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Public Sector Leadership Challenges in Today’s World

Profession in Perspective 2010

Presentation by Maria BarradosPresident

Public Service Commission

September 7, 2010Dublin, Ireland

Check against deliveryRDIMS # 300373

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Setting the Context

•Economic downturn

oReductions, cutbacks

oImpacts on public servants

•Politicization of public services

oChanging institutions

oChanging relationships between public servants

and elected officials

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People Management

• “Getting people part of the organization right”

• “First get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to

drive it”

• “’Who’ questions come before ‘what’ decisions”

Good to Great , Jim Collins

• Growing influence of HR in organizations

o Workforce planning linked to business strategy and

outcomes

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Valuing and Managing Talent

• In Canadao expecting tighter labour market, accelerating retirements,

shortage of critical skills.

• Valuing Your Talent – HR Trends and Metrics (June 2010)o Report by Conference Board of Canadao Top challenges: Retaining critical talent, grooming future

organizational leaders Acquisition, Development Leadership Development Engagement

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Acquisition = recruiting, selection, hiring

• Canada’s aging workforce; shortage of critical skills

• 20% - difficulty in recruiting quality candidates

• Close to 80% - difficulty recruiting candidates with critical skills (key tasks) and hot skills (high demand).

– Challenge similar for both private and public sector

• Internal job postings, corporate internet sites and third-party web boards are the most effective methods of recruiting for all jobs except the top jobs.

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Acquisition – Canada’s public serviceIn Canada’s public service:

• Values – merit, non-partisanship; fairness, transparency, access, representativeness in terms of reflecting our diverse population

• Challenge is to have representative, bilingual public service

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Acquisition – Public Service Commission• Better planning to identify areas of critical shortage.

• Identifying areas of critical shortage.

• Targeted outreach and recruitment – universities, career fairs

• Post Secondary Recruitment Program– Specific career streams

• Clerk of the Privy Council’s objective - hiring 4000 post-secondary graduates – largely met

• With help from PSC’s post-secondary recruitment drives

• Pools of partially and full qualified candidates for high demand and high turnover areas in the public service

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Acquisition – attracting talent - Jobs.gc.caYour web site is

excellent!!

Very easy and better to locate

jobs. Thank you!

CCG Videos promoting Coast Guard College!

A single window for Canadians to apply to the Government of Canada! A Huge Success !!!!

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Development

Conference Board Report:

•Shift from formal training to development

• Downward trend in spending on formal

learning

o Higher in public sector

• Clearly defined competencieso 79% of public sector, vs. 68% of private sector

• 59% have formal learning and development plans; higher in public sector – (60% )

• Increasing reliance on segments for determining development opportunities.

• Managers formally accountable for people management

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Development, Training, in Canada’s Public Service• Need to demonstrate clear linkages between individual and organizational needs

• Canada School of Public Service delivers centralized training– Targeted to specific levels and communities

• Learning plans developed for every employee – Goal is 100% completion rates for learning plans and performance feedback

reports

• Performance Management is now embedded at senior levels.

• Professional development communities– National Managers Community Professional Development Forum

• Engaging and facilitating dialogue and the sharing of best practices.– Young Professionals Network

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Leadership Development and Succession PlanningConference Board Report:

• Organizations facing leadership crunch.

• Succession Planning : Public sector lagging behind private sector– 81% of private sector have identified key leadership positions for succession planning,

vs. 63% of public sector

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Leadership Development and Succession Planning

• Increased succession pools for second-level executives and senior managers

• More organizations are identifying mission-critical positions – non-executive jobs, vital to the organization’s performance.

Diversity

• “representation falls as people in diversity groups climb the career ladder”

• “the integration of diversity management practices across all facets of talent management, particularly development should have higher priority.”

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Leadership Development, Succession Planning – Canada’s Public Service

• Challenges not getting easier.

• Leaders of tomorrow’s public service are within our departments today.

• Talent management in place for all executives, moving toward some non-executive levels.

• Leadership Development Framework in place responsibility for leadership – with department s focus on work-based learning. broadening experience and knowledge, vs. accelerating their progress up the ranks

• Moving forward: more systematically integrated with business and HR planning, including succession planning and filling identified organizational needs.

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Leadership Development – Canada’s Public Service • Continuing role of corporate leadership development:

• Advanced Leadership Program o Highest level program for senior executives ; increase awareness of social,

global issues

• Fellows Program : o short-term exchanges with business, academia, not-for-profit organizations

and other levels of government.

• Public Servant in Residence Programo Placed in Canadian universities to conduct research and/or teach.

• Living Leadership Program o Experiential leadership program –practical application of leadership skills

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Succession Planning - Canada’s Public Service

• At executive level and in key skill shortage areas.

• Good data needed

• Tied to plan for identifying critical positions

• Ensuring pools, strategies are in place

• Also tied to values – and to ensuring we have representative, bilingual public service

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Employee EngagementConference Board Report

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Employee EngagementConference Board Report

• Employee engagement one of top HR priorities cited in Conference Board Report

• Surveys used more frequently in public sector

• Prevalent employee concerns are: recognition, career opportunities, effectiveness of management, and development opportunities

• Wellness, voluntarism and social networking – can enhance engagement and benefit employees, and organizations.

• Wellness, work-life balance initiatives are increasingly part of the corporate agenda – more so in public sector

• Community involvement, voluntarism allow organizations and employees to express and act on shared values in a concrete way

• Social networking

• 43% of private sector organizations offer unlimited access to social networking vs 23% of public sector organizations

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Employee Engagement – Canada’s Public ServiceCanada’s public service

• All public servants have role to play

• Overcoming risk-aversion by building trust; through dialogue.

• Federal Public Service Employee Survey – every three years - online first time in 2008 – Departmental surveys– PSC – five surveys to date – developed action plan, posted to the web.

• Voluntarism - Government of Canada’s Charitable Workplace Campaign – Strong participation– This year included activities related to healthy living and wellness

• Social networking, wellness : Clerk of the Privy Council has made renewing the workplace a priority.

– web 2.0 technologies – GCpedia – Government of Canada’s wiki– PSC – fostering innovative uses of social media

• President’s blog.

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Conclusion

• Importance of human resources - Majority of organizations surveyed (three quarters) believed that HR is more influential than it was 5 years ago.

• Value of people management – underscored in Canada by Clerk of Privy Council’s emphasis on PS Renewal.

• Renewal - strengthening the capacity of the federal Public Service to meet the needs of Canadians and deliver on the business of Government.

• Clerk reported in the Spring on the Public Service Renewal initiative

• Highlighted progress on recruitment, as well as on integrated HR and business planning.

– Departments, agencies taking a more strategic and coordinated approach to recruitment, building on integrated business and HR plans.

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Workshops

What lessons can we learn from the private sector in

relation to leadership development?

What good practices in leadership selection and

development can we share from our own respective

countries?

What are the new and emerging competencies for effective

public sector leadership?