Good Luck On That File

"Public service unions have a lot to answer for in terms of performance. They haven't been a force for improved productivity. I have never seen a union go to the wall in the name of productivity. They go to the wall for a better deal for their members and to protect their interests whether justified or not. And that is a lot to answer for.
"Who can't support improved performance, but performance is in the eyes of the beholder and perceptions don't always match. I'm not saying this is impossible, but implementation is the key here and will be far more important than a speech. Let's see if they can make it stick."
Donald Savoie, public administration expert, University of Moncton

Nothing, says Professor Savoie, can be more demoralizing for a hard-working employee than to realize that some of his colleagues while earning the same salary he does, do so with extremely poor performance; they exert themselves to do as little work as possible. Anyone who has worked for the public service has their very own horror stories about colleagues slacking off in perpetuity. And then, when the union goes to bat for them, that seals the sense of absurdity and dysfunction, creating cynicism and low morale.

There's another culture at play here, as well. It's been reported that incidents of civil servants going on disability with claims of clinical depression a growth industry, rendering them incapable of being on the job, requiring that they have time off, referrals to mental health specialists, special considerations, and the situation has been growing at an astounding rate. Most of them are quite simply, to put it indelicately, humping the dog. Welfare beckons, and the union sees to it that those claims are respected.

In the face of a growing deficit and ballooning debt the federal government is looking to cut costs, to make government operations - starting but not ending with a bloated civil service contingent - work more economically and usefully with taxpayer dollars. Civil servants are an privileged group of employees, with excellent salaries and benefits, along with prospects for advancement and gold-plated extras including a retirement plan most people would swoon to attain.

But there are too many non-workers on the payroll, and it is far too difficult to dismiss them, thanks to union intervention. Laziness and procrastination, an unwillingness to launch an avalanche of paperwork and grievances holds most managers back from taking steps to deal with unproductive employees. And now, Treasury Board president Tony Clement has informed senior federal executives that it's time to take action and he's "drawing a line in the sand" with mandatory performance agreements.

"This is an exciting day. This is the first day of what I see as a brand-new beginning for the Canadian federal public service. It's not often one gets to say that. It's not often that you can draw a line in the sand and say, 'This is the turning point'. This is the day we first glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel." Groan, hardly an inspired speech but it is likely that most of the 500 public service executives present got the message.

The public service, he said, manages poorly. It does nothing with its poor performers, managers exert themselves not at all to demand better from non-performing workers and even less to get rid of them if they don't improve. A tough new directive now calls for increased training, a new labour relations unit geared to assist, and all employees will have mandatory written performance agreements, laying out goals and objectives.

Um, that's likely already standard. "I want to be crystal clear: either poor performers improve and become productive employees or we will let them go. And managers will have the government's full and complete support behind them when those difficult decisions need to be made. I know there are concerns that if you take action you will be on your own. That you will expend significant effort to do the right thing and that effort will be wasted. I'm here to tell you it will not. We have your back. You will not be alone. I will be behind you."

The dismissal rate for unsatisfactory performance is between five and ten percent of the private sector workforce. In the public service it stands at 0.06 percent. A mere 54 employees were given the boot in 2011 for misconduct and 99 for incompetence. "This is unacceptable. There is simply no way that virtually every single person that the federal government hires is going to perform to the standard we expect. It's impossible."

Nice in theory, though. A new approach to disability management and sick leave is also an obvious requirement. But no new funding; money to be found within existing budgets. It costs $43-billion to pay federal public service wages. Everything is up for review, and pay, pensions and benefits are to be brought in line with the private sector. Sure.

All the best...