Training & Personal Development at Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C)

There is a raft of training available, both on-the-job and formal training sessions. I have learnt about best practice work relationships, writing briefs, providing expert policy advice, developed a basic understanding of impact analysis, and more. I had the opportunity to become Mental Health First Aid Accredited too.

Most of the graduate training opportunities are at least interesting, some outstanding, many turn out to be boring and dull, without being hands-on and with hardly any take-away learnings. The departmental offerings are generally better, targeted at a higher classification audience but therefore make better learning opportunities.

Writing for the Department/Public Service - informal and formal Principles for effective engagement with communities Stakeholder relationship management - informal and formal Technical skills, e.g. Excel

Has been ok but quite hit-or-miss.

There has been some stoppages to me wanting to undertake additional training. There has also been times when I was prevented from completing a graduate rotation in another area despite internal policy stating I could. I was reprimanded for it. Later I took it further. I got my rotation, but for only 1 month. Very disappointed.

Many opportunities to learn

Informal training sessions around the department are often very good. Formal training sessions in the grad program are a very mixed bag - some are great, some are good but aren't necessarily a great usage of time, while others do feel a bit unnecessary.

There is extensive training offered at my Department. I have gained skills in writing, decision making, leadership and more. However, opportunities to gain knowledge in First Nations experiences when it comes to policy making is lacking extensively, as well as any cultural awareness training from respected First Nations people.

Graduate year has a large number of training hours and a training budget. Quality of training varies. Following graduate year I had the opportunity to continue to undertake training.

The graduate training program was terrible. The training was predominately useless except for 1-2 courses.

Good opportunities throughout the Graduate program and ongoing training. My current team offers $500 per year for outside of the Department training opportunities.

Some of the training is not well targeted. The organisation can sometimes recruit poor trainers, particularly for graduates.

Training is fairly standard, not really challenging, diverse or innovative, and is generally aimed at a fairly low, basic level, and seems to be quite ad hoc.

Graduates are required to do a lot of training that is not relevant to our jobs/aimed below our level.

Grad training was poorly targeted. Now that we can choose our own development training, it’s better.

Formal training is available however as part of the Graduate programme we are required to complete set training, however not all of these were available.

HR mandated training is quite unhelpful and disorganised. Very hard to book in relevant training to yourself - training requests specific to your needs gets knocked back without too much interest or communication or logical reasoning.

Much of the grad training is unnecessary, low-level or repetitive. However, there are opportunities to arrange your own training which is a strength of the Department.

At PM&C you do get access to some amazing seminars and speakers. However, formal training is not greatly developed.