AFP Health and Wellbeing Strategy – Beyond 2024

A word from the Commissioner

I am pleased to present the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Health and Wellbeing Strategy – Beyond 2024.

Building on the strong foundations of the 2018-2023 Health and Wellbeing Strategy, Beyond 2024 embraces a contemporary, evidence-based and proactive approach to the health and wellbeing of our people, developed by our people.

The AFP has led the way in developing an innovative health capability in SHIELD. Through this program, we have developed an understanding of the drivers of a healthy, resilient workforce, and the importance of the workplace itself in supporting the wellbeing of our people. SHIELD remains a critical resource for the AFP in understanding and managing workplace health risks, and in supporting our workforce through prevention, early intervention, rehabilitation and recovery.

A robust, high-performing workforce is key to our operational success in an increasingly uncertain world, as we carry out our mission to protect Australians and Australia’s interests. Beyond 2024 acknowledges the evolving and demanding environment in which the AFP continues to operate, and the impact this environment has on our people. As Commissioner, I am determined to ensure that our culture is closely considered in delivering a sustainable model for health and wellbeing improvement, based on continuous improvement.

We all have a role to play in ensuring the continued health and wellbeing of our people. I encourage everyone to prioritise the health and wellbeing of yourselves and your colleagues as we continue this journey together.

Reece P Kershaw APM
Commissioner
Australian Federal Police

Vision

The Health and Wellbeing Strategy – Beyond 2024 (Beyond 2024) is a guiding framework to build a command-led sustainable, healthy and resilient workforce with our people at the core of our decision-making.

Strategic context

The strategic context in which the AFP operates is continually shifting. The AFP’s Blue Paper highlights a combination of factors driving the need for change. The dynamic nature of both criminal and non-criminal threats, rapid advancements in technology, geopolitical shifts, borderless nature of crime and foreign interference and espionage are increasingly impacting the daily lives of Australians.

The impact of the shifting external environment is already being felt by our people. Job demands, workloads and the pressure to remain resilient under challenging conditions have been raised as concerns. The need for better support systems, manageable workloads and a workplace culture that prioritises health and wellbeing while maintaining operational impact must be prioritised.

More will be asked of our people as we navigate these challenges. The breadth of skills and experience needed will continue to expand and the requirement for new skills will emerge. The changing nature of the workplace, and expectations of policing, will present new risks and challenges to navigate.

To stay ahead, the AFP must continue to evolve, and the health and wellbeing of our workforce is critical to this.

Beyond 2024 builds on the strong foundation of the AFP’s 2018-2023 Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Through delivery of the innovative and unique SHIELD program, the previous strategy has embedded a person-centred health care approach for our people and provided a world-leading standard that partner law-enforcement agencies are seeking to emulate. While SHIELD remains a key enabler to achieving improved health outcomes, we cannot rely solely on health services and strategic health advice to protect the health and wellbeing of our people.

Beyond 2024 acknowledges the workplace environment is key to better health and wellbeing outcomes. Healthy workers and a resilient workforce come from good leadership at all levels, trust, transparency, psychological safety and workplace culture. Leaders set the standards for performance, which impacts daily operations and employee wellbeing.

Beyond 2024 looks beyond baseline regulatory compliance to deliberate, iterative and sustainable improvement in the AFP’s commitment to the health and wellbeing of our workforce and places our people at the core of everyday decision-making.

Model

Beyond 2024 adopts a rigorous contemporary approach based on continuous improvement and is informed by project logic and theory of change principles. This acknowledges the AFP’s evolving operational environment requires adaptive health and wellbeing approaches and emphasises that incremental improvements will lead to lasting positive outcomes. 

Beyond 2024 involves a real-time cycle of implementation (DO), data collection and analysis (CHECK), refinement and adjustment (ACT), and assessment and planning (PLAN). It allows ongoing monitoring, evaluation and integration of learnings into future cycles to inform future activities and enhance operational and organisational practices to support health and wellbeing.

Plan

• Assess and analyse command health risk, guided by new and existing governance
• Set priorities and goals
• Build an intervention plan alongside enabling support services

Do

• Implement programs and initiatives alongside enabling support services (e.g. SHIELD, those responsible for strategic health advice, leadership, learning and development and human resources)
• Develop communication and education strategies around priorities and goals
• Build momentum through visible leadership and workforce champions

Check

• Collect and analyse data on performance (e.g. monitoring and evaluation framework)
• Evaluate effectiveness
• Identify trends and patterns

Act

• Adjust and refine programs and initiatives with enabling partners
• Communicate results and progress with workforce

Areas of focus

Beyond 2024 is underpinned by three areas of focus with associated key activities.

