Enablers of productivity
Though productivity cannot be directly measured in a staff survey, the 2025 Public Service Census measured factors that support higher productivity.
Both senior leaders and managers create an environment where people have clear direction on what they need to deliver. Most public servants (73%) agreed that their manager supports their team to deliver their responsibilities in a timely manner. We found that 57% of respondents agreed that their senior leaders articulate the direction and priorities of the organisation.
Sixty percent of managers said they have the support they need from their organisation to manage or improve staff performance that is not meeting expectations. Leaders at all levels reported that support for managing staff performance was a challenge. Sixty-six percent of staff said their manager provides them with helpful feedback to improve their performance.
Leadership support for productivity
Teamwork
Most public servants (79%) said their team has clear work objectives and most (84%) agreed that their team collaborates to get the job done.
The majority rated their team as being very or extremely successful in meeting their objectives in the last 12 months (61%), while 30% said their team was moderately successful, and 9% rated their team as slightly or not at all successful in meeting its objectives.
Barriers to productivity
Within agencies, the top barrier to teams performing at their best was staffing level/work volumes with 49% saying this was preventing them and their team performing at their best to a “great or very great extent”, a further 33% said it was “somewhat” of a barrier. As shown in the graph below, the remaining options were “very little or not at all”.
Other barriers included complicated/unnecessary business processes (37% great/very great, 36% somewhat), and inefficient decision making (34% great/very great, 41% somewhat).
Between agencies, the biggest barriers were problems getting timely information from other agencies (24% great/very great, 43% somewhat), risk aversion in other agencies (22% great/very great, 33% somewhat), difficulty getting people with the right level of decision-making authority at the table (20% great/very great, 30% somewhat), and lack of accountability (20% great/very great, 28% somewhat).