Focus area 2 – Our workforce

Our people are ready to meet any challenge

The challenges and opportunities that lie ahead require us to do more than hone our ways of working.

To rise to these challenges and turn opportunities into better services and outcomes for Queenslanders, we will need to unlock the full potential of our greatest resource—our people.

Central to our ability to face the future is our ability to adopt sector-wide, system-level perspectives and approaches. This means having a better understanding of the professional and technical skills we need to cultivate now, so we are ready to respond in the future.

It also means ensuring public sector leaders are equipped to work collectively and collaboratively to support government to implement sector-wide priorities and policies.

Focus area 2 responds to the challenges – increasingly complex local and global needs, skilling up for ongoing digital advancements and changing workforce demographics.

We better enable people to build their public sector experiences

Our public sector is made up of diverse people working in many different professions, locations, and organisations.

This breadth of expertise and experience is a strength. There are unique opportunities to pursue public sector professions, functions and expertise unmatched outside the sector.

Knowing the skills needed across the sector and identifying ways to acquire and grow those skills is key to enabling our people to build meaningful careers.

We need to get better at giving talented public sector professionals opportunities to move and develop within the sector—especially in those priority skills areas that cut across multiple public sector organisations such as policy development and implementation, human resources and IT.

This is a specific kind of purpose-driven workforce mobility.

It will require systems and processes to empower individuals to grow their knowledge and skills in priority areas for the benefit of the public sector and community while building rich and fulfilling careers.

We better identify future leaders and grow diverse potential

Our fast-paced public sector relies on thoughtful, decisive, and authentic leadership.

Our senior leaders are pivotal to delivering better services and outcomes – through both leading in their organisations and working together to steer the public sector as a system.

Leadership happens at many levels in our organisations. These roles require extraordinary people who are willing to invest in themselves and others, and who see the public sector as an interconnected system of services.

We need to better equip future generations of leaders with the breadth of knowledge, experience, and people skills necessary to deal with complexity and bring out the best in others. Leadership that reflects the community we serve will help ensure our advice and approach remains relevant and on point.