Service Officer Program
Our Service Officers
The role of a Medicare Australia Service Officer is to deliver frontline services, using excellent customer service practices, to the Australian public and health-care providers.
Service Officers work in a team-based environment and provide services across a number of channels based on Australian Government programs and services administered by Medicare Australia. This includes Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme, the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, the Australian Organ Donor Register, and services on behalf of the Family Assistance Office, among many others.
The excellent service our Service Officers provide contributes to enhancing our organisation’s reputation and building community confidence in the work we undertake.
Our service environments consist of the Medicare office network and contact centres. We strongly focus on the following three channels of business:
- face-to-face – through a comprehensive national network, which includes 238 Medicare offices,
- contact centres – both telephony and processing environments, and
- electronic – primarily through the internet, enabling improved government to business, and, government to consumer interaction via websites.
What is the Service Officer Program?
The Service Officer Program is a capability based career progression framework that provides for both incremental and accelerated advancement opportunities for Service Officers.
The Service Officer Program is closely linked to the Medicare Australia Capability Framework, the Service Officer Capability Profile and Performance Support Agreements.
The Service Officer Program facilitates the development and performance of our employees in the following ways:
- induction and job readiness training,
- assessment and feedback relating to the capabilities for Developing, Practising and Expert levels within the Program,
- development through the Performance Support Program, ensuring the focus of the ‘conversation’ during performance support discussions is capability development, and
- development through Learning and Development (L&D) programs.
Participation in the Service Officer Program is a mandatory requirement of Medicare Australia employees performing the role of a Service Officer.
The following employees are required to participate in the Service Officer Program:
- all ongoing Service Officer staff;
- non-ongoing Service Officer staff that will be with Medicare Australia for a period exceeding six months employment; and
- non-ongoing Service Officer staff employed for an initial period of six months or less, that have their contracts extended for a period exceeding six months.
We encourage our Service Officers to value the process as a learning and development opportunity, and as an extension of the Performance Support Program. The process is designed to ensure that our staff have the necessary knowledge and skills to undertake their roles effectively within the work place.
The Program at a glance
There are three levels in the program achieved in stages – Developing, Practising and Expert.
The Developing level incorporates all job readiness training, identifies learning and development needs, and ensures conditions of employment are met through the probation period.
The Practising level enables Service Officers to consolidate, maintain and build their knowledge and skill base.
The Expert level provides learning opportunities and the opportunity to explore career paths within Medicare Australia.
Our Service Officers are assessed on their ability to demonstrate specific capabilities aligned to the Service Officer Capability Profile. Service Officers at the Developing and Practising levels are assessed against eleven capabilities, and Service Officers at the Expert level are assessed against the same eleven capabilities plus two additional capabilities.
Last updated: 28 May, 2008