IMPROVING OUR PUBLIC SERVICE
Management goal-setting needs more work-level input, writes William Stewart.
A new era for the Canadian public service is upon us. Great things are expected. But two deep changes are needed, or it will all come to naught.
The public service tries to act like industry, which they think is purely results-oriented, a no-excuses environment. So they conduct a monologue, not a dialogue, with the working level. Management says what must be done; then walks away. When it doesn’t get done, management blames staff. Imagine the demoralizing effect.
The Shared Services difficulties are the most visible current example. But the same pattern repeats throughout the government.
Setting a challenging goal is good. But it’s only half the story. In industry, if you don’t let the working level figure out what it will take, it doesn’t work. Real achievement requires setting the goal, listening to what the working level says it will take, then honest dialogue to finalize a workable plan.
In government, management sets the goal, the schedule and budget. Commitments are made, and the working level shakes its collective head in wonder once again. The question is not whether it will be over schedule and budget, but by how much. The priority becomes avoiding blame.
We have seen the results for decades: little done on time or within budget. And management keeps piling on more work, since things don’t get finished. In industry, telling management their plans won’t work is not a career risk — it’s professionalism. Realistic schedules and budgets must be accepted, or scope scaled back. This honest dialogue is the key change the public service needs.
This is common sense. But decades of experience haven’t caused change. The fix must come from the top. The moment a senior manager thinks his or her job is to be more firm in insisting on an impossible schedule and budget, all the dysfunction will return, and flow through the entire department.
The second change needed is deep-sixing the idea that “people time is free.” Throughout government, the main resource — the people doing the work — is ignored. In every class I teach, I ask if people hours are estimated or tracked, and 80 per cent of the time the answer is no, because “staff are paid anyway.” And ironically, this most hurts the working level, since all departments have several times the work they can implement, but no one can prove it. So all the schedules slip. Burn-out is rife. And the real costs are several times what anyone knows beforehand, or understands as efforts proceed.
Again, culture is key. The reason for planning and tracking person hours is never to get upset when estimates are exceeded. That’s life. Rather, it’s so staff can provide realistic numbers from the bottom up, feel responsibility to meet them, and learn how optimistic they were so they can do better next time. Messing up estimates is how staff gets better. But without them, every department has more work than they can do, cannot prove it, and are deluded to claim they can get everything done.
These two changes — working-level planning of realistic schedules and budgets, and including everybody’s time — are the foundation needed for the public service. And the benefits would compound. The biggest tragedy is the demoralization resulting from the current approach. With unilateral direction, unrealistic schedules and insufficient resources, the system becomes increasingly clogged. Productivity plummets. Sick leave is just one result. But so is decreasing achievement.
On the other hand, if our government can reverse these drivers, they can reverse the results, obtaining higher morale, productivity and achievement. Lofty goals are necessary. But effective implementation will require deep changes in how the system works.
The beneficiaries? The entire country.
One of the enduring messages of your (the Governor General’s) book is that Canadians must not be complacent about the values, traditions and institutions with which we are blessed. Mark Sutcliffe.