1. Health framework

Health framework is the governance and policies to ensure accountability, transparency and quality assurance through measurable and reportable systems. These form the basis for continuous improvement, and enable the AFP to be responsive to health and wellbeing considerations in an evolving threat environment.

Key activities

• Establish governance, monitoring and evaluation and data systems to support ongoing health and wellbeing improvement.
• Identify governance and systems improvements that link with the health framework and impact on employee health and wellbeing.
• Use relevant data to target wellbeing interventions and resources to identified and evolving high-risk areas.
• Adopt a command-led model for continuous health and wellbeing improvement.
• Measure the impacts and success of the AFP health framework.

2. Workplace culture

Workplace culture shapes health and wellbeing in every organisation. Effective leadership behaviour at all levels sets performance standards and influences daily operations, systems and morale. Workplace culture, driven by leadership, impacts how employees perceive themselves, others and their organisation. These elements encourage growth, innovation, resilience, inclusion and wellbeing. By actively engaging at all levels, through a command-led approach, the agency can enhance workplace culture, driving momentum and fostering ownership and success.

Key activities

• Reinforce the responsibility of the health and wellbeing of our people resides with the whole of the AFP (beyond health service providers).
• Support our leaders to foster a culture of health, wellbeing and safety where people are put first in the decision-making process.
• Establish clear accountability for health and wellbeing initiatives across the agency.
• Support the AFP to proactively address current and emerging psychological and psychosocial health risks.
• Prioritise the health and wellbeing of our people equally with organisational risk and reputation.
• Address organisational factors affecting the wellbeing of our people in command health risk planning.
• Integrate health and wellbeing into all elements of organisational learning and leadership development, including programs and new initiatives.

3. Enabling support

Enabling support services are the fundamental resources required for the execution of the continuous health and wellbeing improvement cycle and providing access to preventative and risk-focused interventions. They include those responsible for SHIELD, strategic health advice, leadership, learning and development, culture and human resources.

Key activities

• Enhance whole-of-agency enabling services across health screening, mental health and wellbeing supports, health and wellbeing advice, physical health, work-life balance, education and awareness, team engagement, policy development, technology integration and development and reward systems.
• Refine existing enabling services with a greater focus on preventative health and wellbeing.

Goals

The focus areas, along with their continuously updated and prioritised associated activities and deliverables, will drive continuous health and wellbeing improvements to deliver three overarching goals.

1. Agile health and wellbeing system: Ensure health and wellbeing initiatives remain flexible, innovative and accessible to our people.
2. Optimise workforce resilience: Strengthen organisational, team and individual resilience to handle challenges in a complex policing environment.
3. Reinforce the AFP’s reputation as an employer and partner of choice: Foster a positive organisational culture to sustain the AFP as an employer and partner of choice, and attract and retain top talent.

The implementation of Beyond 2024 will create meaningful and lasting change including:

• Fostering a resilient agency with wellbeing and care embedded into its enterprise decision-making and cultural fabric.
• Sustaining a high-performance workforce fit for achieving the mission of the AFP within the changing nature of federal policing and protection.
• Embedding a continuous improvement methodology with a greater focus on prevention of workplace health hazards in a continually evolving threat environment.

Growing our success

Shared responsibility across all commands and our people will create a self-regulating system where health risks are minimised.

Unlike time-bound strategies, Beyond 2024 recognises success is not a finite process – it’s a series of ongoing iterative adjustments to practice, process and policy to improve the health and wellbeing of our people. Beyond 2024 will be supported by a robust implementation plan which will be regularly updated as the health and wellbeing needs of the agency continue to emerge and evolve.

Further, through the life of the strategy, key performance indicators will be developed, based on data collated, to ensure the ongoing evolution, improvement and accountability of Beyond 2024.

Good health and a resilient workforce emerge from an organisation that constantly implements incremental improvements and places care for its people at the forefront of its practices and enterprise decision-making. A healthy and resilient workforce is an operational asset in an environment where strong human performance provides a competitive advantage.