Management at Department of Industry, Science and Resources

The EL staff and SES I have engaged with make a real effort to be available, even when busy. I am can only speak to my own experience, but it has been mostly positive in my dealings with them overall. Some more clarity and visibility in some decisions however would be appreciated though. I understand there is a panel that decides the rotations, but they do not allow us to have any input into these decisions. This lack of transparency in something that is helping to shape our careers is incredibly unsettling. I have mostly been lucky with my rotations, but I do feel it is unfair we cannot make a case to them directly; being told as a grad we do not have a right to this.

My managers overall have been quite kind, patient and open

My managers in my first and second rotation were fantastic. They were excellent mentors, efficient communicators, and good providers of feedback. They took an active interest in my life and career.

My line area managers have generally been positive mentors with strong communications and feedback structures. This excludes the SES in my first rotation, and the Employment Programs leadership who largely neglected to manage the Grad program.

So far through my graduate program I have had great managers, who are approachable and dedicated to creating a healthy team culture and developing team members. The only management I have found to be troublesome is the management of the graduate program itself with conflicting messages from the support team and lack of overall support. For example, we were provided with a graduate handbook with the support that the graduate team would provide but they didn't follow through with a variety of items such as 1-1 check ins.

My mentors have been supportive of any opportunities I have wanted to engage with and have proactive in recommending others they feel could benefit my abilities.

Some mentors have been incredible, but there has been no consistency in the graduate supervisors, it is clear that the team performed no checks on whether people were fit to lead, nor did they offer trainings despite this being clearly outlined in the grad handbook. There were also no check-ins with team nor grads to see if anything was wrong/if any assistance could be given.

Managers/supervisors have all been exceptional.

Managers make themselves available for feedback and support. I will say it is difficult to performance manage in the APS.

At NMI (lab roles), I was much closer to my team colleagues/supervisors than my managers. The managers were often busy with higher position work, or the management position was always vacant. But I was always comfortable to talk to the General Manager of our branch. The policy teams in NMI though have had approachable and friendly managers, which have been great for instant and constructive feedback. Whilst working for the graduate major project, it has been great to have a large amount of support from the project team mentors who are assistant manager/managers in their own portfolio teams (this is only an additional support). They have been amazing mentors, reaching out to support the graduate team beyond their requirements.