Merit People

Jane Woodland

Principal Consultant

Qualifications: 

Bachelor of Arts (Humanities)

Career Details:

Jane has joined Merit Solutions after 28 years in a variety of Commonwealth Agencies 
managing 
service delivery as well as undertaking senior human resource management and project 
management roles.  Specifically, her last four years in the Taxation Office included roles as 
Assistant Director, Organisation Development and Project Manager in the Workforce Strategy and 
Management Unit. Jane has managed client service delivery offices for the Commonwealth 
Employment Service, Austudy, and Centrelink.  Jane has also managed large scale national 
change management projects for Centrelink, the Australian National Training Authority and the 
Australian Taxation Office.  She has strong skills in people management, organisational review 
and group facilitation.   Jane has also worked briefly in the Queensland state government and 
the University of Queensland in project management capacities.

Specialised Selection Skills:

Jane spent over 2 years single-handedly managing large scale national attraction, selection and 
recruitment projects for the Australian Taxation Office delivering hundreds of staff to multiple 
sites across the country.   Job types included call centre operatives, debt collection officers and 
audit officers.  A typical exercise involved 8000 applications for 600 vacancies in 5 cities.  Jane 
has many years of involvement in selection panels, with specialist skills in report writing and post 
selection feedback. She brings a strong understanding of good selection practice together with 
an appreciation of business needs for her clients.  

Other Achievements:

Most recently, Jane was responsible for the successful implementation of the Tax Office’s 
succession management strategy. This was achieved by working through a network of HR 
practitioners in business areas of the Office. It involved understanding the risk posed by an 
aging workforce and buoyant labour market and identifying and implementing appropriate 
interventions to prevent skills loss to the organisation.  Jane has lead large teams of up to 110 
staff, developing practical performance assessment tools tailored for local needs and 
successfully improved both staff and customer satisfaction over three years.