Thomas Currell

While a substantive APS6 Senior Data Analyst, I have been acting as Assistant Director in my reporting team since March. Over this period my key achievements have been:

• Supervising and supporting the development of junior staff capabilities.
• Sitting as a panel member on the Department’s 2024/25 graduate program interviews and personally overseeing the hiring of a non-ongoing staff member in my team.
• Managing progress on strategic projects including the development of data models and interactive dashboards in Qlik Sense and Power BI as well as longer term analytical pieces to provide Department staff with insight on progress against Departmental outcomes.
• Supervision of team progress against stakeholder timeframes, balancing stakeholder needs against team capacity.
• Co-designing requirements with stakeholders across many different teams including data scientists, reporting and evaluation analysts, IT Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse analysts and program and policy areas to achieve my own team’s goals and further the Department's priorities.
• Presenting data insights and monthly dashboards to senior stakeholders including SES Band 2 Department staff and the Assistant Minister for Employment, explaining concepts to stakeholders with differing levels of data literacy.
• Developing detailed Standard Operating Procedures and comprehensive documentation of program reporting standards and undertaking follow up with junior staff to ensure these are fit for purpose.
• Overseeing staff movement around the team to limit knowledge gaps and reduce working in silos.
• Supervising and personally contributing to Power BI and Qlik Sense reports containing high-quality data visualizations.
• Supervising and personally contributing to complex SQL queries and thoughtful analysis to answer data requests from internal and external stakeholders.

In my substantive role as an APS6 Data Analyst I have:

• Overseen the development of measures now applied by hundreds of Department staff to support the Department’s understanding, evaluation, and policy changes in our employment services.
• Developed complex SQL queries, collecting and organising masses of data from often disconnected data sources into larger, purposeful datasets that are comprehensive but simple to understand.
• Consistently exceeded stakeholder expectations for their data requests in terms of both quality and timeliness, ensuring that requests were not answered with just a number but also insights and analysis.
• Identified tasks that could be confidently managed by more junior staff with no supervision as well as tasks that could be learning opportunities for junior staff with a bit of supervision and guidance from myself, and delegated work appropriately.
• Conducted presentations to hundreds of department staff, presenting data insights and longer-term analytical work to a diverse group of stakeholders with vastly differing levels of data literacy, answering feedback and managing concerns in real time through Q & A.
• Remained the primary point of contact for two of the employment services my branch looks after while also improving the knowledge and expertise of the other members of my team.
• Worked collaboratively with other department staff including data scientists, data and evaluation analysts and policy areas, triaging cross-team requests and acting as liaison for stakeholders.

In my role as an APS5 Data Analyst I was

• Responsible, typically as project lead, for the creation and ongoing management of several interactive Qlik Sense reports and monthly Excel dashboards accessed by hundreds of Department staff as well as the office for the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.
• The primary point of contact in my branch for ad-hoc data requests for two of the department's employment service programs.
• A point of assistance for junior staff in my branch to develop their skills with the data products we used (SQL, Qlik Sense, Excel).
• Regularly responsible for interactive data information sessions with other staff in program areas and state offices, as well as several Department-wide presentations.

In this role, I was responsible for

• Assisting, occasionally as project lead, with the development of high-quality data reports for some of the Department’s key employment service programs. This required an in-depth understanding of employment service program rules of operation as well as considerable expertise in using reporting tools like SQL and Qlik Sense to accurately retrieve and present data in a way that was clear, concise and articulate.
• Regular engagement with program area stakeholders to assess their business needs, sustain positive relationships, reflect on and adapt to their feedback, and respond to ad-hoc data requests in a time-efficient manner.