How to build digital capability
Guidance to help you build the digital capability of your agency’s workforce.
Principles for a digitally capable public service workforce
These principles provide a point of reference for decisions you make as you build the digital capability of your agency’s workforce.
- We focus on the people we serve — the public service digital workforce supports the delivery of high-quality, effective and efficient public services that meet the needs of New Zealanders.
- We are future focused — the public service digital workforce identifies and plans for workforce capability needs in the short, medium and long term.
- We work together — the public service digital workforce works together, within and across agencies including by coordinating and collaborating to achieve results.
- We honour te Tiriti — the public service digital workforce understands Māori data is a taonga and is protected under te Tiriti o Waitangi, including upholding the rights and interests of Māori in the collection, ownership and application of their own data.
- We are trustworthy — the public service digital workforce adheres to standards of integrity and conduct including by managing data and information securely. Standards of Integrity and Conduct — Te Kawa Mataaho | Public Service Commission.
These principles are consistent with the Strategy for a Digital Public Service.
Strategy for a Digital Public Service
You can read about the Public Service Act principles. In particular, the concept of stewardship, including the public service’s duty of care for its long-term capability and its people.
Guidance: Public Service Principles — Te Kawa Mataaho | Public Service Commission
Understand your workforce and your priorities
Who are you counting as your digital workforce?
You should start with your digital technology specialists and leaders, including employees, contractors and consultants.
Do you understand the digital skills your workforce has?
- If so, what are they?
- If not, how can you better understand your workforce’s skills?
What are your agency’s priorities, functions and deliverables?
Does your workforce align with your agency’s priorities, functions and deliverables?
Will your priorities and functions change?
Are there emerging demands or technology impacting your priorities and functions? For example, emerging technology like artificial intelligence (AI) is creating demand for AI specialists and AI literacy in the public service workforce, particularly on how to safely and securely use new digital tools.
What are the workforce implications of those changes?
Gather your data
Think about what the data is telling you. What might this mean for your future workforce requirements?
See Strategic workforce planning
Future-proof your workforce by prioritising long-term talent planning, investing in skills development, and honing your hiring strategies... Retention will often be as crucial as attraction — offering clear career pathways, competitive benefits, and upskilling opportunities will help retain top talent.
Attract, recruit, develop, retain
To attract people to your digital specialist and leader roles you will need a convincing value proposition. The Public Service Commission notes the following points about working in the public service:
- working together with a common purpose
- uniquely Aotearoa New Zealand
- diverse and inclusive
- modern and flexible working arrangements
- part of a proud public service.
Public Service Recruitment — Te Kawa Mataaho | Public Service Commission (PDF 896KB)
In , a workshop with programme leads of public service graduate and intern programmes found that graduates see numerous benefits associated with working in the public service, including:
- professional development and career progression
- flexible working conditions
- a diverse and inclusive working environment
- a strong sense of community, resulting in a fulfilling and impactful career.
It’s important to develop your people to enhance their digital capabilities.
One example is the 3-part masterclass series on AI for senior leaders in the public service being delivered by the Public Service Commission’s Leadership Development Centre.
AI Foundational Capability — Leadership Development Centre
An AI foundational development programme builds confidence and capability to assess and enable AI opportunities in a safe, responsible and productive way.
Build on good practice and use your organisational ‘levers’
People in public service agencies are already building digital capability in lots of ways, like on-the-job learning and through secondments.
Leaders are coaching and mentoring staff and encouraging cross-agency shadowing opportunities. Senior leaders are planning their agency workforce requirements over the short, medium and long term.
Insights from a survey of public service and state sector agencies
Opportunities to upskill and reskill in digital include, but are not limited to:
- self-directed learning and development
- learning events
- experiential learning, for example, simulations and internships
- skills-based training programmes, for example, bootcamps, apprenticeships and certification programmes
- traditional credential-based education, for example, universities, polytechnics and private training establishments
- accelerated training courses
- joining learning hubs — completing training and community online courses, short courses and micro-credentials
- graduate or internship programmes
- cross-functional teams working on projects
- internal and cross-agency secondments
- stretch and short-term assignments
- co-locations or job rotations
- structured on-the-job learning and participation in coaching, mentoring and shadowing programmes
- learning plans based on in-house public service agency learning programmes.
Organisational levers that build capability include:
- recruitment practices and processes
- organisational policies, for example, remuneration
- retention strategies
- strategic workforce planning
- workforce data
- learning and development.
Connect with other agencies
Lean on the networks and relationships which support and connect leaders across the public service. For example, the GCDO’s CIO Forum and the Public Service Commission’s Heads of HR network.
It’s a good idea to:
- share resources — including best practice and guidelines on service standards, role descriptions, digital skills frameworks, and quality and assurance processes
- collaborate — for example, by designing and developing common digital tools and resources to build capability.
The GCDO has subject-matter-expert communities of practice and interest that support the wider sector. These include the AI, smaller agencies, digital accessibility, and digital assurance communities of practice.
To find out more, email GCDO@dia.govt.nz.
Support te ao Māori digital skills in your agency
Section 14 of the Public Service Act 2020 states that public service leaders are responsible for developing and maintaining the capability of the public service to engage with Māori and to understand Māori perspectives.
Public Service Act 2020 — New Zealand Legislation
One way you can support this capability is through effective recruitment. Agencies should review job descriptions for digital roles, specifically the section in public service job descriptions usually called ‘working effectively with Māori’. This section can include more specific information on key issues and te ao Māori digital skills.
