Government Operations Committee on Sept. 20th, 2018

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

As it changes, how much capacity is there to do that work in-house, or is it really something that you need to contract out in order to get it done?

[Patrick Borbey]

We have a project management team we've created. We had a team that did the user-requirement definition. It worked for over a year on that. Now we've morphed that into a project management team. It's a small team, but we're working closely with colleagues at the Treasury Board Secretariat, the OCHRO. We also will be working with Public Services and Procurement Canada when it comes to looking at what procurement options there may be, but I suspect we will need some outside help for sure.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Within that collaboration, are the lines of accountability pretty clear that this is a Public Service Commission project led by you, and the other departments are there to assist, but ultimately—

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes. Our role is clear, but we also have built in accountability around the project, which includes a steering committee composed of assistant deputy minister-level colleagues from across the government.

I should say, by the way, that we are funded for this by contributions that departments provide to us to maintain that GC Jobs platform. We're accountable to them because they have skin in the game and they have a role to play in governance.

We also have built in, with our audit committee, an audit methodology throughout the project so that we have internal advice from our audit committee along the way if we run into some issues. We've secured the services of an independent adviser, who will be advising us along the way. Gartner is going to be working with us. We've tried to build in all of those mechanisms along the way to ensure the project is successful.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Madame Mendès, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all of you for your presence.

I am fascinated by everything that is going on at the Public Service Commission, which you described.

I'd like to ask you a question about participation. What role have the unions played in all of this process? I think that is extremely important.

To follow up on what Mr. Blaikie was saying, in this whole review of the system to implant a new way of doing things, have you asked the unions to cooperate with you? According to recent developments in other large systems, it seems important to involve them in whatever is going on.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about that, if possible.

[Patrick Borbey]

Yes. Thank you for your question.

I must tell you that at the Public Service Commission, we have for a long time had a collaborative forum with the unions that is called the Public Service Commission Joint Advisory Council, or PSCJAC. Until recently, it was co-chaired by Chris Aylward himself. We submit all of these ideas and initiatives to this joint committee. We answer members' questions and we adjust our strategies according to their comments. The council meets three or four times a year. As I was saying, we submit all of the initiatives and pilot projects to this committee.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Very well. I find this reassuring, because that is an extremely important part of the entire transformation of hiring and the management of human resources you want to effect in the public service.

Let's go back to the average of 197 days. We know that some processes take much longer. If the system is delegated as you said, and if you transfer the authority to the deputy minister, or a manager or director, why does it take so long? If the delegation is done properly, why is the process so long?

Normally, the purpose of delegating powers or functions is precisely to accelerate a process. Why does this take so long?

[Patrick Borbey]

There are probably a lot of factors involved.

Michael, do you want to talk a little about some of the factors behind that 197?

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Why is the delay so long?

[Michael Morin, Acting Director General, Policy and Strategic Directions, Public Service Commission]

A number of factors go into a staffing process. Patrick mentioned the planning, but as well we have a number of complex positions for which we need to look at appropriate assessments to ensure merit is met. A number of processes are related to ensuring that persons with priority entitlement are fully considered. There are second-language evaluations to ensure that those individuals who are required to be in a bilingual position are fully qualified. There's also security, and, as Patrick mentioned, in some cases there are a large number of candidates, and we need to ensure that we fully assess those candidates and give them due consideration.

There's not a single reason that it takes 197 days. It's a number of factors together. That's why we're looking at how we can improve in a number of those areas.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

If you go to what you call the “Amazon style”—one click and apply, we hope—how would that be possible, considering all that you've been explaining to us? How would you bring down the complexity of hiring people in the public service to an Amazon-like one-click apply?

[Patrick Borbey]

This is where all these user consultations were so valuable, because people told us what they would be looking at in a system that they would actively use. For example, a manager could go on the system and create a new job rather than spend weeks doing the job description and creating it. If a system can create it based on a common language construct so that you're not inventing terminology to describe what the person will be doing but just pull it out of the system and say you need somebody who's going to be a system administrator; we can pull that together very quickly. You have a job description, and you can have a poster that's generated very quickly as a result. You identify your key requirements—not 22, maybe five—because each one of them has to be assessed under our law. That way we could drive a lot of efficiency in the system.

We also have a feature so that we would allow the administrateur général, the deputy minister, to monitor the time it takes at each step of the process, because we lose track. Therefore, if a manager has designed a poster and is sitting on it and not sending it out or has received the application and has not started the first level of screening, that would show up in performance in the system. You could design it in such a way that you could track those situations and have a nudge automatically sent to that manager to ask if they know they have 20 candidates waiting to hear back from them. The technology is there.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

This would be monitored by the Public Service Commission?

[Patrick Borbey]

We would be monitoring it from a distance, but we want deputy ministers themselves to have full information and—

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Yes, but the little nudge would be from the system administered by you.

[Patrick Borbey]

You could design it in such a way in the system that it's automatically a nudge after 10 days of inactivity, or something of that nature.

It's the same thing for the applicant. When the applicant sees the poster, and would fill out these fields that are very easy to fill out, rather than long letters justifying how they met each criterion, they would get immediate feedback on the percentage of match between their profile and what the manager is looking at. They could even get a nudge after saying they meet 70% of the requirements to tell them that three other positions in the system currently correspond to their profile, and would they like to be considered? That's the one click, because the profile would already be in the system and they could be considered for another position.

The technology exists to be able to do this. That's the vision we've developed through our years of testing.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

What stage have you reached in all of this?

[Patrick Borbey]

We have finished determining the needs of users. We are now at the phase we call “defining the scope”. Next month, we want to go to the market with what we call a “request for information”. We will see what feedback we get from the industry.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

How many pages will...

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I think we're out of time on that, but we will have ample opportunity for more questions.

We'll now go to a five-minute round, starting with Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Morin, you talked about the 197-day hiring, and you mentioned a couple of things, language and security. Do you have the numbers broken out across the country? I assume in perhaps Alberta and Saskatchewan, when we're not looking at dual-language requirements, it's a shorter period, or are those replaced by other problems? What is the number of days the hire takes, just quickly, because I want to get on to other items?

[Michael Morin]

No, I don't have that information now, but it is something that we could—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Anecdotally, do you have it?

[Michael Morin]

I don't have it.