2023 APS Employee Census opens next week

Mehreen-Faruqi.jpg

The 2023 APS Employee Census will open up next week, with invitations to be staggered out between May 8 and 12.

The census will, for the first time, include more questions designed to capture data about culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people.

An APSC spokesperson told The Mandarin questions on CALD had been included for a number of years.

“In consultation with employee networks, agencies and the Diversity Council of Australia, the commission revised these questions for 2023,” the spokesperson said.

“In addition to pre-existing questions, the 2023 Employee Census questionnaire includes a question asking employees to indicate their cultural background.”

The question asks an employee to describe their cultural background, with an employee able to identify multiple. The options include Australian, Australian Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, Anglo-European, South-East Asian, and more.

Previous censuses asked about whether an employee was born overseas and whether they speak a language other than English at home.

Alongside the argument “you can’t be what you can’t see”, those arguing for better CALD representation say the public service should be as diverse as the community it serves.

ANU Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership Jieh-Yung Lo told The Mandarin last year that without the data about CALD public servants, it was difficult to identify whether demographics such as Asian-Australians were being pigeonholed into roles like technology or finance.

“Without that data, it’s very hard to set targets,” Lo said at the time.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi called for a formal strategy for CALD representation in the APS during senate estimates.

“We know that where government policy harms people, it often disproportionately impacts migrant and ethnically diverse communities. Without appropriate representation, including in leadership, this will continue to happen,” Faruqi said at the time.

APS employees will have until June 9 to complete the survey, which is used to gain a sense of employee sentiment within agencies.

“Agencies use census data to inform programs and planning, and for monitoring trends,” the APSC said on its participant information factsheet.

“This information also allows agencies to assess how well they are tracking against other agencies and the APS more generally.”

Those identified to participate will receive an email sometime next week, with the survey expected to be completed within 30 minutes.

The 2022 data revealed that although bullying and harassment in the APS were trending downward, the majority went unreported.


READ MORE:

Federal bureaucrats urged to complete survey for APS health check

Source link

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top