No Updates This Week

My Fellow Public Servants,

I will not be able to post any round ups nor a weekly column this week.

Sadly, my wife's younger brother, CPL Gregory Hudson CAF, was injured in the roadside bomb that claimed the life of his good friend and brother in arms, Sapper Sean Greenfield.

Gregory is recovering and has taken on the responsibility of accompanying Sapper Greenfield's body home for delivery to his family.

My family and I are attending the repatriation of the Sapper Greenfield's body Tuesday at 2pm in Trenton.

Thank you so much for your continued support.

- Nick Charney

CPSRenewal.ca Weekly: WWOD?

In the vein of Etienne's latest post, here's an excerpt from President Obama's inauguration speech that I have taken the liberty of remixing in hopes to to shed some light on revitalizing the Public Service culture and, by extension, it's relationship with the people they serve.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system bureaucracy cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country Public Service has already done; what free innovative and passionate men and women can achieve when imagination and diversity is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political bureaucratic arguments that have stifled our creativity and consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government as an employer is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified it facilitates innovation, takes care of ambitions, and transfers skills and corporate knowledge before retirement. Where the answer is yes, we intend to continue to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs poor practices will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of today's reality - because only then can we restore the vital trust vibrant, diverse and innovative culture between a people within which Public Servants and their government work.

Reloaded CPSRenewal.ca Weekly: A Good Ol' Fashioned Barn Raising

[ncharney: Sorry about the issue with the links, apparently blogger doesn't like me. I have fixed all the links in the post. Happy reading (and weekend!)]

First let me explain what I mean when I invoke the term "barn raising." I first heard it at a wiki workshop at NRCAN. They have a team of people there who provide the support needed by other units and/or divisions to use their wiki. They do all the support work; they set up the scaffolds (wiki-speak for templates).

They effectively raise the barn and then leave the group to manage how exactly to use it.

I think the idea of “barn raising” has huge potential outside of the narrow use outlined above. What if people have expertise they want to share that isn’t necessarily part of his or her official duties? It doesn't make his or her expertise less valuable, just harder to access. So, why not make it easier?

For example, I personally have what I think is a good amount of experience leading a youth group and representing that group to senior managers. The combination of my unofficial work as a youth organizer and my official duties within ADM's office uniquely positioned me to offer some rather unique advice to who?. But how do people get it? Well, someone I met along the way simply asked me to come speak to her fledgling youth group (which I did happily, and from which I received positive feedback). But if she didn't already know me, she likely wouldn't have known where to turn and even more likely wouldn’t have known to turn to me.

Social media behind the government firewall could easily step up and fill the void. In the absence of a full-fledged facebook.gc.ca or linkedin.gc.ca we can easily turn to our GCPEDIA profiles or even GCPEDIA itself. I would encourage you all to set up a subheading in your profile that lists what other expertise (e.g. those not related to your official duties) you have and are willing to share. In short, what barns you can help to raise.

My GCPEDIA profile now includes barns a subheading that references barns that I think I can help raise. I also created a central hub for barn raisers across the Government of Canada. Please add to it and share your expertise. I've already included a couple of categories but feel free to add to and expand them as you see fit. Or if you think the page should be organized along different lines please feel free to re-construct it in a manner that you think makes the most sense.

Please understand that by adding your information you are inviting others to contact you and partake in your expertise.

GCPEDIA provides us the space and the structure to allow us to build this database of expertise but it is also up to us to start shifting the culture towards one that encourages us all to share in this way.

Ps - we thank you very much for the two conversations that this blog has seen via the comments in the last week or so. We always welcome your feedback and participation.

In case you missed the link above, CLICK HERE to raise a barn!

Round-Up: January 19th

Kathryn May reported that PS unions are set to battle wage freeze.

Etienne offers some thoughts on the State of HR.

There is a new blog in the ever (slowly) expanding unofficial universe of GoC bloggers. You can check it out here.

Interesting piece c/o Harvard Business: Trapped in a Risk-Averse Workplace.

