10. Achieves results.

The year after receiving my Bachelor of Business I entered into the (Government
Department’s) Graduate Program which allowed me to experience working in six
different functional areas over a period of three years. In this third year, I decided to
start my Masters of Business Administration which was inspired by my work in the
(Functional Area) and some issues that they required external business consultants
to address.

At the conclusion of my time in the Graduate Program, and due to the studies I was
undertaking, I was offered a permanent position with the (Government Department
Area) where I had done one of my rotations.

The (Government Department Area’s) objective is to undertake practical research

and investigations to help policy makers make informed decisions, write applicable
policies and manage government functions and programs more efficiently. My first
project was researching government trends in computer usage policies by
employees, in response to the growing use of social media and the internet in
general by employees in their work time. The initial results showed that very few
Australian, or even international government departments had up to date policies to
address emerging usage trends. Due to the lack of date I moved to researching
private company policy and data.

While there was more data in this area, it did not appear at first glance to be
supported by real usage statistics. I used the network I had formed during the
Graduate Program to contact a colleague that I knew had secured a position in the
Conduct and Performance area of Human Resources. I had a chat to him about how
IT breaches are currently captures and reported, and discovered that while there
were not strict internet use policies in place, employee usage data was logged and
recorded.

The Conduct and Performance area agreed to release this data to me with any
identifying factors removed and I then conducted an analysis of policy trends within
the private sector to actual usage statistics within our Department. Using my findings
I was able to provide an in-depth report and analysis to policy makers. While my
initial tasking was research government trends in computer use policy, I was able to
also present private industry standards together with supporting data from our
organisation; all within the same timeframe.

This report was used to recommend changes to private computer use within work
hours policies for all Commonwealth Government Departments, which is the first
time that IT standardisation has been pushed for all departments. The
recommendation uptake was a record 86%.