New recruitment provisions are set to amend public sector employment legislation and should streamline human and financial resources within the administration. The INA (Directorate General for Training) will become the centralising body. It will be tasked with publishing calls for applications, standardising selection procedures and establishing recruitment panels.

To meet increasing demand whilst factoring in the limits imposed by its reception capacities, the Berlin Academy (which is tasked with training the Land’s 110,000 civil servants) has opted for the blended learning method which it ties in with the flipped classroom strategy: theory is taught remotely with classroom sessions being devoted to practical group exercises.

Australia’s largest city is committed to a bold gender pay equity policy which is yielding results. To lessen the financial repercussions of taking time out from a career to look after children, which mostly affects women, the city is extending parental leave benefits for superannuation to cover the period of unpaid leave (34 weeks out of 52). It is interesting to note that the city’s Lord Mayor, CEO and Director Workforce & Information Services are all women.