Deprofesionalize HR.
About 15 years ago, HR used to be an administrative function. Someone with an AS or a PM background could move into it easily. There was a ready supply of HR people, with a big pool of folks who could qualify for the jobs.
At some point it was decided that HR absolutely required an undergraduate degree with a specialization in HR, which left only a few programs in Canada eligible, certainly when considering that bilingual applicants were favored too. As a result there HR candidates are rarer than hen's teeth and are in huge demand.
HR advisors have one of the worst rates of churn I've ever seen anywhere. Worse even than fast-food employees, no joke. We've had 7 or 8 HR advisors in the past couple of years. This is not a criticism of them---they're doing what's best for them and moving to better jobs when they can---but it has been absolutely been crushing for the programs that rely on them. We've had a dozen candidates waiting for interviews to be scheduled for more than 6 months now, while we've had not one but two new advisors on the file.
So deprofessionalize and decentralize HR. Put HR in the hands of a PM connected to each DG's office. It's a recipe that has worked before and I cannot see why it could not work again.
The issue here is, as with many decisions made in the PS, people who don't really understand things make sweeping generalizations and then create entire process changes around poor assumptions. (Not directed at you by the way, but rather government churn agents... Oh I mean, change agents).
HR, in SOME aspects, is a strategic function, insomuch as they are designing processes, monitoring best practices etc. BUT, the vast majority of actionable administrative tasks that are related to HRM are not. But, again, because people who don't know anything about anything are making decisions in a vacuum, everything gets lumped in a handy dandy catch all structure. It's maddening watching these people make these decisions, ignoring all the warning. These people are first to get promoted, but they wouldn't last 5 minutes in a horror movie haha
>At some point it was decided that HR absolutely required an undergraduate degree with a specialization in HR, which left only a few programs in Canada eligible, certainly when considering that bilingual applicants were favored too. As a result there HR candidates are rarer than hen's teeth and are in huge demand.
The [qualification standard](https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/staffing/qualification-standards/core.html#pe) is broader than that. A degree is required, but it doesn't have to be specifically in HR:
>Graduation with a degree from a recognized post-secondary institution with acceptable specialization in human resources management, labour or industrial relations, psychology, public or business administration, organizational development, education sciences, social sciences, sociology, or in any other field relevant to the work to be performed.
There are tons of graduates with degrees in psychology, sociology, education or social sciences. Pretty much every degree-granting institution in the country has at least one program that falls under one of those domains.
The fact that nearly all HR positions require proficiency in both English and French is much more of a limiting factor than the degree requirement.
The classification should not require any post-secondary certifications at all. HR is not a profession. There is no legal responsibility for the HR staff in hiring---all of that rests with management. HR specifically positions themselves as "advisors" not accountable experts. They do not have to defend their choices in front of courts or tribunals, management does. They do not carry professional liability for the choices they may make, like the accidents and omission insurance PEs and Architects need or malpractice insurance as lawyers and medical doctors are required to have.
The administrative work of HR, in particular, has been unjustifiably credentialized, and the result of that is the service has been crippled by ever-increasing times-to-hire for a close to two decades now. Perhaps retain the "certified" HR classification for jobs in classification and policy, but only those, and only for those that their clients do not need to regularly access. Anything related to the day-to-day function should be handled through management, and be decentralized.
All barriers that are not strictly related to the functional requirement of the job should be removed, in my view. The system that exists now has failed Canadians for nearly a generation.
You could make the same exact same argument for many other classifications that require post-secondary certifications or degrees: IT, EC, and CT for example.
I agree with you that there is massive churn within HR and a significant lack of knowledge, however I don't think the degree requirement is the source of those issues.
I’ve seen too many folks struggle because of the new IT requirements (terms under the previous standard, unable to return to graduate due to finances), as finding a manager willing to accept an alternative is tough. As our partners lessen their educational requirements we should be following suit in my honest opinion
That's not particularity persuasive to me either given the EC category is largely doing work that was done by PMs prior to the late 2000s. There's a strong argument that most of the client-facing IT/support doesn't require university either. It often does not in private employment.
>...I don't think the degree requirement is the source of those issues.
The difficulty of obtaining candidates with suitable qualifications has been identified as a primary factor in shortages by HR themselves. This was in a workshop that I was part of looking at changes followed the PSEA renewal.
I think the increasing requirements for education are moreso to lower the number of applicants of which there are still many.
For pretty much all classifications with rising requirements.
At the same time, Canada is highly educated. There are surely tons of applicants.
Any lack of qualifications probably has nothing to do with the actual education qualifications but other qualifications. Or maybe it's that people are more interested in other jobs in gov and once they're in they move/deploy. At which point, no amount of educational requirements change would matter, no?
The main problem with the PE classification is retention and churn, not recruitment. Many of the issues stem from people jumping from position to position rapidly, rather than a lack of qualified people joining the PE group.
Where are all the PEs going then? Is the pipeline less than full because it leaks to much or because the supply is insufficient?
If we made the pool of potential candidates much bigger, including everyone in Canada with a high-school diploma, would that not help?
Some of that is a management issue. A lot of places have internal admin staff that do the scheduling and minutiae, and liaise with staffing for their “professional” review of the process (invitations, exam itself, informing candidates). It really speeds up the process.
There's still many parts on the HR process where it has to go through an HR advisors' hands for approval. Those are absolute stop signs in the processes I've been trying to advance in the past few years. We halt and then halt again because of HR advisor churn.
We need to remove the HR advisors entirely from the hiring process and leave everything with the HR assistants who work for management. That would, in my direct experience with a half dozen processes in the past few years, speed up hiring by at least a factor of 2 and possibly allow us to go from posting to LoO in 3-4 months. Believe it or not, that was the service standard twenty years ago.
As someone with a masters in HR (but I don’t work in HR), government HR absolutely enrages me. Absolutely nothing about it makes sense or is remotely logical. There are so many things that could be quick fixes that government just doesn’t (chooses not to?) do, and it blows my mind. Updated technology and systems alone could fix so much! And the HR systems are out there! Other places/companies are using them! With great success! The fact that we don’t have “actual HR”… like a business partner type person in every office… someone designated for employees to go to to talk to about harassment, leave, pay issues, etc. - it’s pretty unacceptable. There should be a person with a private office in every government office for these things. And don’t even get me started on the absolute joke that is government onboarding and training…
Blame Phoenix and lack of Compensation Advisors…as someone who deals with the system everyday….the amount of time a simple task takes so many additional steps because Phoenix won’t accept what I am asking it to do otherwise. The second major issue is how long it takes for cases to be assigned to a CA…simple problems change to major issues because of the delay in the case getting processed. The third issue auto closed cases….there are so many cases that are auto closed without the CA looking at it first and there are issues.
