By Urvika Koti, Tamara Wakeman, Kellie Chamberlain of Strategic Partnerships and Engagement, Comcare
How safe do you feel to speak up at work? Can you be open and honest, voice your opinions, and make suggestions?
Creating a psychologically safe environment at work can help people feel more comfortable speaking up and contributing their ideas without the fear of shame or punishment. Doing this also fosters a culture of integrity and safety. An often overlooked but effective way to build safer work environments is through good work design, which can help improve worker motivation, engagement and stress levels.
Comcare and the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC), with funding from the APS Capability Reinvestment Fund, have delivered three pilot projects to build safety and integrity capability in APS leaders. Two of these projects focused on using good work design to build psychologically and psycho-socially safe work environments.
A new Good Work Design pilot sprint was developed for the APSC’s EL2 Leadership Edge program, a peer-based learning program aimed at building leadership capability. Comcare collaborated with the APSC and Curtin University to deliver the sprint, helping 360 participants to understand SMART work design and how to apply it to their everyday work.
Using a structured evaluation framework, the pilot was evaluated for its reach, learning design, and potential for real-world impact. Participants overwhelmingly valued the experience—many described it as giving them a shared language for challenges they’d long felt but hadn’t been able to articulate. The evaluation also revealed strong demand for tools and support to help teams apply SMART work design in practice. This insight directly shaped the next phase: a team-based pilot focused on practical implementation. The SMART work design in teams pilot used Curtin University’s SMART work design framework in a four-step process to diagnose a team’s work design, revise the design and test and embed work design changes.
Teams from 9 agencies participated in the pilot:
- National Disability Insurance Scheme
- Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry
- Department of Health and Aged Care
- Safe Work Australia
- Department of Industry Science and Resources
- Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority
- Australian Digital Health Agency
- Department of Social Services
- Geoscience Australia.
The pilot used a ‘champion’ model where each agency nominated an enthusiastic and curious champion to drive activities and facilitate the change process. Champions engaged their teams in rich discussions that guided inclusive evolution of work design in teams.
In taking further steps, 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.
If you would like more information, contact the work design team.