Good morning/afternoon,
We have created an APS Academy’s promotional pack for you to share with your agencies to promote the learning offerings available for staff for October, which for this month has a theme of ‘Artificial Intelligence – APS Essentials’.
View Document-1The APS Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Unit in the APSC has introduced a new course available for EL2 and SES employees. Please find the details of this new program below.
6R Relational Leadership Capabilities Skills Lab
Leaders who have the skills to foster and maintain meaningful relationships that inspire, empower and support others drive organisational success, as well as psychological and psychosocial safety within their teams. It’s not just about achieving outcomes, it is about how we achieve them, by building trust, accountability and ensuring people feel heard, valued and empowered.
This program involves an interactive skills lab and mentoring session that equips leaders with the relational skills embedded in the 6R framework to foster pro-integrity, stewardship, psychosocial safety, and high performance.
The interactive workshop, facilitated by an accredited psychologist, provides a safe and structured space for participants to reflect, and learn to develop skills and strategies to build strong authentic relationships, resolve conflict and foster a culture of psychological safety, integrity, performance and continuous growth amongst peers. The follow-up virtual (online) peer pod mentoring session provides a supportive space for participants to self-reflect, as well as consolidate, exchange and apply their relational skills and knowledge.
Participant benefits
Learn about how the 6R Relational Leadership Capability paradigm is grounded in psychological science to strengthen trust, communication and psychological safety in teams.
Practice reflection skills and relational leadership behaviours to gain insight into strengths and areas for focus to enhance engagement and performance.
Embed continuous improvement through the psychologist led post-workshop mentoring session, enabling participants to reflect, adapt and refine their approach across the 6R dimensions.
Suitable for
EL 2 – SES Band 2
Considerations
Participants are required to download and review the 6R Relational Leadership Capability Self-Reflection Tool and its supporting resources.
Workshops will be delivered separately for each classification cohort (EL2/SES) so as to maximise peer led learning.
Participants will sign up to the workshop and mentoring session, both of which are facilitated by accredited Clinical Psychologists. The mentoring session will be delivered virtually approximately 4-6 weeks following completion of a Skills Lab.
Key topics
Discuss a deeper personal reflection that promotes shared insight into how relational leadership contributes to psychological safety.
Articulate specific relational leadership capabilities (6R) and associated behaviours that embed a culture of pro-integrity, psychological and psychosocial safety, stewardship, and high performance across the APS.
Develop and practice relational leadership skills, and create a mentoring plan to apply and reflect on 6R capabilities.
Upcoming training dates:
All sessions are face to face held at MoAD in Canberra.
| Session | Date | Times |
| SES | 17/09/2025 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| EL2 | 9/10/2025 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| SES | 4/11/2025 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| EL2 | 10/12/2025 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| SES | 22/01/2026 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| SES | 12/03/2026 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| EL2 | 22/04/2026 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
| SES | 19/05/2026 | 9:00am-1:00pm |
To register for one of the sessions above, please log in to your APSLearn account.
Participants will need an active APSLearn Profile to register, which can be created here if needed.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
APS Academy
Academy Operations and Engagement Team
Attached is the September 2025 APS Academy Promotional Pack.
View Document-1Question from SAF meeting 16th July 2025: ‘We would love to use the APS Academy products as we do advertise them in our publications etc but we have the understanding that if an employee is able to attend one of the courses, that will be over budget, generally. I think that might be a challenge as a small agency, but it could also affect larger agencies.
The example raised at the SAF meeting was related to the SES Integrity Masterclass. For that course it’s $2200 per SES. Unfortunately, due to a clash in priorities we needed to change our SES to the virtual session, which, even though the F2F session was catered, comes in at the same price. If you look at the schedule of what to expect from this product, only 3.5 hours of the entire Masterclass is facilitated, the rest is pre-work. At a maximum of 18 seats, this equates to $39,600 for a 3.5 hour facilitated session.
No doubt there is a cost in preparing the materials etc and intellectual property etc, but it is still very expensive, especially when compared to other training providers.’
