Government Operations Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

I am going to call the meeting to order, seeing that we have a quorum. I know there are a few people who haven't made it because of the weather, but we will get started.

We're going to start with our witness, Ms. Ellis. She's the senior vice-president of the Canadian Public Service Agency. She is with Madame Jauvin, a top person there. We will listen to what she has to say. I believe that Madame Boudrias from the same agency was before us in December.

I'm sure you've been able to accomplish something since then, and we're anxious to hear from you.

Madame Ellis, I hope you have a short presentation, not too long, and then we'll go from there.

[Karen Ellis, Senior Vice-President, Workforce and Workplace Renewal, Canada Public Service Agency]

Thank you very much.

Thank you. I am the senior vice-president with the workforce and workplace renewal sector.

Before we get started, I would like to give you some context for the discussion, because I know you're particularly interested in certain issues. I think it's important for me to point out that all of our work in the management of human resources in the public service is really shaped by the new regime that we have under the Public Service Modernization Act, brought into force in 2003.

So what does that really mean? It means that deputy heads of all of our departments and agencies, and their line managers, really have the primary responsibility for managing their people, as it relates to their business. So there's been a real shift in ownership and responsibility through that regime coming into force. This includes responsibility for things like recruitment, staffing, employment equity, and official languages. There's a lot they are responsible for and need to have visibility on in order to address issues where there may be problems.

The role of the Canada Public Service Agency, a central agency, is to guide and support with broad policy and direction, and then to monitor federal departments as they fulfill their responsibilities in managing their people. This is a very, very important role, because the federal public service is the largest and most complex enterprise and employer in Canada.

Our work is also shaped by the increasingly complex and interconnected world we live in. As you know, the public service, like all other employers, is facing a number of demographic challenges and a highly competitive labour market.

These pressures have led the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Kevin Lynch, who is also the head of the public service, to make renewal a top priority.

We recognize that people entering the workforce today are seeking rewarding professional experiences, not just jobs for life. We're trying to look at things like interchanges, mid-career hiring, and more diversity and better succession planning in the public service.

I will tell you just briefly about the four priorities of renewal, because they're going to be key to me in answering questions you have about specific topics.

The first one is integrated planning.

We believe integrated planning to be of the utmost importance. It is, essentially, the foundation of successful human resources management.

Simply put, this is really about bringing the business lines of an organization together with the needs for people, and really thinking about that and planning it well. When you do that, you're able to do better recruitment strategies and better employment development.

The second priority of renewal is recruitment.

Recruitment is about ensuring that we renew and sustain capacity at all levels, and that we continue attracting people to the public service at all levels.

The third priority is employee development. This is a commitment to fostering leadership at all levels and ensuring that employees have meaningful work to do in a supportive environment.

Our last priority is called enabling infrastructure. That means we are working hard to put the right systems and processes in place to ensure that the planning and recruitment and development I talked about can happen effectively.

What I have just described is the context we operate in, our playing field, if you will, but we are really in an ever-changing environment, where deputy heads have substantial responsibility to manage their people.

I would now like to speak a little more in-depth about the issues you have identified after hearing from some other witnesses before your committee.

The topic of employee turnover has really struck you as something you want to dig deeper into. This is a complex area, and we know, for example, that some of the trends that have been identified by the Public Service Commission and others really tell us that we need to do more analysis and pay more attention to these questions. As the president of the Public Service Commission, Maria Barrados, said when she appeared before this committee last fall, the data used by her organization on employee turnover is “rather rough”, and work is under way to clarify and standardize the terminology of mobility, turnover, and temporary workforce—or these types of titles.

Our understanding of the data used by the Public Service Commission is that it encompasses all staffing transactions. Those include the hiring of new employees; reclassifications; lateral movements, meaning movement at the same level without a promotion; promotions; acting appointments; and changes in tenure.

We have data in the agency that captures what we call internal mobility, by which we mean lateral movements and promotions.

The Public Service Commission has identified a certain trend, and we agree that the trend lines are the same, but perhaps not to the same extent, because of course we're measuring a slightly different basket of things when we talk about internal movement. It is also very important to note that the current movement of employees in the public service is no higher today than it was in the 1990s. To be sure, more research and analysis is needed to get a better understanding of this situation.

We know that some internal movement can be healthy for a department, when that movement is the result of effective HR planning, which must focus on both the business needs of a department and employee development.

