7,000-person NSW Govt Department "ready to invest" in AI for workforce mobility

The 7,000-employee NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is looking for expressions of interest in providing an AI-driven “talent intelligence and workforce mobility platform”.

The Department, which processes an annual average of 25,000 applications for 3,000 open opportunities, is “ready to invest” in AI to supplement its human resource systems and processes.

It claims to have a good understanding of its organisational capability based on the labour budget, number of positions and role types. But a “deeper understanding” of its workforce capability is missing - including skills, qualifications and experience of current employees.

To remedy this, it wants a “comprehensive, AI-powered solution” to provide insights about its workforce and to help streamline talent processes and improve career path ad skill development.

Goals include retaining more employees – it has a “relatively low” turnover, but sees room for improvement. It has a high volume of temporary employees; annual turnover of its temporary workforce is double the agency average.

The project will also need to help the department save money on external recruitment and panels, and avoid redundancy costs by improving retention of impacted ongoing employees with open opportunities.

The DCCEEW also wants the project to improve service delivery by providing visibility of where which expertise is in the business, and improve capability by connecting talent plans and development goals.

The project also includes KPIs relating to administrative efficiencies and workforce planning.

A supplier briefing will take place online on Wednesday, 30 April 2025. Mandatory requirements include prequalified status on the ICT Services Scheme SCM0020 prior to the awarding of the contract.

Forecasting supply and demand 

The DCCEEW’s platform scope includes automatic extraction and visualisation of employees’ skills, qualifications and specialisations, such as certifications and project experience.

The scope also includes forecasting of supply and demand of skills, and integration of data from HR, learning, and project systems.

Interactive dashboards would allow managers and employees to quickly search for experts and identify at-risk areas needing reskilling or hiring.

The Department also sees AI suggesting “qualified employees for open positions, enabling quick internal placements before pursuing external recruitment”.

A “talent marketplace” would match employees to roles and help employees discover suitable openings. The project scope also includes AI showing potential career paths and helping with succession planning.

Also within scope are chatbots and “intelligent workflows” to reduce manual tasks such as screening and scheduling.

The EOI calls for safeguards such as privacy controls and data governance, and human oversight in AI-driven decisions to maintain fairness and transparency.

Integration with PageUp and SAP, and Single Sign On with Azure Entra ID will also be required.

The Department wants indicative costing including annual subscription fees for as-a-service/as-a-platform.