The former Foreign Affairs department official drew on a world view shaped by his tenures representing Australia overseas - including a 1980s stint in a violence-ridden Jamaica - when speaking to bureaucrats about the public service's future on Wednesday.

Addressing the APS Wide conference hosted by the Australian Public Service Commission, he warned Australia must be tougher when pursuing its interests given a shift in power balances overseas that challenged its values.

Mr Woolcott gave the Australian Public Service no small task, putting it at the centre of the national response to an international landscape where the supremacy of the Western world view was not assured.

"We find ourselves in a challenging and far more transactional international environment," he said.

"We have to toughen up our sense of being in this together and securing outcomes that reflect our values and promote the well-being of our citizens. To do this we have to get the APS right."

Mr Woolcott, speaking in Canberra, endorsed the review of the public service led by businessman David Thodey and repeated the view that the APS was not broken but needed to keep pace with change. He also put the bureaucracy's value in economic terms and ranked it above Australia's minerals in shaping its wealth.

"There is one big lesson I take from my time in DFAT - and that is the quality of governance and the quality of institutions is what sets apart the prosperity of countries and citizens.

"It is not resources, not iron ore, not gold nor oil but the ability to organise and deliver on the social contract between the government and the people."

The public service commissioner's first speech since inheriting the role from predecessor John Lloyd in August will give Australia's 152,000-strong workforce of federal bureaucrats their first glimpse of any changes to the tone and direction of their workplaces after years of industrial turmoil.

Mr Woolcott's approach to workplace bargaining is widely unknown, but he flagged new agreements would have to meet the Coalition's strict policy - largely unchanged from rules blamed by unions for protracted disputes in the last round.

He also echoed terms previously used by the government to justify its tougher stance.

"We need to make the best use of scarce resources and ensure that our terms and conditions are fair and in line with community expectations. That we maintain a workplace environment where people can be comfortable who they are.

"And we also recognise that the nature of work itself is changing and that we compete in a contested market for talent and individuals' expectations of their employers continue to evolve."

Mr Woolcott, whose diplomatic postings landed him in Italy, New Zealand and the 2015 Paris climate summit, drew links from the Australian Public Service's preoccupations to those of Western governments facing backlashes to free trade.

"Never have expectations been higher from the public while there is a wider question as to the extent the government and the APS control all the necessary levers given globalisation and the rise of powerful non-state actors," he said.

The spectre of past IT controversies and the ensuing damage to trust in government services loomed as Mr Woolcott called for a careful approach to tech reform.

"We need to ensure that appropriate safeguards and community consultation occur when implementing major data and digital projects so as to avoid undermining our broader agenda of more effective policy implementation."

Mr Woolcott sounded another note of caution when describing "disruption" to government work posed by technology and other forces.

"While we need accelerated change, we need to be careful how to manage this. What might be happening in parts of the private sector - Schumpeter’s, I quote, “gale of creative disruption” - shouldn’t be replicated in the APS.

"Government and the public want from the APS a sense of continuity and stability - services and functions still need to be delivered and advice still needs to be provided."

The public service had to accept the rise of well-funded, highly-mobile, social media savvy single-interest groups and non-government organisations, but give governments a broad view in making policy, Mr Woolcott said. Bureaucrats also had to respond to that power shift by speaking more to citizens and business, as "coalitions and networks" took on more influence.

"They have always had a stake in the outcomes, but they are now crucial players in shaping them," he said.