Government and Corporate Services Procurement feedback – June 2017 (PDF version)

The PSA met with Management on Wednesday 14 June to discuss its responses to the PSA’s feedback on the Procurement and Workplace RMP. This feedback can be accessed HERE.

Management confirmed it had made some changes in light of the extensive union feedback. However, when pressed on exact detail of the changes it was unable to disclose these. The final RMP is imminent and is with DFSI Secretary Mr Hoffman for sign off.

Mr Hoffman – flexible office location

Members will be aware Mr Hoffman made an announcement on Friday 2 June where he spoke about an opportunity to pilot some new flexible working practices for people living on the Central Coast and currently working in Sydney. EOIs are open for DFSI employees who may want to work at Gosford as their ‘home’ office.

This is a separate process entirely to the Procurement and Workplace restructure. The PSA received an assurance nothing will be allocated under the pilot program until the roles in the RMP have been filled and expressions of interest are received by those affected staff.

The PSA recommends interested members respond to the EOIs to work in Gosford if it suits their situation. The link in Mr Hoffman’s email takes you to a ‘Survey Monkey’ survey.

For those roles transferred to Parramatta, the PSA pressed Management with respect to the possibility of working a couple of days in Parramatta and three days at Gosford. Management will assess the viability of flexible working arrangements along the lines of this example, on an individual basis. The PSA will advocate for members seeking any such arrangements.

Hours of work

The draft RMP proposes in ‘item 10 – Hours of work’: in accordance with the DFSI Flexible Working Hours Agreement 2016, customer-facing roles may have fixed operational requirements due to office opening times and are required to work hours that will ensure maximum availability to our customers across two shifts: 7am-3pm and 10am- 6pm. Other roles working hours will be dependent on operational requirements.

There are two particular key issues to be further explored:

Fixed hours of work on a roster

For the fixed 7am-3pm or 10am-6pm shift, Management has assumed ALL 3/4 roles are customer-facing roles in the sense they are operational customer-facing roles, the likes of which you would find at reception.

The draft Service Catalogue in ‘Appendix A’ refers to maintenance of services between the hours of 8:30am to 5:30pm on business days. There is no reference in the Service Catalogue to other hours of business.

In ‘Appendix B’ Business Requirements, sets out that; only Workplace Services roles performing direct customer service functions will be assigned fixed hours of work on a roster to provide continuous onsite support services from 7am to 6pm Monday to Friday except for public holidays in NSW. This will be achieved by operating two shifts during business days as follows:

• 7:00am to 3:00pm

• 10:00am to 6:00pm

We stated at the meeting it should be noted that operational team leads already organise their Grade 3/4 building staff to cover the stated hours of 7:00am to 6:00pm and we see absolutely no reason to require all other non-customer-facing 3/4 staff to operate these fixed-hour shifts/roster system, especially when in the main all hours are currently covered.

In the meeting Chief Procurement Officer Greg Grebert spoke about ensuring staff be present in office hours throughout the day. He continually gave the example of reception staffing. We argued we see no reason to change the arrangements that currently operate throughout the organisation and are managed successfully by supervising staff.

The PSA will be requesting further information as to the reason all 3/4 staff, even those NOT performing direct customer service functions are required to work on a fixed-hour shift/roster system. Once we have that further information we will decide on the reasonable course of union action

New fixed hours of work for all other grades

For the first time, we now see hours of work set down in all the Role Descriptions (RD). This represents a significant change to the roles, by seeking to alter bandwidth hours that are currently available from 7.00am to 7.00pm, Monday to Friday.

The hours, set out in the RMP Role Descriptions, for all grades (other than Grade 3/4s who are expected to work fixed hour shifts regardless of whether they are a customer facing role or not) is NOT BEFORE 8:30am and NOT AFTER 5:30pm, less half-hour lunch.

This appears to reset core bandwidth hours by excluding all staff from working through the full bandwidth hours as set out in the ‘Flexible Working Hours Agreement 2016’ (FWHA) to accumulate hours, as is now the current practice.

At the meeting the PSA opposed and rejected the hours of work being set down in the RDs and further, the new imposition of restricting working hours that attempts to circumvent the principles of flexibility found in the FWHA.

Greg Grebert spoke about the need to be near customers, suppliers, Whole of Government agencies for NSW Procurement activities and the peak bodies.

The PSA will take action in the IRC if the final RMP contains these restrictions.

Lastly, on numerous occasions, we pressed for advice on further information on a number of areas of the RMP. These included the type of work in each of the work streams, the basis on which tasks had been analysed to determine work-loads, the rationale for the reduction of three key 7/8 roles, and the proposed considerations that have been included in the final RMP to be proposed. The PSA will await the final RMP to determine if these issues have been adequately addressed.

Recommendations arising from the meeting

• If you submitted a question individually check through the responses to date and if your personal question has not been responded to you should contact Employee Relations Enquiries urgently at their email address .

• Ensure you are registered on the flexible office pilot program. You should do this if you are working in any office as there are a range of ‘home’ offices provided for in this proposal.

• Attend any programs that have been announced that will assist in preparing applications for roles.