As I mentioned earlier, integrated business and human resources planning is the responsibility of deputy heads and their departments.

One aspect of such planning involves looking at an organization's need for employees with very specialized skills and experience, and the right proportion of generalist employees with a wider range of experience.

This reality, together with the personal preferences and career aspirations of individual employees, will have an impact on internal mobility within that organization.

Ongoing, effective performance management, and discussions about learning and career planning between employees and their managers are critical to managing as much of the mobility in our system as possible. There is still much work to be done in this regard.

We also know that the increase in the number of public servants who are retiring is creating opportunities for promotion, or development, for other employees. One retirement might result in several promotions or deployments, as the employee who retires must be replaced and, in turn, that person must also be replaced. Effective succession planning is key to managing those kinds of situations.

Other internal movements are necessary to support the implementation of other government policies related to the management of the public service workforce.

For example, employees may be temporarily out of their positions to obtain training in their second official language or to fulfil their obligations as reservists. Bill C-40 was introduced in the House of Commons this week, to strengthen job protection for reservists when they are on leave from their civilian jobs.

People may also be on temporary leave to raise children through the use of maternity, parental, adoption, or care and nurturing leave; to care for elderly parents; to pursue their education; or to take a self-funded sabbatical leave.

In all of the above examples, temporary staffing solutions are needed to ensure that the work of the employee on leave continues. This can provide other employees with developmental opportunities through acting appointments, for example; or it might allow the organization to bring in a term employee for a short period of time; or perhaps a student is hired to backfill for that employee. Another option could be to bring in a casual worker, or the work might best be completed by an employee on a pre-retirement special assignment. All of these are valid options if the department has considered the implications of their use through effective planning related to its business needs.

I should also mention that planned movement is the result of a few specific and small centrally run management development programs, where participants are assigned particular assignments, perhaps for a shorter period of time, to learn particular skills and to get certain kinds of experience. Because they're on a special program they've been selected for, they may move through the system a little bit faster in a series of assignments.

Some departments have established similar development programs to respond to their specific needs. These programs typically meet employment equity objectives very well and help make the public service more representative of the Canadian population. They do that because they're very explicit in the planning of those objectives.

Of course, planning cannot be perfect. What may have started out as an employee's temporary absence from work may become permanent, resulting in the need to staff the position permanently. In other instances, where internal movement is not planned, or where it is causing gaps or shortages, it may be a symptom to help us diagnose and deal with a more pressing problem, such as an area of skills shortage in the public service. This would appear to be the case with the human resources community.

The agency and the HR community are showing leadership in this respect through collective recruitment processes that all departments can access to fill vacancies and replace retiring employees.

The public service is also working to strengthen particular functional communities with explicit strategies for capacity-building, training, and professional and career development within these specialized streams.

What is clear to us at this stage is that further research and analysis are needed to understand in greater depth the different reasons behind movement of employees, both within and between departments. Through our ongoing efforts to renew and modernize the public service, I can tell you that we are giving this considerable attention.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that the public service, with the agency's support, is taking important steps to renew and sustain itself. The leadership across this system is focused on dealing with realities around demographics, increasingly complex work, and the good people management needed to achieve a high-performing and sustainable public service.

Managing the internal movement of employees needs to be addressed as part of our work on the fundamentals of renewal, including planning, recruitment, employee development, and simplifying the HR infrastructure.

This concludes my opening remarks.

I would now be pleased to take your questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Merci.

We will move to Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. Ellis, for your presentation.

I'm wondering if higher turnover rates are here to stay, to some degree, and if that's not part of what we need to acknowledge, the fact that people simply don't work the way they used to work. People enter a career, but often they are looking for major changes and opportunities after just five or six years.

One of the things I noted in some of the questions we received from the Library of Parliament—and I don't know whether or not you're considering these things—is the thought of trying to limit people or to place restraints on them when they take a job in order to limit their mobility. I'm wondering if that might not just push people out of the federal government entirely. How are you dealing with the fact that this is perhaps just a new, existing reality and that higher turnover rates are going to be part of this?

Hopefully we'll try to keep these people within the federal service, but if you move to try to deal with the problem of turnover rates while misunderstanding them, you could just push these people out of the federal service altogether.

[Karen Ellis]

You've raised some really important points.

