Training & Personal Development at Services Australia

More cyber specific training

More training needed to be given for starting up Graduate.

Some training programs such as Multicultural Training, CX Design, and PDMS training are sufficient. The Agency's Empowering Excellence program is a terrible program which does not effectively deliver on the outcomes it claims to. It's basis on disputed research and theory is also troubling as this program is the Agency's 'high level' training program.

Training mostly consisted of online modules and training videos. There were periods of on-the-job training and observation before switching to learning on the job.

The training I have come across as a grad covers things such as; growth mindset, problem solving skills, emotional intelligence, and leadership skills, and professional development. - I have found majority of the content to be engaging, although a little repetitive in some sections. Overall, I found the training to be beneficial to my understanding of my role in my job, but also my role in the wider organisation.

Its a bit boring. Fine for the graduate jobs I was doing, but when I was redeployed to service delivery, I did not feel prepared to pick up the phone and talk to a customer when the time came.

Training and work was heavily disrupted by mandatory 8 week 'service delivery experience' about 6 weeks into the graduate program for which we had 2 days notice. Upon return to BAU we had to re-establish our case load. We lost 2 months out of our first rotation.

Training is mostly self-paced online modules, with screens/videos and simple multiple choice questions for assessment.

Most training was targeted at people with no professional training and therefore was repetitive of things covered in my degree. Learning and development opportunities are not very accessible as most relevant courses offered through the suggested platform are 2+ hours in duration whereas scheduled allocations are no longer than 90 minutes. I have not had the opportunity to be nominated for more work specific training as allocations are few.

Lots or skills from basic HR knowledge to data analysis and programming

The required training for the first two weeks was very boring and very bad. Some of the elective training I have undertaken related to my role was much more interesting and engaging.

What training and development programs?

The training does a good job with the fundamentals but fails to really provide detailed or skilled training.

The training is all online which is convenient, the content however could be reviewed more often for relevancy.

There are many opportunities provided, we have regular training. I have picked up skills in communication, organisation, responding to complex customers. Also, knowledge specific to my area - eg. family and domestic violence, risk of suicide etc.

Most of the formal training has been excellent and well supported. The training for Service Delivery deployments was unnecessarily long and a waste of time.

Online learning. I have not picked up any skills

Formal training is terrible: the graduate team has definitely gotten better, but they really didn't have anywhere to go except up. Hiring more people in 2023 hopefully will make it a bit better next year. Empowering Excellence is a combination of things you'll already know from university, things you'll pick up from informal training very quickly, and motivational speaking. Informal training was good for me, but there was a lot to learn. So much depends on where you're placed that I can't realistically rate it, because it will depend on who you're placed with, how long they have to train you, what you're learning, if your degree was relevant and so forth.

The agency scrapped a diploma of government that was offered to previous graduate years, in exchange we did training focused on customer service roles...which basically none of the graduates were in. The training was also not applicable to roles that we may do in other government organisations.

Empowering Excellence was completely useless. It should not be given to graduates. I would have preferred the diploma of government which would have given me something useful at the end. If there has to be an educational requirement to the graduate program, then make it stream specific that gives something relevant. If there is going to be surveys at the end of programs such as Empowering Excellence, make it relevant to the program, do not ask questions related to a person's everyday job. LMS training for social workers needs to be social work specific. I learnt a lot about a Service Officer's role, nothing about mine. The only aspect of training that I have found helpful was Crisis Payment Consolidation. That was an excellent pilot program and every aspect of a social worker's role should have a similar program to help new social workers starting at Services Australia. Crisis Payment Consolidation, however, was not part of the graduate program. Nothing offered as part of the graduate program had any relevance or usefulness to the social work role within the Agency.