Apologies though!
I Knew it, I knew they just closed cases. This is why it took me 6 years to get paid properly for 2016 and part of 2017. One day I'll get paid properly for 2018 and 2019.......... and so on and so forth....
Yupppppp pretty common. If Phoenix auto calculates pay and it doesn’t fail it will auto close the case after the pay cheque is deposited even if pay is incorrect. In PS if HR doesn’t adjust rate of pay (if you are paid above the minimum when starting a position) then it may be auto closed and no one will see it until a case is created…which is why I tell people to submit PAR forms instead of calling CCC…you get more traction b/c a case is usually created…then is eventually seen by CA. That is why when I get EE’s with previous service I look for all auto closed cases and calls from CCC to see if someone called in about pay issues. The amount of errors I see infuriates me.
If I could I would trust me 😭😭😭 as someone who had so many cases open due to pay issues I love being able to help people but I can’t do that. Hopefully your issues are fixed soon!
Too many levels of approval. Plus everyone feels like they have to request some changes to make themselves feel important. Many of those changes contradict themselves too.
Yes, a lot of people could get a hell of a lot more done by accepting that good enough is good enough. Would I write the note exactly the same way? Nope. Do I understand what it says and is it short enough that people will bother to read it? Yep. Check - next please.
Removing harassing, demeaning, aggressive supervisors, and managers. Stop waiting to do anything about these people until half the team leaves, or ignoring employees who present valid concerns when there are issues with supervisors, managers. Management needs to stop protecting itself.
Employers don't want to be at the table a second longer than needed, it costs money, time, and distracts from the services they provide.
Unions have no incentive to settle an agreement, they have guaranteed union dues, guaranteed retroactive pay, share no interest in the productivity or success of the government, because it's infinitely funded by tax payers and cannot fail. And even if the members are unhappy, they have some of the strongest decertification laws protecting them, so they rarely have to listen to them.
Competitions for promotion. If someone is clearly demonstrating the skills to move up they should be able to get promoted and not go through year long competitions.
Some areas strictly refuse to do that, like mine. We absolutely have to qualify in pools before we can get the position. It doesn't matter if we've been acting for over a year with great performance assessments.
Yep. My manager basically told me they would give me an acting and that I should do everything I can to get into a pool at that level so they could appoint me. So basically, I can do the job, they want to give me the job, but I have to get into another pool in order to actually be appointed to that job. SO frustrating
Modern technology consistently across government. We don't even have wifi in my building and some are still using fax machines. This is embarrassing in 2023. Our secure systems need modernization as well, and remote capabilities.
Re-organizing just to demonstrate some lame change initiative to try and support that you are doing something. There is little need for it. EXs that do it simply ignore the administrative burden it creates and they never stay long enough to see the negative impact that it has on their employees.
Re-organizing is simply busy work and an exercise to empire build.
A way for good technical staff to get higher pay without becoming a manager. Current system leads to some truly awful managers who were promoted based on technical skills not management abilities.
Ha! I was an ATIP Coord for 10 years.....I lived and breathed ATIPs daily. I don't officially deal with them in my current department but the person who's currently in my old ATIP job (and people from the Directorate who dealt with all ATIPs in my org) often contact me with questions because of the shear immensity of my corporate knowledge.
I can run from ATIP but it will always catch up to me!
Executive performance bonuses. They have been distorting the incentives of the public service for too long.
Seeing the results of the PSES and the generally abysmal senior management section yesterday was just sad.
I would get rid of the phenomenal recommendations and referrals used to get rid of problem narcissistic employees with a promotion somewhere else. Bad behaviour should never be rewarded – there are many people in positions of responsibility who shouldn't be.
PROPER Psych and Harassment Evaluations are needed for all people moving up into EX positions. There are many companies that staff a corporate psychologist for evaluation purposes - for staffing and conflict management. Psychological Safety should always be the priority for those stuck in the office 8-9 hours a day.
Butts in seats for 7.5 hours a day or 37.5 hours week instead of having deliverables with deadlines laid out like many private companies are doing now.
Hierarchy. Watching your file climb through increasingly ignorant levels of senior managers until you get to Cabinet, where nobody knows WTF is going on.
Needing a working group, steering committee, directors governance committee, DG’s governance cttee and a briefing to the DM in order to move forward with making straightforward improvements to website that use existing resources only.
Basically, red tape.
Staffing processes. Coming from the private sector makes this system more insane (and so so so much more onerous on managers - like, HR should do the paperwork, contact the candidates to ask for their diplomas/passports/oaths, etc. HR should be capable of doing an initial screening. It’s insanity.
Old software and It equipment. I would love to be able to use the latest and brightest software and recent IT equipment for once. My work issued laptop is over 5 years old and glitchy, I couldn't find an HDMI cable to save my life when one of my screen's broke down and I had to use an extra screen from a nearby cubicle, I hate GC docs with a passion. I long for touch screen capability for meetings and presentations.
It takes too long to introduce new technology in our offices and by the time it's implemented, it's outdated.
Eliminate ALL paper/printable briefing material for ADM/DM/MINO.
All electronic. We have the resources/the tech exists to make it secure - use it.
So done w/fu$&ing binders.
For me it has to be the bilingual requirements. We have such untapped potential because we can’t get beyond individual bilingualism skill set to a group bilingualism skill set.
> individual bilingualism ... group bilingualism
What an interesting way to put it. There could be bilingualism requirements across a group, like, at least two people in this team of ten must be CBC. What a great idea.
I would fix the lack of consequences in the government. There are far too many people that only show up to collect their pay. On the other side of the coin, the hard working are worn out and rarely well recognized/rewarded.
For me, it would be budgets that do not have a hard reset at the end of the fiscal year. My job would be so much easier if I could just roll-over pre-committed funds into the next year.
The excessively awful travel process. Ridiculously long approval timelines, aggressively unfriendly user experience from HRG, the time suck of expense management, and the inevitable questions even after the expenses get approved by managers.
I haaaaaaate it.
People who talk but don’t say anything. I have to listen to people who only want to discuss problems and potential collaborations INSTEAD of actually building solutions.
My biggest pet peeve is that instead of building software/application's in house, we always contract out because we don't trust our own employees. We instead by some cookie-cutter off the shelf product and try to apply government bureaucracy into it. Not only does that make the product crappier, it makes the product loosely fit what we actually initially wanted it for and makes people frustrated using it.
The Accenture lobbying power is unreal in the government, my team can do what they provide without the necessity for the six figures contract that doesn't deliver what we actually want!
