In 2004 the British Columbia Public Service launched the Premier’s Innovation and Excellence Awards program. The program’s goal is to recognize public service excellence, highlight best practices and practitioners, instil employee pride, and shine a light on the ingenuity and hard work of the public service in making the province a better place to live.
Seven years later, the program is creating a legacy of recognizing excellence that boosts employee engagement and benefits the bottom line. These finalists in the 2010/11 Premier’s Awards are some examples of public service expertise, resourcefulness and results the program showcases.
Olympic achievement
Thousands of Canadians caught Olympic fever during the 2010 Games, which may have been partly due to seeing the excited crowds gathered in Vancouver’s Robson Square. But what viewers might not appreciate was the years of planning and hard work that went into preparing the Robson Square celebration site for its Games’ unveiling, or that Olympic organizers had a team of public service employees to thank for that.
The team’s work involved a major refurbishment that had to impress a world audience. They also had to consider and manage security, figure out the pyrotechnics, allow for 24/7 operation and manage the ice rink. And the rest, as they say, is history. Over 1.5 million people enjoyed the Robson Square festivities during Vancouver’s Games.
Rainfall recovery
Massive rainfall mid-coast last September left the only highway to Bella Coola heavily damaged and impassable and residents fearful they would be cut off from food, fuel and emergency services for months. Enter the provincial government team that planned, initiated and completed $20.7 million worth of emergency work. Over 50 pieces of equipment and 100 people worked 24-7 to restore access, and their outstanding efforts got the highway reopened in just 17 days.
Wait times trimmed
B.C. public service employees are also working to improve access to health services by reducing surgical wait times. Their tangible results make a real difference for people: in 2003/04, at the start of the strategy, half of all patients waited over 28 weeks for knee replacement surgery; as of 2009/10, the average wait time had been reduced to 12 weeks. Since 2003/04, the number of cataract surgeries increased from 30,000 per year to over 47,000 in 2009/10. But despite the increase, the average wait time decreased to six weeks, down from 10 weeks in 2003/04.
Other quality improvements have meant reduced recovery times and length of patient hospital stays. B.C. physicians now have the information needed to prioritize patients and manage wait lists fairly.
Conserving with carbon
When an ecologically valuable piece of Denman Island property came on the market, BC Parks used an innovative approach to acquire the 500-plus hectares of land. Because traditional acquisition techniques like partnerships, donations and land exchanges were unavailable, staff got creative. Using carbon offsets and municipal rezoning, they managed to obtain a property worth $6.7 million for a mere $233,000 and in the process created the largest provincial park on the Gulf Islands. It was the first time in Canada that carbon offsets were used to acquire conservation lands.
In praise of public service
Public service employees don’t often get the recognition they deserve. From the largest cities to the smallest towns, from health care to environmental protection, the daily contributions of hard-working, creative public service employees typically remain under the radar. That needs to change. Acknowledgement of the increasingly innovative work of the public service is essential for two reasons: to strengthen public confidence and to continue to attract bright, capable new employees.
BC Public Service employees work hard to build strong communities and a healthy, productive province. Without a doubt it would be nice to see the occasional headline proclaiming “The public service did a great job again yesterday;” lauded or not, the point is that hard-working and dedicated public service employees are quietly changing the world.
It’s all in a day’s work.
Amy Dean worked in marketing, strategic planning and research for public sector agencies before joining the BC Public Service in 2007.
SIDEBAR
Information about the Premier’s Awards and award winners is communicated to public news organizations, and professional-quality videos showcase the work of all finalists. These videos are now posted on the public service’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/BCPublicService.
