Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 06

36 / Canadian Government Executive // December 2018/January 2019 New Professionals L ately, all levels of the Canadian public service have devoted much attention to developing effective and forward-thinking public service renewal strategies. These efforts include the Ontario Public Service of the Future: 2018 Action Plan, the Gov- ernment of Canada`s Secretary to Cabinet focus on public service renewal strate- gies, and the Canadian Association of Mu- nicipal Administrators toolkit to recruit the next generation of municipal admin- istrators. Various forces triggered this activity. First, the looming wave of baby boomers’ retirements evokes images of lost organi- zational memory and operational exper- tise erosion, ultimately leading to reduced service delivery capacity. Second, the drive to innovate approaches, processes and products – that is increasingly cen- tral at all jurisdictional levels – created pressures and opportunities within the human resources area. Finally, competi- tion among the various jurisdictions and organizations for scarce talent will create unique dynamics in the 21st Century. The Institute of Public Administration of Canada, as part of its engagement in this area, created and administered a sur- vey of new professionals across provin- cial, territorial and federal public admin- istrations in 2015, and again in 2018. This survey explores the human resource and public service renewal approaches by en- gaging this key demographic. Here we highlight some select results from these two surveys, noting, however, that the 2018 survey is still ongoing, and while we have over 5,000 answers, some of these numbers will shift. The other dis- claimer is that the composition of these answers is somewhat different with much stronger Government of Canada partici- pation in the 2018 survey. However, these are robust returns providing important indications on how this group perceives the present and future of the public ser- vice. In both years, we asked new profession- als if they agreed with the statement that their organization has in place appropri- ate programs and incentives to identify and recruit the next generation of public sector managers. We found significant im- provement: 13 per cent less respondents answered in the negative this year (see Figure 1). We also inquired about whether new professionals agreed that their organi- zation has adequate systems and tools to coach and develop strong leaders and teams. Progress here is less evident (see Figure 2). Notwithstanding the improvements, over 40 per cent of the respondents in both questions disagree with these state- ments. This should be a focus for most agencies involved in public service re- newal. We also introduced questions about work place perception. Here we have ex- cellent news: 72 per cent of respondents trust the team they work with in non-rou- tine tasks, and 60 per cent are happy with the opportunities they have to apply their skills. Improvements are possible: about a quarter of respondents do not feel ex- cited coming to work, and less than 40 per cent think they received good onboarding (see Figure 3). Recently, all public services made ‘disruption’ and ‘change’ their bywords. Hence, the 2018 survey asks new profes- sionals if they agree with statements highlighting their organization’s ability to manage disruption. Results were posi- tive, but barely so. On a weighted scale of 5.00, respondents scored their leader- Engaged but Hindered By Andrea Migone Figure 1: Recruitment of Future Management Cadres 18.90% 35.48% 31.35% 12.40% 1.86% 11.76% 29.66% 35.90% 19.64% 3.04% 0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00% 30.00% 35.00% 40.00% Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree Recruitment of Future Management Cadres 2015 2018 New Professionals in the Canadian Publ ic Ser v ice: