Workforce movement and stability
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Intention to leave
An employee’s intention to leave, and how engaged they feel in their work and workplace are linked – and are indications of organisational performance. Questions on intention to leave are included in the Working for Queensland survey.
- 30% intend to stay working in their position for the next one to two years.
- 45% intend to stay working in their position for at least the next three years.
- 16% intend to leave their position within the next 12 months.
- 9% intend to leave their position as soon as possible.
Source: Working for Queensland 2023.
When asked to describe their intention to leave, most employees who indicated they intend to leave were doing so with the intention of applying for a new role within their agency or another agency in the sector.
The main reasons for employees leaving their positions are:
- senior leadership is not meeting the employee’s expectations
- lack of career opportunities in their current agency
- seeking skill development in another area
- emotional exhaustion.
Source: Working for Queensland 2023.
Where employees are engaged, they intend to stay in their current role for longer:
- 62% intend to stay working in their position for the next one to two years
- 29% intend to stay working in their position for at least the next three years
- 8% want to leave their position within the next 12 months
- 1% want to leave their position as soon as possible.
Source: Working for Queensland 2023.
For this cohort of highly engaged employees, most intended to or already had applied for a new position within their agency. The most prominent reasons for leaving their position were related to a desire to acquire new skills and seek promotion.
Where employees are disengaged, they intend to leave their current role sooner:
- 14% intend to stay working in their position for the next one to two years
- 14% intend to stay working in their position for at least the next three years
- 26% want to leave their position within the next 12 months
- 46% want to leave their position as soon as possible.
Source: Working for Queensland 2023, % of respondents.
For these disengaged employees, most were doing so because of poor senior leadership and supervisory quality. However, most were seeking opportunities within the public sector as opposed to leaving the sector altogether.
Hires and separations
The Act establishes employment on a permanent basis as the default employment in the Queensland public sector. A high performing workforce is one that is attractive to new employees and is able to minimise separations. As such, separation rates are monitored as a measure of retention.
The separation rate is the proportion of permanent employees who separated from the Queensland public sector as a proportion of the total number of permanent employees.
- Employees separating tend to stay for at least five years before leaving the public sector.
- Of those who have separated, 65% worked in the sector for five years or more.
Source: MOHRI March 2024.
Like many other sectors and jurisdictions across Australia, the labour market has become increasingly competitive in recent years, leading to an increase in separations.
Despite this challenging labour market, the Queensland public sector continues to grow as the population, needs and expectations from the community grows.
Absenteeism
Increases in unplanned leave impacts workforce performance. The propensity for individuals to take excessive amounts of unplanned leave is strongly connected to low job satisfaction and low employee engagement.
It is important to monitor unplanned leave in order to understand the ‘normal’ use of different types of leave, particularly sick leave and carers leave. Taking these forms of leave is expected and a normal part of workforce management. When these leave usages are monitored over time in conjunction with other metrics, such as engagement, it is possible to identify performance issues.
In the past 12 months prior to March 2024 employees have had an average of:
- 2.8 days unscheduled leave per quarter
- 1.9 days sick leave per quarter
- 0.4 days carer leave per quarter.
In the past five years to March 2024, the peak in unplanned absenteeism occurred in September 2022. In 2022 the Queensland labour market was learning to live with COVID-19. COVID-19 coincided with a particularly aggressive flu season, which is also likely to have impacted unplanned leave.
In addition to the COVID pandemic, the Queensland public sector was also responding to a series of significant disasters including the 2019 Queensland bushfires (December 2019) and the 2021–2022 Southern Queensland Floods (November 2021 to May 2022). These events, combined with the unprecedented nature of the pandemic response are likely to have had a cumulative impact on the health of Queensland public servants.
Tenure
Turnover is a significant cost for any organisation.
With each departing employee, corporate knowledge and history is lost, training dollars are lost, and new employees need to be trained resulting in downtime in service delivery and workflow.
Tenure is an important measure of performance.
- The average length of tenure in the Queensland public service is 11.5 years.
- 19% have been employed for over 20 years.
- A quarter of Queensland’s public servants have been employed in the sector for between 10 and 19 years.
- 21% have been employed for between five and nine years.
- 35% have been employed in the Queensland public sector for less than 5 years.