public sector agency receives a report specific to its employees’ feedback, but only if they received 10 or more survey responses. All survey responses are confidential, regardless of size of the agency to which the employee belongs.
Each agency’s report is reflective of its individual context and their employees’ experiences in the workplace. As such, all agencies are encouraged to take some time to explore the results further with their teams and better understand survey responses before developing their action plans.
Highlights Reports for agencies which are represented on the Chief Executive Council (CEC) can be viewed below. The CEC is responsible for driving public sector performance and capability and leading the public sector to achieve whole of government and strategic priorities.
- Attorney-General’s Department
- Department for Child Protection
- Department for Correctional Services
- Department for Education
- Department for Energy and Mining
- Department for Environment and Water
- Department for Infrastructure and Transport
- Department for Innovation and Skills
- Department for Trade and Investment
- Department of Human Services
- Department of Primary Industries and Regions
- Department of the Premier and Cabinet
- Department of Treasury and Finance
- Environment Protection Authority
- Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment
- SA Health
- South Australia Police
Additional agencies (not part of CEC) that have chosen to release their results on this website are listed below:
Confidentiality and privacy
The survey was voluntary for all employees, and their responses are anonymous. To maintain confidentiality, it was conducted by the independent provider, ENGINE, which is bound by strict privacy provisions.
To preserve anonymity, any agency, department, or team with less than 10 responses was not eligible for its own report. In this instance, the results will be merged with another group to enable confidential reporting.
In 2021, ENGINE Asia Pacific provided the survey platform, data analysis and high-level results to agencies. The survey data also contributes to the Commissioner’s annual report, the State of the Sector, which is tabled in parliament.