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PSMAC Subcommittee on People Resourcing


Appendix B: Methodology

With a view to advancing key people management priorities, the Chief Human Resources Officer invited members of PSMAC to establish four subcommittees and examine recommendations on different areas of people management. The PSMAC Subcommittee on People Resourcing was thus created and started to identify means of improving the public service's ability to place the right people in the right jobs at the right time.

For the purpose of this exercise, the key stakeholders of the federal public service's people resourcing system are managers, HR professionals, candidates/employees and system-wide elements. The third category includes public service employees/workers, feeder groups, as well as candidates to public service jobs. Together, they form the human capital required by organizations to deliver on their mandate. The system-wide element refers to the pan–public service dimension of the system, which would benefit from a collaborative and coherent approach. All of these stakeholders interact with one another as depicted in Figure 12.

Figure 12. Stakeholder Interaction Within People Resourcing

Stakeholder Interaction Within People Resourcing - Figure12

Figure 12. Stakeholder Interaction Within People Resourcing - Text version

We considered that all these stakeholders needed to be engaged early in our study in order to allow for the end-results to be linked to existing needs, challenges and areas of priority. The Subcommittee solicited the input and opinion of HR professionals and managers to clarify the characteristics of an optimal people resourcing system, to assess the current state of people resourcing in the public service, and to identify gaps and strategies to address these gaps.

Since the results of the Subcommittee should be based on evidence, it consulted previous work, projects, reports and initiatives conducted on the same issues and used them as building blocks for this report, including the following:

  • "Diagnostic of the State of HRM Capacity Challenges Facing Line Managers" (2008);
  • "HR Capacity Building for Line Managers: Addressing Current and Future Needs" (2008);
  • Footage and interviews from the 8th Annual National Managers' Community Development Forum (2008);
  • National Managers' community focus group sessions: "Dialogue with Senior Leaders—A Follow-up on E-Polling Results;
  • The HR Capacity Building Strategy (2005);
  • PE Community: Potential Recruitment Model 2005–06 to 2010–11; and
  • Demographic of the PE Occupational Group (2010).

Characteristics of an Optimal People Resourcing System

The following stakeholders provided their views—at a high level—on what they consider to be an efficient and effective people resourcing system:

  • Representatives from departments of the Subcommittee's members;
  • Representatives from the National Managers' Community (NMC);
  • Chairs of the Human Resources Planning Interdepartmental Network (HRPIN); and
  • Chairs of the National Staffing Council (NSC).

The brainstorming session resulted in the identification of six characteristics of an optimal people resourcing system.

Gaps

Following these brainstorming sessions, existing material (e.g., past focus group results, surveys, reports, etc.) was reviewed with a purpose of compiling a list of gaps perceived by managers and HR professionals. The list was used as a prompt for focus groups that included the following participants:

  • Representatives from the NMC (from the regions and the NCR);
  • HR representatives from various departments (from the regions and the NCR);
  • Chairs of the HRPIN;
  • Chairs of the NSC; and
  • Chair of the Organization and Classification Council (OCC).

The Subcommittee recognized that its objective is not to address all identifiable gaps, but rather to identify the gaps that are the most important and require immediate attention, based on current and future needs. In this light, participants were asked to select their top three gaps in order to focus on the most pressing issues perceived by these communities.

The following questions were presented to participants for their consideration:

  • Where are the most significant gaps?
  • What are the most timely and relevant gaps given the fiscal environment set out in the budget?
  • What issues would benefit most from the attention of the deputy heads?
  • Where can deputy heads make the most impact?
  • Where possible, what issues offer the potential for short term results or "quick wins"?

This exercise led to the development of narratives that provided committee members with a raw testimony of issues and gaps in the existing system. In addition, it provided committee members with a set of priorities and statements that illustrated each one.

Narratives were also drawn from the following:

  • Discussions with employees newly recruited to the public service about their experience;
  • Information recently gathered through the PSMA review;
  • Different survey results (e.g., an independent survey conducted by Decode);
  • Discussions that took place with post-secondary graduates looking for employment at public service career fairs; and
  • Feedback provided by post-secondary institutions from different regions.

The narrative for the system-wide perspective was developed based on an analysis of the themes, gaps and priorities that were discussed during the focus groups sessions, one-on-one consultations and available analyses and reference materials.

Following the identification and validation of the high priority gaps, it was determined that finding solutions for systemic gaps would generate the most significant improvement to the existing people resourcing system and lead to a more coordinated, cost-effective and collaborative approach.

Recommendations

Once the gaps were identified, an additional series of mixed focus groups were organized with the following partners:

  • Representatives from the NMC (from the regions and the NCR);
  • HR representatives from various departments (from the regions and the NCR);
  • Chairs of the HRPIN;
  • Chairs of the NSC; and
  • Chair of the OCC.

The mixed format of the focus groups allowed us to benefit from a variety of experience and increased the likelihood that the proposed solutions would be aligned both with their needs and with those of the system.

The focus groups validated the gaps identified by the first set of consultations and then discussed a set of strategies to address these common gaps.

Both focus groups were asked to suggest solutions to the first gap:

  • Key players have not embraced integrated business/HR planning as a meaningful driver for people management and staffing.

While the remaining gaps were split between the focus groups as follows:

Focus group 1:

  • Unclear roles, responsibilities, expectations and accountabilities contribute to a risk adverse staffing culture; and
  • Tools are not consistently designed with stakeholders to meet the needs articulated by users.

Focus group 2:

  • The current culture/behaviours do not facilitate collaborative relationships between managers and HR; and
  • Existing tools and technology need to be better leveraged to ensure improved coherence, accessibility and availability (e.g., improved just-in-time staffing).

This approach proved to be more conducive to results, allowing us to obtain the level of information we were seeking.

Four recommendations are presented in this report. Given the current environmental context, these are considered the timeliest and attain balance between achieving tangible outcomes in a relatively short time span and longer-term opportunities.

With the exception of the recommendation pertaining to branding, the recommendations presented in this report are solutions jointly identified and discussed during the focus groups.



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