The worth of charts

People say a picture is worth a thousand words; so too a good chart. Here’s an age-grade profile of the Queensland Public Service using data from the former Office for Public Service Commissioner. It plots the 10,200 public servants working in Queensland’s management roles – from junior level up to the most senior executives.


What is it showing?

• An aged workforce: the average age of managers in the public service is around 50, and the median higher again.
  


• Huge concentration of people in the latter phase of their careers: 75% of all people in management grades are between 45 and 60 years old. 0.9% are under the age of 30.
  


• Some odd skews: for example middle managers are on average older than senior executives.

Cause for concern?

Of course one would need to supplement with other data but there are some potentially worrying things in this. For example:

• Succession planning: if you were running this show you might have genuine cause for concern about where your next cadre of leaders are going to come from. Especially if – like many other public services around the world – you want to increase the scale and scope of leadership roles.
  


• New ideas: okay so you don’t want all your vital services run by teeny boppers but with less than one in a hundred managers aged under 30 you might worry about whether there are enough fresh ideas and challenging of the status quo. Indeed it’s another three grades below the junior management level where the under 30s start appearing in numbers.
  


• What’s happening with entry and exit: the data looks suspiciously uniform almost like there’s a lot of grade creep going on with people moving up based on age profile. And if that’s the case one might being worried about whether there’s sufficient entry and exit going on and if your managers are actually any good (another clue to this is that less than 1 in 20 senior executives are recruited from outside the public service – and I imagine the existing stock much lower still).
  

What should it lead one to investigate?

Further questions to ask, like…

• What exactly do these roles entail and what skills are needed to fill them? I’m always suspicious of the line that public servants uniquely need vast amounts of experience. Many business leaders are in their 30s and early 40s; national leaders often not much older again. Indeed, Queensland’s Treasurer Andrew Fraser is himself a mere 32 years old (it must be an odd experience for him to very rarely if ever meet people of his own generation working in his department).
  


• What is the pitch and proposition to attract new talent? Have agencies thought about, or better still got, policies for succession planning?
  


• Should there be more recruitment from outside the public service and if so how do you get these people? Pay flexibilities? Stronger brand promotion?
  


• What are the barriers to external recruitment and how can you tackle them? Targets? Cultural change?
  


• What are the implications more generally of an ageing workforce? How do you motivate and retain the good ones and exit the poor performers?
  


• How can you effectively talent manage the workforce? Mentoring and staff development? Talent pools?
  

Anyhow like all good charts if poses as many questions as it does answers (although I fear my word count a little short of the 1,000 mark)...