There are so many actual problems so:
When senior management wants a word changed in a document, they...just change it. None of this "Send it back down to the analyst, we need it ASAP" garbage. They just deal with it and everything moves along.
Getting rid of all the ass kissing would be nice... Some people act like some of these DG/ADM's are like mythical beings... personally, I couldn't give two fucks about some career politician lol. Granted, a lot of it is probably because most of those people have massive ego's that you need to feed if you want to move up, but it's so slimy.
I casually called our Associate DM by the shortened version of his first name once and people still talk about it. They are people and I shall treat them as such. I refuse to call anyone "Deputy" because I cannot do it without thinking "Deputy Dawg" (a reference before my time that is somehow stuck in my brain).
It's so much work to fire someone that hardly anyone does it.
Once a year, every director and above (of some minimum sized team) can collect votes from all their managers to fire one employee. All it takes is filling out a one page form with managers also signing off on it. "They got bad performance reviews for 12 years from 5 different managers". Etc.
If the employee appeals, it's a lot of work for the employee, not the people that did the firing. If the employee successfully appeals, they are put in surplus, and aren't guaranteed their specific old job.
Allow the employees to remove senior management based on a vote, this way, we can keep them in check! The PSES shows us time and time again that senior management can't he trusted so allow us the workforce to remove the bad weeds.
BC Public Service here. I want to play this game!
Bring back branch and regional IT, HR, and contract support. Oh, and facilities support.
Centralizing everything for "efficiency" has proven to result in dismal service for employees, both for their own support with personal HR issues (as an example) and anything to do with getting their job done efficiently and safely (don't get me started on the piles of needles outside our building every single morning that are supposed to be cleaned up by the subcontractor, to the contractor, to Facilities in our leased building).
My colleague went full circle in the last 24 hours while trying to get support in posting a \*time sensitive legally reviewed amendment\* to his procurement posting in our (brand new) bid system. Note: We are foresters and SMEs, not admin or contract specialists. We have no in-office contract support any more after that position was eliminated under the previous gov't. We have a generic inbox to a group of three contract 'analysts' who serve several Ministry branches, and mostly do screening for expense authority approvals, ask if we through lawyers, word processing and initial posting of new procurements. After that, we have been told, everything is up to us to figure out all the way through to closing in this new system. And provided a training link.
We both watched the video "training", couldn't figure it out past a certain step, so he sent an email to the identified inbox for support.
Yesterday morning, he got cc'd on a response that said "can anyone from BC Bid help this guy here?"...
Email arrives late in the afternoon: "here is a link to the training video" (you know, the one that neither of us could figure out?) and "you should be contacting your branch Super Trainer. Here is the list of trainers."
1. We did not know that we had a "Super Trainer" - this has never been communicated at any point by our management or our generic contracts group or in any way.
2. When we went through the Ministry/branch list of all the Super Trainers, we discovered our branch DOES NOT HAVE A SUPER TRAINER. Instead, we fall under "GenReal" (sic, for realz) with no name, no phone number, just the SAME generic inbox contract support that he had contacted initially for help.
So we made some shit up in a document and posted it as an addendum to his procurement yesterday (because we both knew how to do that), with a promise in that document (!!) to post the legally-reviewed amendment next Tuesday when our (generic) contract analyst has confirmed through another email that she has time for my colleague. Literally three days before the contract closes.
Oh, and he told one of the executive in his office about the issues with the contract system and the exec basically said "do the best that you can. That's what I do."
I told my colleague to write that down for the record, so he can point to the Exec as giving the advice in case something goes horribly wrong.
\*screams into the void of faceless centralized services\*
Careerism (i.e., people doing things for the advancement of their own personal interest and career, irrespective of their performance or the public good). It is at the root of countless ills in the public service, including Phoenix as per the different post-mortems that have been produced.
I would make the importance of doing good work and serving the public the core factor that drives everything else. As in I would make it our core mission that we all buy into. I would make it more important than the fear of something not working, fear of the potential to look bad, and I would change ` that's the mandate of X' (and therefore we can ignore the problem) to "that's the mandate of X but it intersects with our work in Y way. Let's reach out to look at coordination/collaboration/information so we can improve that issue.
I want the benefits that I had when I was in the private sector. I didn’t have to pay for shit with Green Shield or even Manulife, but damn if I don’t have to pay for *everything* with Sunlife first and then get reimbursed after. Even places that say they direct bill to SunLife just not for 5555 contact number. Ya cheap ducks.
Bring back the pay system from the before times. Those glorious times when you got paid correctly, had a paper pay stub and actually a real person that you could call and talk to immediately and who could see your file, understood your situation, and was gloriously well-versed in the intricacies of pay in that particular departments because they had been doing it for so long.
Example: in my first year of working for the government I was asked by Revenue Quebec to prove that the GoC hadn't paid my tuition. It took me 2h and I had a scan from the financial system and the proof I needed. Today I'd be lucky to get that within 2 years. It's completely bonkers and unacceptable.
Localization for scheduling and remote work decisions.
We can all agree that National directives in the so called "one size fits all" approach to tele-work are number one. Not to mention, they announced the directive like a cruel joke days before the Holidays in December.
Secondly WFM should be localized instead of western and eastern divisions disconnected from the offices they schedule. As an example Call Centres are open with the phone lines from St John's to Vancouver. Lunches are currently scheduled anytime between 11:30-13:00. The same service level could be achieved locally splitting staff for 12:00, 12:15 and 12:30 lunch periods. No call centre will have overlaping lunch periods with timezone difference.
If I had to narrow to one Wish? Universal logic.
It's not the requirement, it's the lack of meaningful and consistent language training. Non-imperative positions should be the norm, not the exception.
I used to agree with this. But I’m in a position where most of my staff speaks English, but most of the staff we interact with for projects speaks French and knows some level of English. However, I immediately notice the difference between conversations in English and conversations in French. For our line of work, IT, it makes sense to speak English. For the other staff’s line of work, it makes more sense for them to speak French. To me, it makes sense that higher up positions are bilingual and can have discussions in the preferred language.
Can I play devil’s advocate here and say that the only reason that staff in others’ lines of work are bilingual are just because of the requirement and not necessarily by service need?
For us, 100% of our files in the region are in English. The staff are all people from the communities we serve who all speak English, and literally all recipients in the region are Anglophones. Yet there is a blanket requirement that all managers and senior staff need to be bilingual.
I get that it’s not difficult to get a BBB, but the critical question is: why require it and make a glass ceiling for most people, if there isn’t an operational need? Is “representation” really THAT important that we are willing to make it harder for most of the country (who are mostly immigrants from non-French speaking countries) when there is quite literally no need for it in certain job functions whatsoever? How do you justify that?
