Introduction

Modern public sectors rely more than ever on their frontline employees, the people who provide government services to the public.

Being a frontline employee is not easy – it involves balancing customer expectations for responsive and relevant services, department requirements to provide services efficiently and effectively, and their own personal needs to provide professional standard services to the public.

Furthermore, frontline employees cannot deliver quality services alone – they need a customer-focused culture, leadership, management and systems.

This handbook provides an introduction to the many different ways that departments can support frontline employees to deliver responsive, relevant, efficient, effective and professional standard services to their customers.

The benefits of supporting frontline employees are enormous:

• Increased customer satisfaction.
• Increased employee satisfaction, lower employee turnover, and reduced expenditure on recruitment and training.
• More efficient and effective services, with better outcomes for the people of NSW.

Departments are encouraged to adapt this handbook to suit individual services, employees and customers.