Our operating environment

A new government

Following the election of a new government in October 2024, there are a number of new government commitments related to building a stronger public sector:

• strengthening the public sector by establishing an independent Public Sector Commission
• building a home-grown public sector through an expanded graduate program
• rebuilding the capacity of the public sector by providing professional training and development
• no forced redundancies in the public sector.

The government amended the Public Sector Act 2022 within its first 100 days of office to remove the ability to terminate the Public Sector Commissioner without grounds. These amendments support the Commissioner to act independently by increasing the employment security of the Commissioner. This in turn strengthens the ability of the Commissioner to provide independent advice to the Premier of the day, without fear of reprisal or termination without reason at the will of the Premier.

This legislative reform is part of an increased focus on accountability, transparency, capability building, job security and an apolitical public sector that can provide frank and fearless advice.

Our challenge

The government released its Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Review on 14 March 2025, which indicated that the 2025–26 deficit is $6.9 billion, with deficits of $9.2 billion projected each year in 2026–27 and 2027–28.

The challenge of delivering world-class services to the people of Queensland in a fiscally constrained environment will require the ongoing commitment to ever stronger performance, productivity and innovation of the public sector.

This report focuses on the most important asset the public sector has to deliver on this challenge—our people.

A homegrown public sector—building capacity and capability

The 2024 State of the sector report provided an overview of several workforce capacity and capability building initiatives that were being developed. These initiatives focused primarily on how the public sector can be strengthened and continuously improved.

These initiatives included:

• improving the way we collaborate to address and resolve longer term challenges
• bringing in the next generation of public servants through improved graduate pathways
• mobility and capability
• uplifting our leadership practice across the sector
• promoting the diverse opportunities that exist across the sector and positioning the sector as an employer of choice
• developing an induction and onboarding program on the craft of public service.

These initiatives speak directly to the elements that support any professional and apolitical public sector and were identified and prioritised through a process of collaboration between the Public Sector Commission and public sector organisations.

Progress on these initiatives and programs of work is set out in relevant sections of this report.

In addition to these sector-wide initiatives, this report also focuses on the individual behaviours and local level initiatives that organisations can engage in to create a high performing, more effective and efficient organisation.

Case study: A homegrown public sector

Employee engagement

An engaged workforce is critical in the creation of a high performing, efficient and effective workforce.

Employee engagement is a global measure of employee experience and can be broadly defined as being the individual employee’s emotional, cognitive and behavioural commitment to the achievement of organisational outcomes.

In Australia many public sector and private sector organisations focus on engagement, using employee surveys, like WfQ, to better understand the engagement of their employees.

• The overall employee engagement score for the Queensland public sector is 60% positive—which has been steadily increasing since 2022.

The overall employee engagement score is composed of questions relating to pride and the likelihood of recommending the organisation as a great place to work, feeling of inspiration and motivation as well as personal attachment to the organisation.

Positivity associated with each theme has increased upon previous years:

• pride: 68% are proud of the work they do for their organisation.
• recommendation: 64% recommend their organisation as a great place to work.
• inspiration: 58% find their organisation inspires them to do their best.
• motivation: 57% are motivated to achieve their organisation’s objectives.
• attachment: 55% feel strong attachment to their organisation.

The drivers of engagement

Engagement is created when the employee feels physically, emotionally and psychologically safe. Physical, emotional and psychological safety relates to the individual’s perceived physical safety as well as the feeling that they can be their authentic self in the workplace without fear of their reputation or career being adversely impacted.

Having access to meaningful work makes employees feel more engaged. This means personally feeling the importance and understanding the impact of work in the achievement of organisational objectives. Meaningful work speaks to the individual’s need to contribute significantly to their work, their team and their organisation while also receiving feedback about their performance, their value
and their contribution.

Engaged employees also have access to the physical, emotional and psychological resources necessary for the completion of work6. Resources are understood as being the availability of basic tangible resources (e.g. tools, equipment) as well as learning and skills development, leadership, workgroup support and contemporary workplace practices, for example flexible work arrangements.

Subsequent sections of this report and specifically Our diversity and Our work environment will focus
on the elements of the Queensland public sector that contribute to engagement.

The outcomes of engagement

While the organisational elements that lead to engagement are well known and validated, so too are the outcomes—both positive and negative.

Positive outcomes that may stem from employee engagement include discretionary effort, continuous improvement, innovation, sharing learnings and working together to manage workload.

Negative outcomes include but are not limited to intention to leave, unplanned absenteeism and disruptive behaviour as well as poor individual, team and organisational performance.

These outcomes and performance matters will be discussed in the Our performance chapter.