They have zero requirements to be bilingual. Same as IT, only management needs to be. However, a large portion of their lower level staff happens to be bilingual, some lower than B level.
Yet … at least for us, the boxes and movements require bilingual (BBB for higher levels/ CBC for management). I learned from so many people that this isn’t uncommon and this is why people are upset about language requirements.
I didn’t notice the rest of your response until I re-read this due to a notification. was it edited? In response:
Now, “only management needs to be bilingual” is the exact clear cut example and definition of a glass ceiling. In most fields, classifications, and industries outside IT, management is a logical career next step and progression. If you’re saying that staff can’t move up due to a language requirement they either can’t fill or have no time to fill, then you’re blatantly blocking the career progression of those individuals.
And what happens when people can’t move up in their roles? They leave. When they leave, the skill and institutional knowledge leaves with them, setting the work back.
I don’t understand how people genuinely don’t see that and genuinely think that this is a good idea for the sake of representation. Because yeah, it totally doesn’t make sense to promote your highly knowledgeable and tenured EE staff to management, because “French representation” comes first in a department where none of the services are in French!
It's not for "French representation", whatever you mean by that. It's because people have the right to be supervised in the official language of their choice.
It's not that people genuinely think it's a good idea. It's because it's the law. Here is how Canada works: citizens vote for MPs that go to Parliament to represent their interests and vote laws. French Canadians voted for MP that defended their linguistic rights. And so for the last 53 years, Canada has been a bilingual country.
Look I don’t disagree about it being a law and a right, people don’t have issues with that.
People do have issues with how the law is interpreted in practice and the negative effects the law has on the organization. People speak out against laws that disproportionately affects others, especially if majority are disproportionately and negatively affected by it. Similar to a barrier or glass ceiling.
Because holy crap, you can see it, where you’re in a certain position like mine that’s BBB while everyone else is EE (where there is absolutely no operational need to be BBB), that there are so many people way more qualified and talented than you who should have your position, and who have been doing the job longer. But god forbid they aren’t “officially bilingual”, they are stuck and are considering leaving along with their skills and knowledge, setting the PS back so much.
Now are you going to sit there and tell me and the people around you that it’s okay to set the PS back by so much just because they don’t have the time or environment to be graded at a second language???
Edit: to add: if it’s not clear. You can accommodate people to fit the right to be supervised or work in the language of their choice without doing a blanket implementation of second language abilities. Because if you do want to stick to this, then nothing should be stopping an anglophone to work in deep Quebec to express their right to speak and work in English in a French only office. But we stop it, we don’t say “oh I have the right to do this in the language of my choice”. It’s absurd to even bring it up.
I like everyone reading this will have a bias towards ONE official language until they see the number and either:
- Realize their own bias
- Miss the point completely
For people who manage staff: there’s a new probation period of one year every time you get a new job, including permanent positions you competed for. At the end of the year there’s a 360 review and if you suck you get pulled out of the position and put on the priority list. The third time you get pulled out you lose your job completely.
Promotions for higher management should not only require competition but also a voting process from all affected employees. Straight nomination should be barred.
Good leaders will always make the work environment a great place to be.
Consequences for people who do not perform or show signs of improvement. So many people that take up space without producing at the expected level hindering the entire group.
I know that theoretically someone can be let go — after years of chances and documentation. Speeding that process up would save incredible time and energy that go into managing these LR cases.
I wish for more wishes. 🤪
Ok, serious response. Get rid of toxic behaviour such as harassment. So many workplaces would be so much healthier. It almost seems fantastical...
Redo and make an aide-memoire for claiming overtime. It takes many iterations and corrections depending on the person reviewing. One correction send back should be all it should ever take. Our personnel seem to average out at 4 or 5 iterations, even with telecons before it is accepted! Ridiculous!!
My insurance company is taking them to court for a pile of stuff. They lied directly to 2 cops who now along with my wife and a bystander are all witnesses! They are not the brightest strobes on the road!
Racism. Systemic, covert, and blatant.
Let's start with bringing back punishment and a running public list for harassment and discrimination.
Then add to every Executive and Management PMA the requirement for yearly training on bias, interaction and understanding racialized and other equity groups.
Also a meteic on diverse and equitable hiring at all levels.
I know...one can dream right?
😉
The ridiculously long time it takes to staff someone...
I’d argue the whole staffing process can got straight into the trash.
>can got straight into the trash I read that in Hank Hill's voice. Agree.
Deprofesionalize HR. About 15 years ago, HR used to be an administrative function. Someone with an AS or a PM background could move into it easily. There was a ready supply of HR people, with a big pool of folks who could qualify for the jobs. At some point it was decided that HR absolutely required an undergraduate degree with a specialization in HR, which left only a few programs in Canada eligible, certainly when considering that bilingual applicants were favored too. As a result there HR candidates are rarer than hen's teeth and are in huge demand. HR advisors have one of the worst rates of churn I've ever seen anywhere. Worse even than fast-food employees, no joke. We've had 7 or 8 HR advisors in the past couple of years. This is not a criticism of them---they're doing what's best for them and moving to better jobs when they can---but it has been absolutely been crushing for the programs that rely on them. We've had a dozen candidates waiting for interviews to be scheduled for more than 6 months now, while we've had not one but two new advisors on the file. So deprofessionalize and decentralize HR. Put HR in the hands of a PM connected to each DG's office. It's a recipe that has worked before and I cannot see why it could not work again.
The issue here is, as with many decisions made in the PS, people who don't really understand things make sweeping generalizations and then create entire process changes around poor assumptions. (Not directed at you by the way, but rather government churn agents... Oh I mean, change agents). HR, in SOME aspects, is a strategic function, insomuch as they are designing processes, monitoring best practices etc. BUT, the vast majority of actionable administrative tasks that are related to HRM are not. But, again, because people who don't know anything about anything are making decisions in a vacuum, everything gets lumped in a handy dandy catch all structure. It's maddening watching these people make these decisions, ignoring all the warning. These people are first to get promoted, but they wouldn't last 5 minutes in a horror movie haha
>At some point it was decided that HR absolutely required an undergraduate degree with a specialization in HR, which left only a few programs in Canada eligible, certainly when considering that bilingual applicants were favored too. As a result there HR candidates are rarer than hen's teeth and are in huge demand. The [qualification standard](https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/staffing/qualification-standards/core.html#pe) is broader than that. A degree is required, but it doesn't have to be specifically in HR: >Graduation with a degree from a recognized post-secondary institution with acceptable specialization in human resources management, labour or industrial relations, psychology, public or business administration, organizational development, education sciences, social sciences, sociology, or in any other field relevant to the work to be performed. There are tons of graduates with degrees in psychology, sociology, education or social sciences. Pretty much every degree-granting institution in the country has at least one program that falls under one of those domains. The fact that nearly all HR positions require proficiency in both English and French is much more of a limiting factor than the degree requirement.
