Building safety and integrity capability across the APS

Background

Feeling safe at work is important. Our wellbeing, health, integrity, performance and ability to innovate are impacted by how safe we feel. We contribute to our potential when we can be open and honest, voice our opinions and make suggestions. But creating a psychologically safe environment for all of us isn’t easy.

In the evolving hybrid work landscape, it is now more important than ever for leaders at all levels to focus on supporting psychosocial and psychological safety. Building psychological safety in the APS contributes to a culture of integrity and more effective governance, service delivery and trust in Government.

Work design is an overlooked but effective way to build safer work environments, improving worker motivation, engagement and stress levels. The CRF builds on Comcare’s existing Good Work Design resources, with a particular focus on strengthening leadership capabilities.

Update – all pilot projects are now complete.  

Project 1 – SES Skills Lab and Mentoring Program

This pilot was delivered by the APSC’s APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit, based on their 6R Relational Leadership Capabilities Self-reflection tool. It supported Senior Executive Service (SES) staff to embed relational leadership capabilities that enable psychological and psychosocial safety. Through an experiential workshop followed by mentoring sessions by the Unit psychologists, the pilot helped SES staff to develop a culture of pro-integrity and stewardship, strengthen relational skills to support workplace safety, and support the wellbeing of APS Staff.

Highlights include:

• opportunities to share and learn from peers, as well as psychologist facilitators.
• a high level of interest with the delivery of six skills labs. A total of 64 SES staff across 22 agencies of different sizes participated.
• a 96% participant satisfaction rating.

Talks are underway to embed the Skills Lab into future APS Academy leadership development offerings for SES and EL2s.

Project 2 – Good Work Design in the EL2 Leadership Edge program

This pilot was delivered by Comcare and the APS Academy in partnership with Curtin University. It built capability in designing healthy and psychologically safe work environments via a new two-week Good Work Design sprint in the APS Leadership Edge program. Highlights include:

• Incorporation within a successful leadership program of a practical approach for creating work environments that help people be their best.
• A total of 360 participants including 286 EL2s and 74 EL1s from 63 agencies of different sizes.
• A 95% participant satisfaction rating.

The Good Work Design sprint has become a core component of APS Leadership Edge, with upwards of 84 post-pilot participants.

Find out more about APS Leadership Edge and the new APS Leadership Edge Community that enables EL2s to develop their leadership and management skills through a range of resources, communities and activities.

Project 3 – SMART Work Design in Teams

Delivered by Comcare in partnership with Curtin University using the Centre for Transformative Work Designs SMART framework. The pilot tested a SMART work design in teams learning experience for teams from large and small APS agencies. Highlights include:

• Trial of a practical process to improve work design by co-located and virtual teams within their workplaces.
• Approximately 80 participants across 9 agencies.
• A 93% participant satisfaction rating.

Comcare will use insights from the pilot to build and offer an ongoing learning solution that helps teams across the APS to use SMART work design for healthier, safer and more satisfying work.

Find out more about SMART Work Design.

What was different about our CRF program

These pilots delivered strong results, but the real shift wasn’t just what we did. It was how we approached capability building and how we measured what mattered.

We didn’t just rely on participation or satisfaction metrics. We tested a new system of capability uplift that built:

• a Capability Ecosystem Blueprint that connects people, programs and performance. The Blueprint encourages collaboration and learning transfer and supports behaviour change.
• a performance framework that helped us understand not just who attended, but what stuck – and what’s likely to transfer into real workplace impact.

This approach gives us more than a record of success. It provides insight to guide what we scale, what we refine, and how we build from here — with information grounded in real-world data.

The final summative evaluation is due in September 2025.

For more information on the CRF program, pilots or learning and evaluation approach contact: goodworkdesign@comcare.gov.au.

Other advisory partners involved

• Department of Education
• Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
• Department of Defence
• Department of Health
• Commonwealth Ombudsman
• National Indigenous Australians Agency
• National Emergency Management Agency of Australia