The age of the career public servant is coming to a close, the federal workplace authority has warned.
Traditional routes up the bureaucratic career ladder are becoming outdated too, Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd says, and government workers should get used to the idea of their pay being linked to the quality of their efforts.
Public servants also need to prepare for a future without the extensive workplace rights they currently enjoy, Mr Lloyd said in a speech last week.
Promising a new era of "flexibility" in Commonwealth employment, Mr Lloyd predicted there would be "fewer career public servants" in the future.
The profound changes sweeping the public service would see a big increase in government employees who are temporary, part time, casual, working from home, hot-desking, job sharing, contracting or working under labour hire arrangements.
The commissioner said departments needed to assess the impact of the big changes underway in the world of work.
"History, including recent experience, indicates there will be both labour substitution and labour supplementation effects," Mr Lloyd said.
"Obviously, new types of employment will emerge.
"I expect that there will be fewer career public servants in the future."
Some of the commissioner's predictions are already coming through with nearly 18,000 "non-ongoing" workers employed in the service, at the last count in June 2016, up 13 per cent from the previous year.
The same report revealed that more than 20 per cent of federal public servants were working part-time.
Mr Lloyd cited emerging models of employment like Airtasker and other gig economy operations, saying "old structures and hierarchies have gone or are being modified."
"We are now accustomed to many flexibility initiatives," he said.
"I refer to non-ongoing, part time, casual, working from home, hot-desking, job shares, independent contracting and labour hire.
"In addition in the public sector we offer an array of leave types.
"Some APS agencies offer 15-20 types of leave.
"People are becoming more aware they will manage a portfolio career probably involving many jobs, opportunities and retraining.
"It is likely that most will have a longer working life with a career that will not be linear."
The commissioner told the public sector forum in Sydney that the three-year struggle to strip public conditions and entitlements from service enterprise agreements would result in more "flexible workplaces".
"In many agencies the default position is "why not" if employees request flexible work arrangements," Mr Lloyd told the gathering.
"The Government's bargaining policy encourages the removal of restrictive content from enterprise agreements.
"This is reasonable and insightful as many agreements are prescriptive and constrain flexibility.
"Agreements of 150 clauses, 40 or more allowances, consultation on every management initiative and extensive review rights belong to a past less challenging era."
Mr Lloyd also believes progress will be made in solving one of the public service's oldest problems; finding competent managers.
"A person with highly sought after technical expertise will often not make a good manager," he said.
"Formal hierarchies assume a career path through expertise to manager.
"This no longer applies and remuneration systems have to be sufficiently flexible to reward expert contributions that may not fit traditional salary structures.
"The skilled expert earning more than their manager will become more common, as will remuneration linked to performance."
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