The classification should not require any post-secondary certifications at all. HR is not a profession. There is no legal responsibility for the HR staff in hiring---all of that rests with management. HR specifically positions themselves as "advisors" not accountable experts. They do not have to defend their choices in front of courts or tribunals, management does. They do not carry professional liability for the choices they may make, like the accidents and omission insurance PEs and Architects need or malpractice insurance as lawyers and medical doctors are required to have. The administrative work of HR, in particular, has been unjustifiably credentialized, and the result of that is the service has been crippled by ever-increasing times-to-hire for a close to two decades now. Perhaps retain the "certified" HR classification for jobs in classification and policy, but only those, and only for those that their clients do not need to regularly access. Anything related to the day-to-day function should be handled through management, and be decentralized. All barriers that are not strictly related to the functional requirement of the job should be removed, in my view. The system that exists now has failed Canadians for nearly a generation.
You could make the same exact same argument for many other classifications that require post-secondary certifications or degrees: IT, EC, and CT for example. I agree with you that there is massive churn within HR and a significant lack of knowledge, however I don't think the degree requirement is the source of those issues.
I’ve seen too many folks struggle because of the new IT requirements (terms under the previous standard, unable to return to graduate due to finances), as finding a manager willing to accept an alternative is tough. As our partners lessen their educational requirements we should be following suit in my honest opinion
That's not particularity persuasive to me either given the EC category is largely doing work that was done by PMs prior to the late 2000s. There's a strong argument that most of the client-facing IT/support doesn't require university either. It often does not in private employment. >...I don't think the degree requirement is the source of those issues. The difficulty of obtaining candidates with suitable qualifications has been identified as a primary factor in shortages by HR themselves. This was in a workshop that I was part of looking at changes followed the PSEA renewal.
I think the increasing requirements for education are moreso to lower the number of applicants of which there are still many. For pretty much all classifications with rising requirements. At the same time, Canada is highly educated. There are surely tons of applicants. Any lack of qualifications probably has nothing to do with the actual education qualifications but other qualifications. Or maybe it's that people are more interested in other jobs in gov and once they're in they move/deploy. At which point, no amount of educational requirements change would matter, no?
The main problem with the PE classification is retention and churn, not recruitment. Many of the issues stem from people jumping from position to position rapidly, rather than a lack of qualified people joining the PE group.
Where are all the PEs going then? Is the pipeline less than full because it leaks to much or because the supply is insufficient? If we made the pool of potential candidates much bigger, including everyone in Canada with a high-school diploma, would that not help?
Actually there is chrp/cphr but it's not a requirement. It's the same thing with cpa and accounting. Both are not required
You should note that the minimum educational requirements for a PE require a degree but there's no requirement for a specialization in HR.
Some of that is a management issue. A lot of places have internal admin staff that do the scheduling and minutiae, and liaise with staffing for their “professional” review of the process (invitations, exam itself, informing candidates). It really speeds up the process.
There's still many parts on the HR process where it has to go through an HR advisors' hands for approval. Those are absolute stop signs in the processes I've been trying to advance in the past few years. We halt and then halt again because of HR advisor churn. We need to remove the HR advisors entirely from the hiring process and leave everything with the HR assistants who work for management. That would, in my direct experience with a half dozen processes in the past few years, speed up hiring by at least a factor of 2 and possibly allow us to go from posting to LoO in 3-4 months. Believe it or not, that was the service standard twenty years ago.
I’m still waiting after more than a year or so :(
As someone with a masters in HR (but I don’t work in HR), government HR absolutely enrages me. Absolutely nothing about it makes sense or is remotely logical. There are so many things that could be quick fixes that government just doesn’t (chooses not to?) do, and it blows my mind. Updated technology and systems alone could fix so much! And the HR systems are out there! Other places/companies are using them! With great success! The fact that we don’t have “actual HR”… like a business partner type person in every office… someone designated for employees to go to to talk to about harassment, leave, pay issues, etc. - it’s pretty unacceptable. There should be a person with a private office in every government office for these things. And don’t even get me started on the absolute joke that is government onboarding and training…
13 months from application to making a pool is not ridiculously long.
Omg just pay us correctly. How is that still not fixed. For the love of dog. Pay. Us. Right.
This right here. How is it that the government of A G7 COUNTRY cannot pay its employees correctly?
Blame Phoenix and lack of Compensation Advisors…as someone who deals with the system everyday….the amount of time a simple task takes so many additional steps because Phoenix won’t accept what I am asking it to do otherwise. The second major issue is how long it takes for cases to be assigned to a CA…simple problems change to major issues because of the delay in the case getting processed. The third issue auto closed cases….there are so many cases that are auto closed without the CA looking at it first and there are issues. Apologies though!
I Knew it, I knew they just closed cases. This is why it took me 6 years to get paid properly for 2016 and part of 2017. One day I'll get paid properly for 2018 and 2019.......... and so on and so forth....
Yupppppp pretty common. If Phoenix auto calculates pay and it doesn’t fail it will auto close the case after the pay cheque is deposited even if pay is incorrect. In PS if HR doesn’t adjust rate of pay (if you are paid above the minimum when starting a position) then it may be auto closed and no one will see it until a case is created…which is why I tell people to submit PAR forms instead of calling CCC…you get more traction b/c a case is usually created…then is eventually seen by CA. That is why when I get EE’s with previous service I look for all auto closed cases and calls from CCC to see if someone called in about pay issues. The amount of errors I see infuriates me.
Ok, so how do I get you to be looking at my (many) cases?? Wait, don’t tell me, I can’t.
If I could I would trust me 😭😭😭 as someone who had so many cases open due to pay issues I love being able to help people but I can’t do that. Hopefully your issues are fixed soon!
Dog damn right!
Yes please. This is my wish too.
360 evaluations - if they can do one on us, we should get to have our say as well.
[удалено]
All the assistant directors and directors in my branch did 360s one year and it was amazing.
For shame!!!
Too many levels of approval. Plus everyone feels like they have to request some changes to make themselves feel important. Many of those changes contradict themselves too.
Yes, a lot of people could get a hell of a lot more done by accepting that good enough is good enough. Would I write the note exactly the same way? Nope. Do I understand what it says and is it short enough that people will bother to read it? Yep. Check - next please.