How to tailor your digital role descriptions
This section should reference your relevant agency framework and could include the following subsections.
Te Tiriti
For example, Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) job descriptions include the following.
As DIA is an agent of the Crown, te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi is important to everything we say or do. We recognise it as an enduring document central to New Zealand’s past, present and future.
Building and maintaining meaningful relationships is important to work effectively with Māori, stakeholders and other agencies.
We accept our privileged role and responsibility of holding and protecting the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Key issues and te ao Māori digital skills
This section could identify key digital issues as well as te ao Māori digital skills. You can use the examples below to inform your own agency context, role and level.
Māori Data Governance
Understanding of the Māori Data Governance Model and the importance of onshore data hosting within New Zealand jurisdictions. Familiarity with the Māori Data Governance Model and its application in digital work, understanding jurisdictional risk in regard to data residency, and supporting onshore data hosting within Aotearoa.
Cultural Competency in Digital Environments
Demonstrated ability to incorporate tikanga Māori into digital workflows, including ethical data collection, use and storage practice. Demonstrated ability to apply tikanga Māori and uphold values such as manaakitanga (care and respect), whanaungatanga (relationship-building), kaitiakitanga (guardianship), and rangatiratanga (self-determination) when integrating Māori perspectives into digital workflows, including ethical data collection, storage, access and use.
Transparent and Ethical Data Practices
Knowledge of implementing free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) processes when working with Māori data. Ability to implement free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) practices when working with Māori data, ensuring transparency, trust and ethical data use.
Inclusive Digital Solutions
Understanding of how digital systems (for example, cloud solutions, AI tools) impact Māori, with a focus on accessibility, privacy, and alignment with Tikanga Māori.
Engagement and Co-design with Māori Partners
Experience in building and maintaining relationships that foster partnership, participation and protection in line with te Tiriti o Waitangi principles.
Impact and Risk Mitigation for Māori
Ability to assess and respond to the cultural, social and ethical impacts of digital technologies on the implications of technology on Māori, identifying and mitigating risks such as bias, inequity and cultural harm in digital systems.
Use strategic workforce planning
Why use strategic workforce planning
Strategic workforce planning aligns the day-to-day decisions that managers make about recruiting and developing staff through to agency level results.
Strategic workforce planning supports increased alignment between organisational strategy and workforce skills and capability — right-sizing your workforce, with the right people in the right place at the right time.
The planning process covers current and future workforce needs for your entire workforce, including your digital workforce. Strategic workforce planning will support your obligations under the Government Workforce Policy Statement.
Government Workforce Policy Statement — Te Kawa Mataaho | Public Service Commission (PDF 109KB)
Support for your workforce planning
The Australian Public Commission’s Workforce planning guide () is a useful reference to support workforce planning.
Workforce planning guide — Australian Public Service Commission (PDF 2.8MB)
The Commission suggests the guide is read and used in conjunction with ISO30409 standard. The International Workforce Planning Standard defines workforce planning as ‘the repeated, systematic and cyclical identification, analysis and planning of organisational needs in terms of people’.
ISO30409 2016 Human resource management — Workforce planning
The data you’ll need
External data
Your strategic workforce plan should consider external data including:
- labour market data
- workforce supply and demand data
- recruitment and employee data.
Your own workforce data
To analyse your current workforce you’ll need employee and recruitment data, including information on:
- workforce demographics
- your organisation’s structure
- the skills and experience, education and training, licences and qualifications of your workforce, if available.
Summarise trends
Summarise and describe each trend and its impact on the workforce, occupations and the organisation, risks and implications and opportunities.
Tips
- Identify long-term trends likely to have a significant impact on your digital workforce.
- When exploring trends, make sure to do the required research to better understand impacts on the workplace.
- Work with individual stakeholders or plan a workshop with relevant stakeholders across the agency to discuss trends.
Trends could include any of the following:
- fiscally constrained environment
- emerging technologies
- your workforce moving from cities to regional areas
- the workforce becoming increasingly multigenerational
- automation changing how employees can add value
- industry specific trends
- job vacancies by occupation
- job vacancies by public and private sector jobs
- job vacancy rates in the public sector by region.
Use digital skills frameworks
A digital skills framework can be used by an agency as the basis for a uniform and widely understood approach to:
- digital skills and knowledge assessments
- digital learning and development
- identifying transferable skills within the workforce.
Why use a digital skills framework
A digital skills framework should be tailored to your unique needs, and reflect industry demands and agency priorities. It should outline the essential skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours needed to drive your agency’s strategic goals.
A framework can guide the ongoing capability development of your workforce supporting processes, including:
- recruiting talent more effectively through job and role design
- identifying capability gaps more efficiently, and informing learning investment and recruitment decisions
- better evaluating performance
- talent development
- providing tailored and effective professional development.
Using a digital skills framework can support your agency’s workforce capability by providing a consistent point of reference for the skills, knowledge, behaviours and experience you need in your digitally capable workforce.
If used consistently across agencies, these would support a common digital capability language across the public service.
Using a digital skills framework will support:
- mapping consistent career pathways
- assessing skills, knowledge and experience in your workforce
- identifying transferable skills
- support performance and learning and development
- increasing efficiency
- strategic workforce planning.
Skills frameworks can also support:
- team development planning
- attraction and recruitment processes, for example, job ads, roles and job descriptions, skills and knowledge-focused interview questions
- onboarding programmes and resources
- defining learning objectives for learning and development activities
- digital career pathways
- succession planning
- building digital skills and knowledge pipelines
- general workforce planning and development.
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