The response from the APS Academy
‘Thank you so much for your feedback. We acknowledge the budget constraints agencies are experiencing at the moment, particularly small agencies, so we appreciate your position. In terms of pricing, as you suggest, this is influenced by many factors including the design and development element of our courses. In terms of the SES Integrity Masterclass offering, there was a significant amount of design and development work to ensure the offering supports SES across the APS to meet their integrity obligations. This offering has also been reviewed and endorsed by the APSC’s Integrity, Performance and Employment Policy (IPEP) team which has contributed to the overall pricing for this offering. In terms of comparable pricing to the market, this is difficult to assess, as the Academy’s offering is quite bespoke in nature, delivered by an SES Practitioner and tailored specifically to address the findings from the Louder than words – Integrity Taskforce Report. It might be worth noting, that although market options for SES Integrity Masterclass may represent better value for money, these offerings are required to be reviewed and endorsed by the APSC’s IPEP team before use, so this is a key value for money consideration.
In terms of pricing, we do have mixed and single agency price points. You have referenced our mixed agency price, however we do offer a single agency offering which, at the moment, is $8,000 per delivery for up to 20 participants, this might represent better value for money for your agency. Single agency booking enquiries can be made via the APS Academy website, we are very happy for agencies to combine forces for single agency deliveries to make it a little easier on the budget. We are considering a pricing review for our single agency pricing in the near future, however this isn’t confirmed at this stage.
The Academy also has a host of free offerings from agencies across the APS available on the APS Learning Bank, including some of the Academy’s facilitated offerings. Information on the Learning Bank can be also be found on the Academy’s website.’
The Productivity Commission will soon commence a review of our studies assistance program/policy. To help inform the review, we would appreciate it if other agencies would be open to sharing their own program/policy documents with us.
The review will broadly focus on:
Please contact Ska Nam, HR Advisor @ ska.nam@pc.gov.au
Good morning/afternoon,
We have created an APS Academy’s promotional pack for you to share with your agencies to promote the learning offerings available for staff for August, which for this month has a theme of ‘From induction to high-performance – APS Essentials for Working in Government.’.
View Document-1Attached is the Promotional Pack from the APS Academy, for July 2025.
View Document-1Good morning/afternoon,
We have created an APS Academy’s promotional pack for you to share with your agencies to promote the learning offerings available for staff for June, which for this month is ‘Demonstrating Impact Evaluation of APS policy and programs’.
Kind regards
View Document-1The APS Academy presents in May, to all public servants, a MasterCraft Series event on ‘Integrity’ and its complexity in the Australian Public Service (APS).
MasterCraft Series events are a series of live discussions aimed at highlighting contemporary practices, discussing up to date and emerging issues and challenges, and providing a platform to promote real world successes from across the APS.
This event discusses and highlights the crucial role of integrity, particularly in the APS as it depends on trust, transparency, and ethical decision-making. Every action and decision APS employees make should reflect these values, building trust not only within the APS but also with the wider community. Leadership plays a vital role by modelling ethical behaviour, as leaders actions often set the tone for the rest of a team. Integrity however is not solely the responsibility of leaders—it’s something that should be embedded across the APS, with every individual understanding their role in maintaining the APS’ trustworthiness.
Conversations about integrity are important. These conversations can occur in various forms, from formal training to informal team interactions. Sharing personal experiences and challenges related to integrity helps make this value more relatable and emphasises that it’s not just a concept but something that affects everyday decisions and actions. The definition of integrity may vary based on personal values, societal norms, and organisational standards. It’s important to continuously reflect on and discuss what integrity means in the context of the APS and our roles. By doing so, we can strengthen and reinforce a culture that not only values integrity but actively upholds it.
This event features a panel discussion with Professor Susan Dodds, Deputy Chair of the recently established Australian Research Council Board; Tricia Stroud, Registrar of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation; and Ron Brent, previous Deputy Commonwealth Ombudsman. Hear them share their perspective on how we can all learn from and build upon lessons learnt in navigating the complex space of Integrity.
This event is free to participants and open to all Australian public servants around Australia.
Register for this discussion of an important skill for all public servants.
Attached is the promotional pack for May 2025, from the APS Academy. It lists upcoming events and training opportunities. Feel free to share these amongst your agency.
View Document-1