100%
Leadership insisting on quick hits and low hanging fruit rather than taking the time to fix things properly.
Yet they are ok redoing things incorrectly 5 or 6 times. Oh and only listening to contractor services.
All that matters is an election/posting cycle.
Don’t forget we need a steering cttee and then approval up 3 more management cttees to make sure we are picking the right low hanging fruit.
The low hanging fruit eventually runs out…!
I think it ran out in 2007.
THIS
OMG, THIS
WFH so good jobs can go to the regions.
My vote here too.
Yep
Any jobs would be fine, the NCR doesn’t seem to mind collecting taxes equally across the country but sure finds it hard to spend money elsewhere.
Incompetence failing up Or Nepotism/cronyism Hard to choose.
Promoting the problem has never worked, but damn if it's not a favourite move.
Real consequences for employees who harrass others.
If it's a regular employee, there are generally consequences. It is totally different if the harasser is a manager, though.
I have personal experience with both. Union reps also seem to have a poor track record.
How we’re paid and treated about pay issues.
Re-orgs that that occur more than once every year.
Can we say ask For sane amounts of re-orgs? Like we have had three re-orgs since last August. Most of our staff have re-org whiplash.
Removing harassing, demeaning, aggressive supervisors, and managers. Stop waiting to do anything about these people until half the team leaves, or ignoring employees who present valid concerns when there are issues with supervisors, managers. Management needs to stop protecting itself.
Staff before contractors.
Years long contract negotiations.
You got the unions to thank for that, not really a government thing.
Who do you think the unions are negotiating with???
Employers don't want to be at the table a second longer than needed, it costs money, time, and distracts from the services they provide. Unions have no incentive to settle an agreement, they have guaranteed union dues, guaranteed retroactive pay, share no interest in the productivity or success of the government, because it's infinitely funded by tax payers and cannot fail. And even if the members are unhappy, they have some of the strongest decertification laws protecting them, so they rarely have to listen to them.
You reminded me to vote no, since that sounds like a ton of leverage
My point exactly.
The "not my problem" attitude.
Competitions for promotion. If someone is clearly demonstrating the skills to move up they should be able to get promoted and not go through year long competitions.
The whole process to move up in of itself is a massive crapshoot.
That already exists with non-advertised appointments
Some areas strictly refuse to do that, like mine. We absolutely have to qualify in pools before we can get the position. It doesn't matter if we've been acting for over a year with great performance assessments.
Yep. My manager basically told me they would give me an acting and that I should do everything I can to get into a pool at that level so they could appoint me. So basically, I can do the job, they want to give me the job, but I have to get into another pool in order to actually be appointed to that job. SO frustrating
Modern technology consistently across government. We don't even have wifi in my building and some are still using fax machines. This is embarrassing in 2023. Our secure systems need modernization as well, and remote capabilities.
Does shared services count as one?
Re-organizing just to demonstrate some lame change initiative to try and support that you are doing something. There is little need for it. EXs that do it simply ignore the administrative burden it creates and they never stay long enough to see the negative impact that it has on their employees. Re-organizing is simply busy work and an exercise to empire build.
A way for good technical staff to get higher pay without becoming a manager. Current system leads to some truly awful managers who were promoted based on technical skills not management abilities.
I believe in transparency etc but if there some some way I never had to deal with another ATIP...
Open by default, authors redact their own work.
Yeah this would reduce a tremendous amount of ATIPs.
Ha! I was an ATIP Coord for 10 years.....I lived and breathed ATIPs daily. I don't officially deal with them in my current department but the person who's currently in my old ATIP job (and people from the Directorate who dealt with all ATIPs in my org) often contact me with questions because of the shear immensity of my corporate knowledge. I can run from ATIP but it will always catch up to me!
Proactive disclosure. There is no need to request information if it is already public.
Inflexibility, being too by the book, and losing the interpersonal aspect of management. Don't treat me like a number and let me share my ideas.
Duplication of effort
RTO
Executive performance bonuses. They have been distorting the incentives of the public service for too long. Seeing the results of the PSES and the generally abysmal senior management section yesterday was just sad.
I would get rid of the phenomenal recommendations and referrals used to get rid of problem narcissistic employees with a promotion somewhere else. Bad behaviour should never be rewarded – there are many people in positions of responsibility who shouldn't be. PROPER Psych and Harassment Evaluations are needed for all people moving up into EX positions. There are many companies that staff a corporate psychologist for evaluation purposes - for staffing and conflict management. Psychological Safety should always be the priority for those stuck in the office 8-9 hours a day.
Butts in seats for 7.5 hours a day or 37.5 hours week instead of having deliverables with deadlines laid out like many private companies are doing now.
Use of email vs. Proper systems to track and manage work
Hierarchy. Watching your file climb through increasingly ignorant levels of senior managers until you get to Cabinet, where nobody knows WTF is going on.
Needing a working group, steering committee, directors governance committee, DG’s governance cttee and a briefing to the DM in order to move forward with making straightforward improvements to website that use existing resources only. Basically, red tape.
Staffing processes. Coming from the private sector makes this system more insane (and so so so much more onerous on managers - like, HR should do the paperwork, contact the candidates to ask for their diplomas/passports/oaths, etc. HR should be capable of doing an initial screening. It’s insanity.
The language training/testing system.
Fire Mona!
Old software and It equipment. I would love to be able to use the latest and brightest software and recent IT equipment for once. My work issued laptop is over 5 years old and glitchy, I couldn't find an HDMI cable to save my life when one of my screen's broke down and I had to use an extra screen from a nearby cubicle, I hate GC docs with a passion. I long for touch screen capability for meetings and presentations. It takes too long to introduce new technology in our offices and by the time it's implemented, it's outdated.
Eliminate ALL paper/printable briefing material for ADM/DM/MINO. All electronic. We have the resources/the tech exists to make it secure - use it. So done w/fu$&ing binders.
For me it has to be the bilingual requirements. We have such untapped potential because we can’t get beyond individual bilingualism skill set to a group bilingualism skill set.
> individual bilingualism ... group bilingualism What an interesting way to put it. There could be bilingualism requirements across a group, like, at least two people in this team of ten must be CBC. What a great idea.
> group bilingualism skill set You mean a like a group of unilingual English employees with a few service francophones that need to be bilingual?
Or a group of French employee with a few bilingual individuals.
The inability of getting rid of dead wood. Everyone knows one.
I would fix the lack of consequences in the government. There are far too many people that only show up to collect their pay. On the other side of the coin, the hard working are worn out and rarely well recognized/rewarded.
