Enhance Workforce Capability - Sector Level - Practical Resources

The Client

A Government agency working to strengthen the child and family support sector.  This project related to building the workforce capacity, capability and culture.

The Brief

An independent report for Government identified strategies for strengthening the child and family support sector.  A key priority area was to build the capacity, capability and culture of the workforce.

HR Advantage was engaged to develop a suite of targeted and tailored people management resources for sector organisations to enhance workforce management and development practices and to provide implementation guidance and advice.

Our Response

HR Advantage deployed a team of two consultants and the project was completed over approximately five months.  We worked closely with the Project Manager and key staff at all stages.

We reviewed and analysed foundational work that had been done on career and capability frameworks, relevant research, and the results of sector consultation to that point.  We considered the diversity, reach and workforce challenges of sector organisations and explored the tangible benefits to be delivered to organisations as end users.

Guided by this analysis we developed and agreed with the client a detailed project plan and key priorities. This planning work included a risk assessment with mitigating factors built into the project plan.  We agreed to focus on providing highly practical people management resources to help organisations to use the frameworks in these areas (which aligned closely with sector priorities):

• job analysis and role descriptions
• recruitment and selection
• onboarding, induction and probation
• performance and development
• succession planning
• career planning and development.

We developed draft resources carefully tailored for the sector and the career and capability frameworks.  Partnering with the Project Manager, we facilitated groups sessions with sector representatives to workshop draft resources.  We consulted further with a cross section of organisations who offered to user test the resources and provide feedback from the field.

We refined the resources based on sector input, making modifications ensuring that terminology was appropriate and we added to the draft resources.  Consistent with the project scope we provided implementation guidance for sector organisations to use the resources and implementation advice for the client to help identify key actions it could take to support sector wide implementation. 

The Results

The key deliverables were:

• a comprehensive suite of resources including an overarching Implementation Guide to assist organisations to explore and implement the frameworks and resources
• a practical diagnostic tool to enable organisations to quickly assess their practices and identify their improvement priorities
• our Implementation Guide included practical advice about the steps involved in planning an improvement project and related change management advice
• for each of the topics we provided 'how to' guides, templates, checklists, tips sheets and supporting case studies/examples.  The latter illustrated how organisations were using the resources, by either adopting new practices or adapting existing ones
• our final deliverable was formal advice and recommendations regarding strategies for how the client could continue to work with the sector to implement the frameworks and suite of resources.  This covered communication needs, sponsorship, offering practical support, partnering with peak bodies and key networks, supporting early adopters, and facilitating information sharing across the sector, both to highlight outcomes being achieved and to share learning and innovation.

Client feedback was extremely positive regarding our expertise, the quality of our work, our ability to appreciate and respond to sector needs through targeted, tailored and highly practical resources and advice, and our style of engagement both with the client and directly with sector representatives.

The project was a high priority for the client and fully met their requirements including quality, timeframe and budget needs.