CPSRenewal.ca Weekly: An Interview with ACFO

Recently Joe Boughner [JB], a communications officer from the Association of Canadian Financial Officers (ACFO) let us know that they had just unveiled their new website for their union membership (FI group); and you might be surprised to see what they've done.

We checked out the site and decided to ask him a couple of questions:

[CPSR] What efforts has your union made to incorporate web 2.0 into its communications and where do you see the convergence with public service renewal?

[JB] Thus far we’ve rebuilt our site using WordPress as the content management tool to create an RSS feed for our updates. We’ve also created a series of podcasts aimed at demystifying the FI Collective Agreement.

It’s a learning process for us so we started with things that were really just extensions of our core business operations. We already emailed updates to members; RSS was a logical next step. And our Labour Relations Advisors already help members interpret and apply the Collective Agreement over the phone; podcasts just make this advice more accessible.

As for the convergence with renewal, using web 2.0 technologies is all about reaching the increasingly tech-savvy and much younger FI Community. We see ourselves as stakeholders in the renewal process and it’s up to us to make sure our members understand our role in their working lives. Making the public service a better and more attractive place to work should be the goal of everyone; using 2.0 tools to reach our members is one way we’re contributing to that.


[CPSR]What has driven these efforts?

[JB] Our previous website was almost 10 years old; archaic in web terms. The introduction of web 2.0 tools was part of our broader effort to redevelop our online presence. It wasn’t so much that we set out to use shiny new tools on our website, but rather that when we looked at the best way to get the information out to our membership, these tools seemed to be the best fit.

Our efforts were also driven by our membership. While we were planning the new site we did a survey of our members to gauge their expectations. We learned a lot about their web habits and what they wanted out of the new site. This feedback was instrumental in deciding which features and tools to include.

Lastly, the FI Community is among the youngest groups in the public service. Not only did we need to play catch up when developing our new site, we needed to get out in front and anticipate the future expectations of a younger professional community. Building on an extendable platform like WordPress should leave us plenty of options on that front.


[CPSR]What have the results been?

[JB] It’s a bit early to gauge the results in any comprehensive way; the site launched just prior to the holiday season. However, anecdotally the reaction has been great. We unveiled the site during the Financial Management Institute’s professional development week in the National Capital Region – a popular event for our members – and the response was very positive. We’ll be doing a more thorough review in the coming months but, internally, we are really pleased with the results.


[CPSR]What are you planning for the future?

[JB] It will depend to a large extent on what our needs are going forward. By building the site with WordPress, we have left a lot of doors open for online collaboration and discussion within the FI Community. We’ve always consulted our members on things like collective bargaining proposals; the new site should allow us to do that online in a more collaborative way. We’re also in the process of drafting a white paper on employee engagement; we’re planning to invite comment from the Community and open this up to collaboration online.

We’re also considering the integration of more professional development and networking functionality, either by including services directly on the site or establishing an FI Community presence on other professional sites.

And since we’ve dipped our toes in the multimedia realm with the introduction of podcasts, we expect to carry this forward and introduce videos, more audio and other sharable elements, all in the name of fostering the sense of community among our members and facilitating the spread of information.


[CPSR]Have you read the series of articles we posted on the role of unions in public service renewal? What are your thoughts?

[JB] The posts hit on something that is very important to us going forward. Much of the thinking behind our new site focused on making our members more aware of the services we offer. Our Association does a lot more than collective bargaining – all public service bargaining agents do. It’s up to us, though, to ensure our members know that.

In a more general sense, bargaining agents bring a unique perspective to discussions on renewal. We offer our members a collective voice and we are familiar with the sorts of workplace issues that can have a major impact on how the public service is seen by potential employees of the future.

At ACFO, for example, we are pushing for the renewal of the qualification and classification standards for the FI Community to better reflect modern financial management standards. We are also drafting a white paper that analyzes existing research on the role of employee engagement in recruitment and retention. We are putting that research in a public sector context and will be inviting our members to share their personal experiences.

All of this serves to benefit not only our existing members but also those we hope to attract in the future as part of the renewal effort. It comes down to recognizing that all stakeholders have the same goal – creating a work environment that remains the career destination of choice for the best and brightest Canadians.