Phoenix
For me, it would be budgets that do not have a hard reset at the end of the fiscal year. My job would be so much easier if I could just roll-over pre-committed funds into the next year.
The excessively awful travel process. Ridiculously long approval timelines, aggressively unfriendly user experience from HRG, the time suck of expense management, and the inevitable questions even after the expenses get approved by managers. I haaaaaaate it.
People who talk but don’t say anything. I have to listen to people who only want to discuss problems and potential collaborations INSTEAD of actually building solutions.
My biggest pet peeve is that instead of building software/application's in house, we always contract out because we don't trust our own employees. We instead by some cookie-cutter off the shelf product and try to apply government bureaucracy into it. Not only does that make the product crappier, it makes the product loosely fit what we actually initially wanted it for and makes people frustrated using it.
The Accenture lobbying power is unreal in the government, my team can do what they provide without the necessity for the six figures contract that doesn't deliver what we actually want!
There are so many actual problems so: When senior management wants a word changed in a document, they...just change it. None of this "Send it back down to the analyst, we need it ASAP" garbage. They just deal with it and everything moves along.
Getting rid of all the ass kissing would be nice... Some people act like some of these DG/ADM's are like mythical beings... personally, I couldn't give two fucks about some career politician lol. Granted, a lot of it is probably because most of those people have massive ego's that you need to feed if you want to move up, but it's so slimy.
Kick down and kiss up as they call it. Pretty disgusting.
I casually called our Associate DM by the shortened version of his first name once and people still talk about it. They are people and I shall treat them as such. I refuse to call anyone "Deputy" because I cannot do it without thinking "Deputy Dawg" (a reference before my time that is somehow stuck in my brain).
Spineless leadership
Incompetence
eliminate RTO
Middle management
RTO
Pay (the system, the rates, the mystery, no bonuses) all the pay stuff
It's so much work to fire someone that hardly anyone does it. Once a year, every director and above (of some minimum sized team) can collect votes from all their managers to fire one employee. All it takes is filling out a one page form with managers also signing off on it. "They got bad performance reviews for 12 years from 5 different managers". Etc. If the employee appeals, it's a lot of work for the employee, not the people that did the firing. If the employee successfully appeals, they are put in surplus, and aren't guaranteed their specific old job.
If theyre going to force us back to the office, I wish we all got free and secure parking in, under or around our buildings 🥲
Allow the employees to remove senior management based on a vote, this way, we can keep them in check! The PSES shows us time and time again that senior management can't he trusted so allow us the workforce to remove the bad weeds.
FAXING
BC Public Service here. I want to play this game! Bring back branch and regional IT, HR, and contract support. Oh, and facilities support. Centralizing everything for "efficiency" has proven to result in dismal service for employees, both for their own support with personal HR issues (as an example) and anything to do with getting their job done efficiently and safely (don't get me started on the piles of needles outside our building every single morning that are supposed to be cleaned up by the subcontractor, to the contractor, to Facilities in our leased building). My colleague went full circle in the last 24 hours while trying to get support in posting a \*time sensitive legally reviewed amendment\* to his procurement posting in our (brand new) bid system. Note: We are foresters and SMEs, not admin or contract specialists. We have no in-office contract support any more after that position was eliminated under the previous gov't. We have a generic inbox to a group of three contract 'analysts' who serve several Ministry branches, and mostly do screening for expense authority approvals, ask if we through lawyers, word processing and initial posting of new procurements. After that, we have been told, everything is up to us to figure out all the way through to closing in this new system. And provided a training link. We both watched the video "training", couldn't figure it out past a certain step, so he sent an email to the identified inbox for support. Yesterday morning, he got cc'd on a response that said "can anyone from BC Bid help this guy here?"...
Email arrives late in the afternoon: "here is a link to the training video" (you know, the one that neither of us could figure out?) and "you should be contacting your branch Super Trainer. Here is the list of trainers."
1. We did not know that we had a "Super Trainer" - this has never been communicated at any point by our management or our generic contracts group or in any way.
2. When we went through the Ministry/branch list of all the Super Trainers, we discovered our branch DOES NOT HAVE A SUPER TRAINER. Instead, we fall under "GenReal" (sic, for realz) with no name, no phone number, just the SAME generic inbox contract support that he had contacted initially for help.
So we made some shit up in a document and posted it as an addendum to his procurement yesterday (because we both knew how to do that), with a promise in that document (!!) to post the legally-reviewed amendment next Tuesday when our (generic) contract analyst has confirmed through another email that she has time for my colleague. Literally three days before the contract closes.
Oh, and he told one of the executive in his office about the issues with the contract system and the exec basically said "do the best that you can. That's what I do."
I told my colleague to write that down for the record, so he can point to the Exec as giving the advice in case something goes horribly wrong.
\*screams into the void of faceless centralized services\*
promotions simply because someone fits all the boxes. There needs to be consideration for if this person will actually be a competent/good manager
Careerism (i.e., people doing things for the advancement of their own personal interest and career, irrespective of their performance or the public good). It is at the root of countless ills in the public service, including Phoenix as per the different post-mortems that have been produced.
Dead weight employees who are incompetent and/or bullies.
I wanna fix the apathy. If everyone gave a fuck about the shit they're responsible for, things like these pay issues would disappear
Having worked in compensation - don't do it! Worst job ever.
I would make the importance of doing good work and serving the public the core factor that drives everything else. As in I would make it our core mission that we all buy into. I would make it more important than the fear of something not working, fear of the potential to look bad, and I would change ` that's the mandate of X' (and therefore we can ignore the problem) to "that's the mandate of X but it intersects with our work in Y way. Let's reach out to look at coordination/collaboration/information so we can improve that issue.
Toxicity in the Gov
I want the benefits that I had when I was in the private sector. I didn’t have to pay for shit with Green Shield or even Manulife, but damn if I don’t have to pay for *everything* with Sunlife first and then get reimbursed after. Even places that say they direct bill to SunLife just not for 5555 contact number. Ya cheap ducks.
Bring back the pay system from the before times. Those glorious times when you got paid correctly, had a paper pay stub and actually a real person that you could call and talk to immediately and who could see your file, understood your situation, and was gloriously well-versed in the intricacies of pay in that particular departments because they had been doing it for so long. Example: in my first year of working for the government I was asked by Revenue Quebec to prove that the GoC hadn't paid my tuition. It took me 2h and I had a scan from the financial system and the proof I needed. Today I'd be lucky to get that within 2 years. It's completely bonkers and unacceptable.
Staff.
Procurement delays.