The first thing I'd say about our turnover rates, as I've said already, is that our data show they are no higher than they were in the nineties in terms of the trend. So the trend is real.

As you say, there can be different kinds of expectations, and people are always looking to develop their careers and themselves, which we have to be very, very conscious of when we're trying to help people manage their careers.

You can have a variety of people with different types of backgrounds. You can have people who are highly specialized and who can spend an entire career in one department and find a career path there to move up and advance. And that has to be part of their experience, working with good managers who look at the business needs and at that person's aspirations; and if there's a real ongoing dialogue and engagement about that, one would hope the person would feel there is a path for them and that there could be movement.

So I go back to the basic point: is every employee being managed well by a supervisor who's thinking about the very things you've pointed out, about what people may want in terms of their own path? So the basics have to be done well.

The second thing is that you've talked about there being a lot of movement. And in particular categories of jobs, where you will often have more generalist or transferable skills that are going to be in high demand between departments—and also in the private sector—we really have to look at good strategies. For example, some of the groups that are in high demand are the human resource professionals, the communications professionals, and the finance professionals. As you can appreciate, there is a lot of need for those skills in the public service, as well as outside. When you have groups that are in high demand and we're not necessarily getting enough graduates at the same time to get them experience and to have them replaced, there is going to be lots of pressure for those people to move around the system, because people have a great demand for them.

What we've been doing, for example, with the HR community—and Finance has also been working on this—is to say, okay, this community has a lot of pressure on it. How do we actually work with this community to develop capacity, such as specific training that will get these people ready at the right level and give them a career path, and manage them as a community, so they have a sense that their careers are going to be helped through the system even though they're under pressure?

The point is that you always have to have a balance between operational business needs, trying to get someone in to do that job, and also making sure employees are going to succeed over time. You need to spend enough time at a level to get good at that level and to be able to serve the public, or the internal client you have in government. I always say that's why that discussion is so important. You can say to an employee, it's probably a good idea to spend a couple of years at this level before you move up. And if you're working with them closely, that path can be a good, productive path for them, and they'll see a way ahead. It doesn't mean we don't have cases where there will be an opportunity for someone to get a promotion faster. Do you know what I mean? And that will be of interest to them.

But I go back to the fact that these are realities. We have to manage them and to focus on them and really work one-on-one—every manager and employee—to really find out how to manage movement within the public service. What's the best mix?

All I would say is that I like to see people equipped to succeed, so I like them to build depth and credibility at level. And that can vary from case to case, but as long as it's part of a really good performance management dialogue and career development dialogue, I think we'll get better and better at it.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

There are two separate issues, as I mentioned in my first question. One is turnover; one is retention within the overall organization—in this case, within the federal public service. Can you tell us how we're doing as a federal public service in terms of turnover rates? Could you also tell us how we're doing on the second issue, retention within the organization, versus your other public sector peers—in other words, the provinces and municipalities—and versus the private sector?

I'm not expecting you to start listing statistics, but in a general sense, how are we stacking up relative to our public sector competitors and relative to what's happening in the private sector? These things don't happen in isolation as well, and I think higher turnover rates are being experienced by everybody to some degree. I just want to know how we're comparing, and also about the retention issue generally.

[Karen Ellis]

Thanks for understanding that I won't have a lot of numbers handy. I can certainly say, having met with provincial colleagues who are dealing with issues, that they have similar challenges in some of the same functional communities I mentioned, such as finance and PE. We're all dealing in a very competitive labour market and we're looking at what's available coming out of universities and colleges, so yes, they have similar challenges when you talk to provincial governments, but they're also taking it seriously and trying to develop strategies to deal with it.

On retention in the public service, our average departure rate per year is basically around 5%. That's overall departures from the public service. I don't have firm numbers, but I can tell you that it is higher in the private sector. It's a few percentage points higher in terms of a general comparison of departure rates per year, so in the public service overall, our retention as an institution is quite good in terms of stability.

You wanted to know about the private sector as well. You talked about the general departure rate there. Turnover I don't want to try to comment on specifically, but I would imagine that because the labour market is competitive in particular fields, we're all probably feeling the pressure in those areas for attracting and retaining employees.

In a lot of the research that we share, whether we're public or private sector, we often hear studies that echo something called the “six-pack”. What is it that actually attracts and retains employees in any organization? Of course, the top things include really good leadership, a good work environment, meaningful work, fair compensation--those sorts of questions--and flexible work practices and policies, so every one of us, public sector and private sector, needs to be striving to make sure we're providing those things in order to attract and keep people. Career development and learning and development opportunities are on that list as well.

