Regional Mobility

What is mobility?

The primary goal of Mobility is to facilitate the ongoing employment of staff who may be displaced through organisational change and/or reprioritisation of budgets. 

What are the principles of mobility?

Clause 15 of the proposed agreement sets out mobility principles recognising that the way the public service works is constantly changing, and employees need to embrace these changing needs. Employees may need to be deployed to different locations and roles to meet changing demands on services. 

Are there any protections?

• There are protections to ensure that appropriate classification, workload, and occupational health and safety rules continue to apply. 
• Every employee will receive the mobility allowance although there will be some roles and work locations where it will not be possible to move to another workplace or to undertake a different role. 
• Progression pay has been clarified to ensure that there is no disadvantage to an employee who moves to another role at their current classification either with their current employer or another VPS employer.
• An employee acting in higher duties for the 12-month period of the performance cycle will be eligible for performance pay. 
• Study leave has been amended to take into consideration micro credentialing and compulsory professional development to enhance career options.

Existing arrangements in the current agreement dealing with changes to workplace locations have been consolidated and updated into a new clause. (see clause 19).

Workplace Location Changes

• Tier 1 – involves the most flexibility and deals with movement within a defined area. The Melbourne CBD is one of the work areas where an employee can be expected to work at another work location of the employer or another VPS employer. 
• Tier 2 – deals with a temporary change to a different work area. This could involve a temporary relocation from for example the Melbourne CBD to Box Hill. Travelling time must be counted as time worked. 
• Tier 3 – is a permanent change to a work location. The current one-off disturbance allowance as compensation for increased distance and travel time have been updated. There is now a sliding scale based on the distance or time. The clause also ensures that the higher of the distance or time calculation applies.
• Tier 4 – is residential relocation. The clause from the current agreement has been retained setting out the type of expenses that can be claimed in situations where an employee is required to purchase a property in a new location because their workplace has been changed