Information for Employees
What is the Workforce Mobility Placement Program?
The Workforce Mobility Placement (WMP) Program is a government-wide initiative led by the Premier’s Department. It aims to retain staff in the public sector, prioritising ongoing employees who have had their position affected by change, placing them in vacant roles at the same level within the sector.
The program will:
- maximise mobility across the sector
- retain key skills and talented people in NSW Government
- make it easy to find and move to opportunities anywhere in the sector.
A dedicated central placement team
The WMP team helps impacted employees access roles anywhere in NSW Government that match their skills and capabilities. The WMP team is notified of all vacancies across the sector, before they are advertised. A key feature of the program is that there is no formal assessment or interview required for mobility placements, where employees have already been through a merit process for their existing role.
Employees whose role is at risk are matched to all vacancies in their ongoing classification or grade in all Departments and agencies in NSW public sector.
The advantages of using WMP are:
- Opportunities are matched for you, you will be contacted directly about roles matched to your skills and capabilities.
- You don’t need to go through an interview or formal assessment to transition to your next role in NSW Government.
- Continued career development with NSW Government.
- You are supported throughout the process by your dedicated case manager.
How does the Workforce Mobility Placement process work?
Agencies determine who is referred to the program and will advise employees in writing prior to referral.
Yes. As an employee impacted by change, your agency will assign you a case manager. Your case manager will be the primary contact for you with the WMP team and will contact you about opportunities you have been matched to.
The WMP team aims to match everyone as quickly as possible. Referred employees remain in the program until they have been matched to an opportunity, find an alternate role, or no suitable role has been found within eight weeks. You will be kept informed throughout the workforce mobility placement process, and if no match is made, your agency will support you through the next steps.
As an existing employee, you have already completed an equitable and merit-based selection process for the classification/grade of your ongoing role. Mobility placements will only be made at grade.
Who is eligible for the program?
No.
No.
No. The program is only for ongoing non-executive employees impacted by change. A separate program for Senior Executives is managed by the Public Service Commission.
Ongoing, temporary, at-grade and specialist roles
Yes. If you are matched to a limited duration role, you will retain your ongoing employment status with your home agency.
You remain an ongoing employee, with your home agency, and move to the temporary role on secondment. Approximately three months prior to the end of your temporary role, you will be considered for roles through workforce mobility placement again, with a new eight-week period for matching starting at that point. In the event that no suitable role can be found for you after eight weeks, your agency will advise you of next steps.
No. This program will only be placing referred employees into at-grade opportunities.
Yes, it is possible to transfer across awards. Please refer to the Transfer and Secondment Guidelines for more detail.
Whilst we will not match people to specialist roles where they do not have the required skills, we will use best endeavours to match employees in specialist roles with suitable roles across the sector. We cannot guarantee that specialist roles will be available that match your speciality, but we will do our best to provide the best opportunity for you in the public service.
Your start date will depend on a number of factors including the requirements of your home agency, your new agency and your own needs and circumstances.
Regional and other locations
Yes. Many roles can be delivered from anywhere in NSW, and regionality will not be a factor if the role does not have specific on-site or other practical location-based constraints.
Depending on the role, flexible working arrangements, including working from home or from other offices may be available. For some positions it is important for staff to work closely with the team and have quick access to site locations. All arrangements need to be discussed and negotiated with the employing agency recruiter.
We will tell you when you have matched with a role in any agency at any location. We understand that practicality plays an important part of decision-making when deciding whether to accept a role. However, flexible working arrangements are very effective at allowing people to perform roles from anywhere in the state and wherever possible, these should be used to make a role viable for you and the agency.
A role match will only be considered non-viable where there are critical parts of the role that must be completed from a specific location that would prevent a successful flexible working arrangement.
Review, support and contacts
When the WMP team find a role that is a great fit for you, you will have 24 hours to consider the role and raise any matters you would like considered. The team will review all considerations raised and advise the outcome via your case manager.
In the event you have been matched to a role, matters you raised were considered and the match continued to be determined a suitable fit for your capabilities, agencies are able to directly transfer you to a role in a different agency. You can request a review of the transfer if you believe the match is not suitable and you can request support from your new agency to gain the right knowledge or skills for their role.
The aim of the program is to retain all the ongoing employees we currently have in NSW Government, matching skills and capabilities to where they are needed most.
No. Before agencies can declare employees excess, they are required to refer impacted employees for workforce mobility placement for 8 weeks. If there are no suitable matches during the 8-week placement program, agencies will be advised employees have exhausted the workforce mobility placement options.
It is then up to the agency head able to determine whether employees are deemed excess and the Managing Excess Employee Policy will apply. That is outside the WMP program.
We understand change is difficult. If you need support, please speak to your home agency to access the employee assistance programs.
Please speak to the case manager in your home agency in the first instance.