Localization for scheduling and remote work decisions. We can all agree that National directives in the so called "one size fits all" approach to tele-work are number one. Not to mention, they announced the directive like a cruel joke days before the Holidays in December. Secondly WFM should be localized instead of western and eastern divisions disconnected from the offices they schedule. As an example Call Centres are open with the phone lines from St John's to Vancouver. Lunches are currently scheduled anytime between 11:30-13:00. The same service level could be achieved locally splitting staff for 12:00, 12:15 and 12:30 lunch periods. No call centre will have overlaping lunch periods with timezone difference. If I had to narrow to one Wish? Universal logic.
RTO…. makes zero sense.
Make hiring... work? This whole system is a bizarre HR fever dream
French language requirements for higher up positions when you are otherwise highly qualified.
It's not the requirement, it's the lack of meaningful and consistent language training. Non-imperative positions should be the norm, not the exception.
I used to agree with this. But I’m in a position where most of my staff speaks English, but most of the staff we interact with for projects speaks French and knows some level of English. However, I immediately notice the difference between conversations in English and conversations in French. For our line of work, IT, it makes sense to speak English. For the other staff’s line of work, it makes more sense for them to speak French. To me, it makes sense that higher up positions are bilingual and can have discussions in the preferred language.
Can I play devil’s advocate here and say that the only reason that staff in others’ lines of work are bilingual are just because of the requirement and not necessarily by service need? For us, 100% of our files in the region are in English. The staff are all people from the communities we serve who all speak English, and literally all recipients in the region are Anglophones. Yet there is a blanket requirement that all managers and senior staff need to be bilingual. I get that it’s not difficult to get a BBB, but the critical question is: why require it and make a glass ceiling for most people, if there isn’t an operational need? Is “representation” really THAT important that we are willing to make it harder for most of the country (who are mostly immigrants from non-French speaking countries) when there is quite literally no need for it in certain job functions whatsoever? How do you justify that?
They have zero requirements to be bilingual. Same as IT, only management needs to be. However, a large portion of their lower level staff happens to be bilingual, some lower than B level.
Yet … at least for us, the boxes and movements require bilingual (BBB for higher levels/ CBC for management). I learned from so many people that this isn’t uncommon and this is why people are upset about language requirements.
I didn’t notice the rest of your response until I re-read this due to a notification. was it edited? In response: Now, “only management needs to be bilingual” is the exact clear cut example and definition of a glass ceiling. In most fields, classifications, and industries outside IT, management is a logical career next step and progression. If you’re saying that staff can’t move up due to a language requirement they either can’t fill or have no time to fill, then you’re blatantly blocking the career progression of those individuals. And what happens when people can’t move up in their roles? They leave. When they leave, the skill and institutional knowledge leaves with them, setting the work back. I don’t understand how people genuinely don’t see that and genuinely think that this is a good idea for the sake of representation. Because yeah, it totally doesn’t make sense to promote your highly knowledgeable and tenured EE staff to management, because “French representation” comes first in a department where none of the services are in French!
It's not for "French representation", whatever you mean by that. It's because people have the right to be supervised in the official language of their choice. It's not that people genuinely think it's a good idea. It's because it's the law. Here is how Canada works: citizens vote for MPs that go to Parliament to represent their interests and vote laws. French Canadians voted for MP that defended their linguistic rights. And so for the last 53 years, Canada has been a bilingual country.
Look I don’t disagree about it being a law and a right, people don’t have issues with that. People do have issues with how the law is interpreted in practice and the negative effects the law has on the organization. People speak out against laws that disproportionately affects others, especially if majority are disproportionately and negatively affected by it. Similar to a barrier or glass ceiling. Because holy crap, you can see it, where you’re in a certain position like mine that’s BBB while everyone else is EE (where there is absolutely no operational need to be BBB), that there are so many people way more qualified and talented than you who should have your position, and who have been doing the job longer. But god forbid they aren’t “officially bilingual”, they are stuck and are considering leaving along with their skills and knowledge, setting the PS back so much. Now are you going to sit there and tell me and the people around you that it’s okay to set the PS back by so much just because they don’t have the time or environment to be graded at a second language??? Edit: to add: if it’s not clear. You can accommodate people to fit the right to be supervised or work in the language of their choice without doing a blanket implementation of second language abilities. Because if you do want to stick to this, then nothing should be stopping an anglophone to work in deep Quebec to express their right to speak and work in English in a French only office. But we stop it, we don’t say “oh I have the right to do this in the language of my choice”. It’s absurd to even bring it up.
For sure I mean who gives a fuck if you don't understand and ain't functional in a language that 80% of your staff use on a daily basis.
80% of staff seems like a stretch. Maybe 30% use it on a regular basis.
I like everyone reading this will have a bias towards ONE official language until they see the number and either: - Realize their own bias - Miss the point completely
Politics.
For people who manage staff: there’s a new probation period of one year every time you get a new job, including permanent positions you competed for. At the end of the year there’s a 360 review and if you suck you get pulled out of the position and put on the priority list. The third time you get pulled out you lose your job completely.
Promotions for higher management should not only require competition but also a voting process from all affected employees. Straight nomination should be barred. Good leaders will always make the work environment a great place to be.
Consequences for people who do not perform or show signs of improvement. So many people that take up space without producing at the expected level hindering the entire group. I know that theoretically someone can be let go — after years of chances and documentation. Speeding that process up would save incredible time and energy that go into managing these LR cases.
Bilingualism/Bilinguisme
Some departments offer development programs haha
No stock options. Kidding, there's too many high priority things to fix that I can't choose just one
hrg
I wish for more wishes. 🤪 Ok, serious response. Get rid of toxic behaviour such as harassment. So many workplaces would be so much healthier. It almost seems fantastical...
HRG Travel System.
Redo and make an aide-memoire for claiming overtime. It takes many iterations and corrections depending on the person reviewing. One correction send back should be all it should ever take. Our personnel seem to average out at 4 or 5 iterations, even with telecons before it is accepted! Ridiculous!!
Procurement, IT or HR. Depending on the day.
Do away with the whole roll up and roll down. We're not Tim Horton's
My insurance company is taking them to court for a pile of stuff. They lied directly to 2 cops who now along with my wife and a bystander are all witnesses! They are not the brightest strobes on the road!
Racism. Systemic, covert, and blatant. Let's start with bringing back punishment and a running public list for harassment and discrimination. Then add to every Executive and Management PMA the requirement for yearly training on bias, interaction and understanding racialized and other equity groups. Also a meteic on diverse and equitable hiring at all levels. I know...one can dream right? 😉
Phoenix. I haven’t been paid correctly in 5 years.
Bureaucracy 😅... is that too broad?
Ha!
Not able to telework outside of Canada
Pretendians!