Reshaping 'Gliding On' stereotype

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Think "public service" and it's hard to push aside images of grey men in grey suits, grey heads bowed against the grey rain of Wellington, or the lax staff lampooned in Roger Hall's play-turned-television-satire Gliding On.

But the service, which is part of the state sector and employs 30,000 people - mainly policy advisers - across 37 Government departments, offers intellectually stretching work that makes a difference to the way Kiwis live.

And it's interesting work, says State Services Commissioner Michael Wintringham, "whether you're saving the kakapo, or chasing white-collar crime in the Serious Fraud Office, or dealing with some of the most difficult social problems".

Following a could-do-better survey into its culture, the service has embarked on a concerted campaign to make itself a more attractive boss.

This week brought evidence of progress: the Treasury was named runner-up in the large organisation section of the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust work and life awards for its response to staffers' need for balance. (Auckland University of Technology was the winner.)

Wintringham, a career civil servant for 30 years, says he realised several years ago that women, despite making up 56 per cent of staff, weren't pitching for the top jobs. Men, mainly older, held two-thirds of the top positions.

That situation was echoed among Maori and Pacific staff - few at the upper levels, plenty in the rank and file.

He commissioned research to find out why. What arrived 18 months later, in April, was The Career Progression and Development Survey, which randomly canvassed the views of 6522 staff.

Fifty-two per cent responded.

Wintringham admits that until the survey, knowledge of public service culture was "patchy at best, and, in most cases, based on anecdote and hearsay".

One comfortable assumption, he confesses, was that the service was family-friendly. It was a belief shattered by the discovery that 25 per cent of staff said concerns about balancing work and family had stopped them applying for a higher-level job.

Although family-friendly provisions were part of public service policy, access depended largely on manager goodwill, which some lacked.

Workloads were seen as heavy: 75 per cent worked more hours than they were employed for, and one in five worked 10 or more additional hours a week. Nineteen per cent said they did not want to work the long hours associated with higher-level jobs.

But that wasn't the only thing hindering advancement. Despite keen ambition - 60 per cent said they wanted to rise to a higher-level job and 16 per cent wanted to be chief executives - only 13 per cent thought their opportunity for advancement was good.

And the women whose situation initially sparked attention? At the time of the survey - which its author, SSC senior adviser Sally Washington, says is still relevant despite the time lag - women held eight and were acting in two of the 38 chief executive roles.

Women managers were as well educated as their male colleagues - turning another assumption on its head - and just as likely to report wanting a more senior position.

But mothers were more likely to be deterred from seeking promotion by concerns about balancing work and home, long hours, and extensive travel.

However, the survey also reported that 60 per cent of staff found their work satisfying and challenging. That money was less important than satisfaction "confirms some of those old public service values", says Washington. "People really cared about fairness and equity, and that's a really competitive advantage as an employer of choice."

The survey will be repeated in three or four years, says Wintringham. Lessons learned are fed into policy and practice. The most important cultural change required, he says, is more overt staff career support by managers.

He also hopes for a more collegial culture, where departments know about each other's activities and celebrate success openly.

Private companies will always outbid the public service in the struggle for top talent, concedes Wintringham, but nowhere else but in the service can individuals do so much to shape the fundamentals of New Zealand life.

"If the public service is not going to be able to compete on price, we have to provide some other things: an environment where people get satisfaction out of what they're doing and a range of opportunities."

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