South Australian Government ASO selection criteria examples.

I act with integrity in my professional conduct, including in situations involving competing operational and political pressures (restate the criterion). In my current ASO5 role with a SA Government department, I administer a competitive grants program that distributes around $2 million annually across regional service providers (situation). During a recent grant cycle I was approached by my Director with a request to expedite the assessment of one application that had ministerial interest (task).

I responded by setting out clearly what the merit principles required of the assessment process and what could and could not be expedited consistent with those principles. I distinguished between procedural matters that could reasonably be expedited (timing of the assessment panel meeting, sequencing of the work) and substantive matters that could not (the depth of assessment, the comparison against other applications). I proposed a revised timeline that brought the panel meeting forward by two weeks but preserved the substantive assessment integrity. I documented the conversation and the proposed approach in a brief file note, including the rationale, so the basis for any decision was clear on the record. I followed up with the Director after the cycle closed to discuss how similar requests should be handled in future without putting individual officers in the position of having to push back on senior management (actions).

The application was assessed on its merits and was unsuccessful in a competitive field. The grants program completed without procedural challenge. The Director subsequently endorsed a written protocol for handling expedited requests, drawing on the approach I had proposed. The Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment referenced the protocol as good practice in a subsequent guidance update (result).

I manage stakeholder relationships across internal and external counterparts in situations where priorities do not align (restate the criterion). In my current role I coordinate engagement with three industry peak bodies and two regional councils on a SA Government regulatory program (situation). Last financial year all five stakeholders raised concerns about a proposed change to compliance reporting, but for different underlying reasons — industry concerns about administrative burden, council concerns about capacity to handle exception cases (task).

I worked through each stakeholder's concerns separately rather than treating them as a single objection. The separate conversations revealed that the underlying disagreement was narrower than the public positions suggested: all five stakeholders supported the policy direction but disagreed on specific implementation choices. I drafted a discussion paper that named both sets of concerns explicitly and proposed implementation modifications that addressed the most significant burdens for each group. I circulated the paper to all five stakeholders simultaneously with a covering note explaining what each had told me and how the proposal responded. I followed up with a joint forum using the paper as the starting point rather than open-ended consultation that would have re-litigated the public positions. I made sure each stakeholder felt their specific concerns had been heard rather than absorbed into a generic compromise (actions).

The reform proceeded with substantive support from all five stakeholders. The implementation modifications were adopted in the final policy. Two of the peak bodies subsequently participated constructively in the policy review for the following financial year, including one that had been publicly the most opposed at the start (result).

I sustain effective performance and quality of work under genuine pressure, including in situations involving accumulated demand over extended periods (restate the criterion). In my current role our team handled an unusual concentration of high-priority work over a 14-week period covering three concurrent ministerial inquiries plus our normal program delivery commitments (situation). As the ASO5 with operational coordination responsibility, sustaining team performance and my own quality of output was central to delivery (task).

I worked with my Director in the first week to identify which routine commitments could legitimately be deferred during the peak and which could not, so we had a clear picture of what was actually competing for capacity. I redistributed work within the team to match individual strengths to the work types — people who handled time-pressured drafting well took ministerial work, people who were better suited to deeper analysis took the longer pieces. I held a 10-minute team huddle at the start of each day during the peak to clarify priorities and identify any new escalations before they cascaded. I maintained my own one-on-one schedule with direct reports even when it was tempting to skip them — the structured time was more valuable during the peak than at any other point. I protected at least one analytical block per week for myself, where the team knew not to interrupt, so my own deeper work continued to progress. I monitored my own quality of work explicitly — when I noticed it slipping I adjusted before it produced output the team would have to rework (actions).

All three ministerial inquiries were delivered to the required quality within the required timeframes. Program delivery commitments remained on track with no significant slippage. The team's quarterly engagement scores during the peak period were higher than the preceding quarter's. The Director cited the period in the team's annual performance review as a model of sustained delivery (result).

I communicate complex content to senior decision-makers in formats and at depths calibrated to what they actually need (restate the criterion). In my current role I prepare regular briefings for my Department's Chief Executive on the status of complex policy work and emerging issues (situation). The Chief Executive reads roughly 60–80 briefings per fortnight and her time per briefing is genuinely scarce (task).

I write to a structure she has indicated she values: the issue in one sentence, the recommendation in one sentence, the rationale in three short paragraphs, the risks in a bulleted list, the political and stakeholder dimensions in a single closing paragraph. Nothing else. She can ask for more if she wants it, but I never force her to wade through three pages to find what she should decide. I prepare an attached technical paper at depth for her advisers to use as background — not for her to read. I send the briefing through her advisers rather than directly, which gives them a chance to flag anything they want to add or contextualise. I track which briefings she actually queries further on and which she signs off cleanly — over time the pattern is informative about what level of detail she actually needs for which categories of issue. I revise my briefing template every six months based on what the pattern shows (actions).

The Chief Executive has provided unsolicited positive feedback on the briefing structure twice in the past 18 months. Two of my briefings have been adopted as templates for similar matters across the Department. A senior adviser referenced the structure when briefing a new analyst joining the unit (result).

I sustain my effectiveness through sustained periods of pressure, and recover constructively when work goes wrong (restate the criterion). In my current role I have responsibility for a quarterly performance reporting cycle that consistently produces high-pressure periods, plus an annual policy review that can extend over several months (situation). Managing both alongside routine work requires explicit attention to my own functioning (task).

I plan my work in fortnightly horizons rather than weekly, which lets me see pressure periods in advance and shape my schedule around them. I treat rest deliberately rather than as the residual after work — protected weekend time, predictable sleep, exercise booked into the calendar like meetings. I keep a brief journal of how I'm functioning during pressure periods, which lets me identify early warning signs that I'm pushing into territory where the quality of my work will start to suffer. When I make mistakes — including the kind where the consequence is real — I treat them as work to learn from rather than as evidence of incapacity. I document what happened, what I should have done differently, and what the next analogous situation should look like. I share the lesson with my team when appropriate, because team-wide learning from individual mistakes builds collective capability. I separate evaluating my work from evaluating myself, because the two get conflated under sustained pressure in ways that are unhelpful (actions).

My quality of work has remained consistent across the past three reporting cycles and the most recent annual policy review. I have continued to support direct reports' development through pressure periods. My Director referenced my approach to self-management explicitly in the most recent annual review (result).

I manage and develop staff with a focus on capability building and addressing performance issues directly (restate the criterion). In my current ASO6 role I manage four direct reports across ASO3 and ASO4 levels (situation). When I took on the role two of my direct reports had been in their classifications for over four years without progression discussions, which the previous manager had not initiated (task).

I established development plans for each direct report mapped to the SAPSCF capabilities at the level above their current classification. For each, I identified a stretch piece of work and a development goal aligned to their progression interests. I had explicit conversations with the two long-tenured direct reports about whether they wanted to progress or whether they were genuinely settled in their current level — some people are, and that's a legitimate choice; what isn't legitimate is letting that question go unaddressed. I held fortnightly one-on-ones structured around their work rather than mine. I made a point of identifying acting opportunities at higher classifications for team members ready for them. I addressed one direct report's performance gap through a structured discussion within four weeks of identifying it, rather than letting it accumulate to the annual review (actions).

Two direct reports were promoted to ASO5 across the development cycle, including one of the two long-tenured staff. The other long-tenured staff member confirmed they were content at their current level and contributed strongly to mentoring the newer team members. The team's annual engagement scores were the highest in the unit (result).