‘Highly engaged’: Meet the happiest public servants in Queensland

The happiest public servants in Queensland work in the Premier’s own department.

The latest government employee survey reveals that staff from the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) are arguably the happiest.

The happiest public servants in Queensland are the team working in Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s own department, says a survey.Credit: Fairfax Media/File image

Comparing results across departments using 10 questions from the annual questionnaire, DPC employees had the highest proportion saying they would recommend their organisation as a “great place to work” (82 per cent) and their job gives them a “feeling of accomplishment”.

They feel “energised” by work and topped the list of public servants saying “rarely” or “never” when it came to whether their work was “emotionally demanding” and if they felt “burned out”.

But DPC staff scored worst when it came to working long hours to meet performance expectations and just one in three wanted to stay working in their position for at least the next three years.

So, what is the secret to happiness at work?

Dr Jemma King, from the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology, said happy employees felt connected, believed they served a greater purpose and that their efforts were acknowledged, did work that aligned with their values, and had autonomy.

“So people who are micromanaged are very stressed,” she said.

King said middle managers tended to be the most unhappy as they suffered “sandwich stress” – pressure from above and from below.

Being able to see a tangible outcome at the end of a hard day’s slog was also a recipe for happiness, King said, while fun perks such as bean bags and ping pong tables could fall victim to hedonic habituation.

“All those things initially give you this sense like, oh wow, this is cool, but it just becomes normal,” she said.

“What really does make people feel happy is a clear idea of organisational justice, are resources distributed fairly, and people want to know, is there a clear path to being promoted?”

King said people also wanted clear job descriptions.

“Stress comes from confusion – where the lines between people’s jobs become murky, that causes conflict,” she said.

“It’s not necessarily lack of money or long hours that make people unhappy – if people love it, or find passion, they don’t actually notice the long hours because it’s not a drag to work long hours.”

King, with others, conducted a research project involving 100 Australian CEOs from industries including government, defence, rail, banking and health that found sleep-deprived bosses were associated with lower psychological safety ratings.

Research conducted by Google on 180 teams found psychological safety – an environment where people feel safe to take risks, or speak up with ideas, questions or concerns without being judged – was the most important predictor of high-performing teams.

King said if employees did not feel safe at work, they were being paid “full time to work part time”.

“When people don’t feel safe, they can’t help but engage in protective, retractive, overthinking, forecasting and hypervigilance,” she said.

“Half of their mental real estate is going towards politicking and arse covering, and not on the job.”

The DPC deals with the “bigger picture” aspects of government – supporting and advising the Premier and cabinet so the government’s priorities, commitments, decisions and objectives for the community can be delivered, its website says.

A DPC spokeswoman said the Queensland government was recently ranked by Randstad as Australia’s fourth most attractive employer in 2023, scoring highly for long-term job security, great career progression, and attractive salary and benefits packages – a result also reflected in the recent workplace survey.

“This is in part due to DPC having a highly engaged workforce – employees who are proud to work for the department, and serve the people of Queensland.”

There are 475 full-time-equivalent employees in the department, making it one of the smallest agencies and positively tiny when compared with behemoths such as Education (75,821 employees) and Health (101,032 employees).

The Queensland public sector is the state’s largest employer, providing work to more than 5 per cent of Queensland’s population.