I talked about renewal. Our clerk is really leading deputies, and really expecting much better work year over year on truly holistic planning that looks at all the angles. It would have to include those kinds of considerations. When you have a department with a lot of regional operations, they should be looking at—and I'm sure they do look at— the mix and where they do training.
Something I've noticed about the movement of people—and I've been in eight or nine departments, so this is based on my own experience—is that many people, when they move, usually move largely within the same department, and then there is a certain proportion of movement between departments, so in terms of the investment that's made.... That's why I'm so keen on real discussion around employee development in every work unit, because you help people plan how to invest.
We invest in somebody's training and learning a job. We'd like them to make that contribution for a decent amount of time, and then if they move on to another part of the organization, they're still with us, and their skills and investment are still giving us something good in the system.
We do have movement, but a lot of movement is within the same department; some movement is between departments. You still have trained and formed people to be able to produce good work for the public service. As I said, our departure rate overall is lower than that in the private sector. We actually have quite a high level of retention in the public service.
I would also emphasize that we're aware of the challenges, but I wouldn't say we're in a crisis. This is serious. These are trends we have to pay attention to. What we work on in the agency, which is what the clerk is pushing people to do, is to say, this isn't simply the job of the human resources department anymore; this is your job, line manager. This is your job to take ownership of these questions, and to be paying attention to them, and to be managing them. To have a high-performing public service, you have to make sure you're getting the best out of people, and that they feel they have a career path.
There are two sides, and people have to have the discussion. The worst thing is if you're not having that dialogue and discussion, and somebody feels they're not being utilized fully, and they're dissatisfied and may move on. We still, hopefully, will get them somewhere else in the system, but I go back to that “six-pack”— the good leadership, the good management, the career development. These are the basics. We need to just keep making sure they become more and more systematic through the system.
In my case, I've had good people who have managed me through my career and have helped me figure out what to do, but I've also spent good amounts of time in each place so that I could build my strength as I went. So I'm very grateful for my own experience, and I think there are many who have good experience, and others for whom we need to do better. This is really person-to-person good management. This is how you do it.