About us

Services Australia plays a vital role at the heart of the Australian community, delivering essential government services that support the economic security, health and wellbeing of millions of people. Every day, we help Australians at key moments in their lives—when they need financial assistance, access to health services, or support for families and children.

Our purpose is clear: to make government services simple, efficient and accessible, so people can get on with their lives. As one of the largest and most complex service delivery organisations in the Australian Public Service, we operate at national scale, delivering contemporary services across digital, phone and face-to-face channels, while responding to changing customer needs, government priorities and external events.

Under our 2030 Strategy, Services Australia is focused on building a trusted, resilient and future-ready service delivery system. This includes putting customers at the centre of service design, using data and insight to anticipate demand and improve outcomes, strengthening operational resilience and emergency readiness, and investing in the capability and leadership of our workforce.

In 2024–25, the agency delivered more than $263 billion in payments and services across Centrelink, Medicare and Child Support, supported by over a billion digital transactions and millions of phone and face-to-face interactions. With a workforce of more than 34,700 people located in every state and territory, we operate a large geographically dispersed network servicing customers right across the country.

As we look to the future, Services Australia continues to transform how we plan, manage and deliver services—balancing scale and efficiency with empathy and trust—to ensure we remain responsive, sustainable and ready to meet the needs of Australians now and into the next decade.

Job description

Delivering services at national scale—reliably, equitably and in line with government expectations— depends on strong operational stewardship, intelligent workforce and workload planning, and the ability to respond quickly to disruption. The General Manager, Operations Management plays a pivotal role in bringing Services Australia’s 2030 Strategy to life by ensuring the agency is operationally prepared, resilient and aligned to meet current and future demand. The role sits at the centre of how government priorities are translated into deliverable, sustainable service outcomes that maintain trust with the Australian community.

The General Manager, Operations Management Division is an enterprise-scale leadership role with responsibility for the frameworks, governance and real-time operational oversight that enable consistent service delivery nationally, supporting a service delivery workforce of 20,000+ staff. The General Manager leads 24/7 monitoring, escalation and coordination of agency responses, and provides executive-level advice on operational risk, capacity and service impacts.

A core accountability is stewardship of the Services Australia Operations Centre , operating on a 24/7 basis and providing national oversight of operational performance, emerging risks, incidents and emergencies. The General Manager ensures the Operations Centre is appropriately designed, governed and resourced to enable timely decision-making, clear escalation and coordinated agency responses to high-impact events, including natural disasters, system disruptions and significant policy or demand surges with ministerial, public and media interest.

The role leads the development and application of contemporary, data-driven workforce and workload strategies that optimise the deployment of service delivery effort across the agency. This includes demand and capacity forecasting, scenario planning and performance monitoring to support informed executive decision-making. The General Manager ensures workforce strategies balance efficiency and productivity with capability, wellbeing and sustainability, and that operational decisions are underpinned by sound evidence, strong governance and a clear customer focus.

As steward of the agency’s operational management framework, the General Manager ensures service delivery models remain fit-for-purpose in a complex, high-volume and highly scrutinised environment. This includes strengthening operational resilience, embedding continuous improvement, and ensuring lessons from incidents and peak events drive improved preparedness and capability over time.

As a key member of the executive leadership team, the General Manager contributes to whole-of-agency strategy, governance and performance. The role provides authoritative, trusted advice to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Chief Executive Officer and Ministers on operational risks, workforce and resource implications, and system impacts, and represents the agency in high-level cross-government and external forums.

The role reports to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Customer Service Delivery.

Tertiary qualifications in a relevant field are highly desirable.

The role may be filled on an ongoing or non-ongoing (fixed term) appointment.

A merit pool may be established to fill similar roles as they become available within an 18-month period.

Location

The location for this position is Canberra.

Salary and benefits

• The Senior Executive Band 2 level offers an attractive remuneration package, including 15.4% superannuation and salary packaging options.
• Conditions that support your health, wellbeing and lifestyle.
• Generous leave provisions, including accruable annual leave of 23 days per year with the capacity to purchase an additional 4 weeks’ annual leave per year after 12 months service.
• Accruable personal leave including sick and carers leave at 18 days per year.

Eligibility

To apply you need to be an Australian citizen.

You will also need or have the ability to acquire an Australian Government security clearance, to the appropriate level for the position. This will be arranged for you, if you are successful.

Apply

Applications must be submitted using the online recruitment system: https://www.beaumontandbeaumont.com.au/11721

For further information, please visit the link to obtain a candidate information pack (CIP) about the role. For further questions after reviewing the CIP or if you need assistance with the application process, please contact Lionel Riley on (02) 6126 4500. Enquiries will be kept in strict confidence.

You are required to submit:

• your CV (approx. 4 pages) including the contact details of 2 referees, and
• a 750-word pitch (no more) that outlines your skills, capabilities and experience against the requirements of the role set out above.

RecruitAbility applies to this vacancy. Under the RecruitAbility scheme, you will be invited to participate in further assessment activity for the vacancy if you choose to apply under the scheme; declare you have a disability; and meet the minimum requirements for the job. For more information see: http://www.apsc.gov.au/priorities/disability/recruitability.

Please note, applications close 5pm AEST 27 May 2026.