Balancing people with responsibilities
Rockhampton Council was recently shortlisted as a state finalist as Large Employer of the Year by the Queensland Department of Employment and Training. It is the first time that a Local Government has been selected as a finalist. The other nominees are SeaWorld Nara Resort and Greenslopes Private Hospital.
Every year, the State Department of Training and Employment, through the Queensland Training Awards, honour the State’s top apprentices, trainees, vocational students, employers, schools, trainers and those committed to training.
Rockhampton’s Deputy CEO, Bradley Duke, said the success of the Human Resources Unit was part of a broader corporate improvement program across the organisation called RockyCORP. At Rockhampton Council, RockyCORP is an evolving project that constantly requires balancing people with responsibilities.
Bradley Duke said there was an obvious drive for a higher standard of service delivery across all the resource units. “Since 2000, organisational performance has noticeably improved and employee morale is on the rise,” he said. “In 2001 the Corporate Services Department was subjected to unprecedented departures of key personnel that impacted greatly on the corporate memory of the Department.”
He said this adversity did not derail reform; it only strengthened the resolve of key managers.
Service level agreements are in place across all departments for the delivery and a standard of corporate service. A significant amount of work was undertaken in the development of the recent budget in respect of a fair and accurate overhead model for the distribution of corporate services across Council departments.
Bradley Duke has told his managers and supervisors that because corporate services do not construct the roads or the bridges, their operational costs will always be under a level of scrutiny among executive management and the Council.
“This level of scrutiny will only reduce by continued performance improvements, tangible outcomes and perception becoming reality in respect of customer service roles and responsibilities,” he said.
For more details contact Bradley Duke on (07) 4936 8286.
