Culture at Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA)

There is a big effort to make the culture collaborative and social, and it is fairly successful.

The office culture can be minimal on a given day as many of my colleagues work from home or in different regional offices. Despite this, the team is very supportive and collaborative. Organisational structure and hierarchy is very firm and I have minimal contact with my manager - for good and bad. My team has had many members shifting around in their roles due to colleagues taking leave or resigning. Many of my colleagues in my team are overworked. Thankfully there is no pressure to socialise outside of work hours - jobs that impose after hours socialising seem more like cults.

Work life balance is highly encouraged, and we have good leave entitlements. There has never been an expectation that I will be contactable outside of work hours for business as usual work, this is of course different for emergency deployments. Although there is officially a very hierarchical structure, in day-to-day operations this is not necessarily felt in terms of everyone's contributions being sought out and valued. At a district level, teamwork and cooperation are everything. On the flip side, emergency work by nature must be strictly hierarchical, however the level of camaraderie means you form stronger working relationships with colleagues, particularly with those you wouldn't normally work with. Socialising amongst colleagues is common but isn't forced. There isn't a big calendar of out of hours work events.

It all depends on where you work. the office that I work in is dull. people do not sit together at lunch and it is isolating. some other offices are bright and social. there is no work related social life in or outside of work

My division has a culture club, which puts on fantastic social events. The atmosphere is relaxed and in a social sense, there is little hierarchy. However, in the work environment, there is inevitably highly structured hierarchy in line with the approval chain that is part of government. People across the Planning group are engaged in their work, friendly and willing to collaborate. The combination of Transport and Planning in one department has not been the smoothest, and I wouldn't say that their is a shared culture or strong collaboration between them.

Employee wellbeing is a priority, professional growth, inclusive environment

There is a strong culture of flexible working, including hours worked, leave entitlements, work locations (including multiple offices and working from home). Managers and people leaders strongly encourage work-life balance, and expect that you will leave work for work hours, and not let it eat into your personal time/life. Professionally, people leaders will largely make a strong effort to get juniors connected to others within the team, and encourage opportunities to network and build a sense of teams. Socially, there are many opportunities to meet others, including social afternoon teas, weekly quizzes, networks that run 'speed-dating networking' rounds, amongst other things. Outside of work hours, graduate program employees will run unofficial catchups together, including lunches, weekends away, drinks after work and online quizzes together.

I really like the culture within DEECA. They have and continue to put a lot of work into monitoring and implementing strategies to improve culture and it shows. Flexible work has taken a bit of getting used to, but my colleagues are always quick to remind me there is no obligation to work outside my flexible hours

Good initiatives to support each other and to support LGBTQI+, Traditional Owners and others. Good initiatives to socialise and build relationship in teams. Some disconnect between Regional and District staff.

Strong culture but not overly social outside of work hours.