So there's a basket of things that we know we need to be able to provide and offer to be competitive in a labour market that we are all living in. I would say that whether we're private or public sector, we're all dealing with some similar challenges, just given the way the labour market is these days, and the demographics.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

We'll go to Madame Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, Ms. Ellis.

In your presentation, you said that it is important to note that the current movement of employees in the public service is no higher today than it was in the 1990s. However, our figures show that there is a high turnover rate in the public service. Unlike your statistics, ours show a steady rising trend with overall turnover having reached 40%, a level that is higher than that recorded for 2005-2006 and 2004-2005. They also show that mobility has been exceptionally high in the HR and management communities, at 76% and 58% respectively.

You said that you have developed plans to address this situation; however, I imagine that you did so based on your figures which show turnover to be 5%. Is that correct?

[Karen Ellis]

The 5% refers to the percentage of people who leave the public service each year.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Be that as it may, however, as my colleague pointed out, people leaving the public service generates movement within the public service. Newly vacant posts are often filled by people who were already working for the public service. It is like an endless game of musical chairs.

When she was last here, I asked Ms. Boudrias to provide me with a copy of the plan that you had developed to address staff turnover, but it has still not been sent to me. I trust that you will ask her to forward it to me. When this plan was being developed, did you take into account only retirements, or did you also give consideration to the 40% mobility generated by these retirements?

[Karen Ellis]

Ms. Bourgeois, as I have already said, we do not believe that the statistics illustrate an upwards trend in mobility. Indeed, movement of employees was at a similar level in the 1990s. I would be happy to provide these statistics to the committee.

Could I ask you to clarify your question. You asked Ms. Boudrias for a copy of the plan...

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes, when they appeared before the committee on December 12, I even congratulated them on having prepared a plan. I asked to see a copy of the plan with its performance indicators, results, etc. I am still waiting. I would like you to reiterate my request.

[Karen Ellis]

Very well, I will get that done.

I believe that Ms. Boudrias' plan related to the compensation service. I would be happy to speak about integrated planning for the public service in general, as that is my area of expertise.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Very well, let us move on to your area of expertise. You said that you had prepared an integrated plan to make human resources more effective and more responsive.

Would you be able to send a copy of this plan to the committee?

[Karen Ellis]

Ms. Bourgeois, what I said was that each department is responsible for its own integrated planning. I could, however, send you the integrated plan for my agency. As I said at the beginning of my presentation, the new regime for managing human resources provides that deputy heads have responsibility for planning, recruitment and staffing. All departments and agencies are now responsible for their own human resources management, under the stewardship of their deputy head. You are asking to see each department's plan. Departments are now responsible for their own integrated planning, it is part of their mandate.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Does that mean that when Ms. Barrados appears before the committee she is not speaking on behalf of all the departments and agencies?

[Karen Ellis]

I believe that when Ms. Barrados last appeared before the committee, she spoke about the Public Service Commission's annual report.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

But I cannot be expected to ask our 100-odd departments and agencies if they have a human resources management plan. This is supposed to be your jurisdiction, unless I am mistaken. Who is responsible for ensuring that plans are developed to address shortages in human resources?

[Karen Ellis]

Each deputy minister is responsible for addressing staffing and recruitment problems in his department or agency. It is spelled out very clearly. Each deputy minister has to devise his or her own plan, as each department has different needs. For example, the Department of Foreign Affairs has very different needs from Industry Canada.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Very well.

Are PSAC or your employees involved in developing the integrated plan to address staff mobility and other public service issues? Have you asked for their input?

[Karen Ellis]

For planning?

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Yes.

[Karen Ellis]

Employees' involvement in integrated planning is a bedrock of our operational practice. We have developed some excellent, simple tools, including key questions which can be consulted on our Web page.

Managers, no matter their level, and their teams, can use these tools to brainstorm and plan. They may use these tools, for example, to hold a day-long session. We provide the tools, but they do their own planning.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

We heard from representatives of the Public Service Alliance of Canada this week. They told us that the problem has been around since 2000 and that they have tried to contact you on numerous occasions to work with you towards a solution as regards human resources. However, they have never been given an answer and you have never been asked to participate in the process.