For those of you who have read my PolyWogg guide for competitions, you know that I have the general “slogan” of “Be the Duck!”. The idea being of course that if a manager wants to hire a duck, then your best chance to get hired is to tell them you’re a duck.… Read the rest
Category Archives: HR Guide
Understanding a partially-assessed pool…
If you read through my PolyWogg HR guide, Be the Duck, you know that the general approach to a federal government competition looks like this:
- POSTER: Job goes up with elements for eligibility, experience, knowledge, abilities, personal suitability, language, security and conditions of employment
- APPLICATION: People apply and are screened in/out for eligibility and experience;
- WRITTEN TEST: Remaining candidates are tested for knowledge and some abilities;
- INTERVIEW: Remaining candidates are tested for some abilities and some personal suitability;
- REFERENCE CHECK: Remaining candidates are tested for some abiliteis and some personal suitability;
- LANGUAGE TEST: Candidates are tested by PSC for French and/or English oral, written and reading;
- POOL ESTABLISHED: All candidates who have passed steps 2-6 are put in the pool, which means they are all considered fully assessed and can be offered a job.
Friday Question (FQ): How do you answer a question marking more than one element?
I received a really interesting question from a commenter who wanted to know how to handle a specific type of element in an interview process. Let’s say the interview is evaluating you on four elements A, B, C and D, with perhaps D being communications. In a traditional interview process, and the default of most managers, they’ll ask you three questions:
- About Element A
- About Element B
- About Element C
And then they’ll grade D for communications on how you did across all three questions.… Read the rest
Friday Question (FQ): Why would my boss not approve an assignment?
I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to do some Friday Questions, and there is a really persistent question that people in non-managerial positions have trouble wrapping their heads around. In the shortest form, someone wants to go on an assignment, and their boss said no. They think it’s mean of their boss, and they want to know why the person is such a jerk.… Read the rest
Friday Question (FQ): Can a PM-06 report to an EC-07?
Someone on Reddit asked this question this past week, and it is a great question because it brings in a combination of culture, classification, and delegation authorities. I’ve decided to use it for my first Friday Question for HR issues in the federal government.
The question is often answered with an easy response — no — but not quite for the reasons most people assume.… Read the rest
An unusual type of interview
When people ask me about HR interviews for government, my answer is pretty standard. As per the guide, all interview questions are tied to the statement of merit criteria. And, in almost all cases, that means they are focusing on Experiences, Knowledge, Abilities, or Personal Suitability. Seems relatively straightforward, right?
Now, if you add in the fact that your cover letter / initial screening deals with experience, and a written exam normally knocks off most knowledge if there was a knowledge component identified at all, then the interview becomes more about abilities or personal suitability.… Read the rest
My HR Guide: Detailed answers to a Q&A session at Health Canada
This past week, I had the opportunity to speak to the Young Professionals Network at Health Canada about HR processes and what happens after a pool is established. Earlier sessions had already covered how to get into the public service and how to prepare and participate in various processes. There were a LOT of questions provided before the session and even more posted in the chat during the event, so I offered to try and do a blog response for some of the pieces I didn’t get to during the event or where I didn’t have the luxury to go into more detail.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW: Links to the 9 posts
Yep, I started with a trilogy and ended up with 9 posts. A few people have said, “What if I miss one?”. I don’t think of that as a normal risk per se, but sure, I can do a single post with all nine linked…
WFH vs. RTW, part 9: It’s showtime!
When it comes to figuring out the way forward, we’re pretty much at showtime. In September, departments started mandating RTW options, “forcing” people into the office as it is pitched by employees and unions.
Some people want to argue whether the government as the employer has the right to make the decision unilaterally.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 8: A rare Call to Action
My normal schtick is description. I explain why something is like it is, why seemingly opaque decisions or processes are not as dense as people might think. Other than sharing tips and tricks in my HR guide, I rarely try to tell people to do x or y. I’ve been a bit more directive on some of these topics, maybe a bit more rant-y.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 7: No black swans required
When I started this series of posts two weeks ago, it was with the intent simply to share some views on what’s going on for preparations around Return to Work options in the federal government. I’d been seeing a bunch of stuff online where people were saying, “Hey management is a bunch of idiots, everything is working fine, blah blah blah”, and while that may be an employee/bottom-up view, it is NOT what management is seeing looking “down”.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 6: If management is left to their own devices
I’ve been struggling to figure out how to organize this post, ever since I started the first one in the series. I want to talk about what departments are doing, but I don’t want it to be some sort of inventory. That’s not why I’m writing. I don’t care if Fisheries is doing one thing and Environment is doing another.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 5: If an employee falls in an empty office, does anyone hear it?
So let’s recap my series so far and reorder the elements a bit. Hardly revolutionary, but decisions about RTW will be taken in a larger context:
- Pre-pandemic “norms” that assumed everyone was working “in the office” but that even face-to-face interactions were not enough, transactions and communications were not enough, you still needed intentional effort to make proper connections;
- Early pandemic transitioning to WFH and rolling out of all the cyber tools we take for granted now, while managers have been left to mostly “muddle through” too;
- Throughout the pandemic, public servants have been working with their paycheques intact, and relatively speaking, being spared much of the extreme personal economic, social and financial disruption that every other sector has experienced in the last 2+ years; and,
- Executives looking at the emerging-from-pandemic world and seeing not only that things are not all working perfectly, even if many employees don’t see the cracks, but also that there are huge risks looming on the horizon.
WFH vs. RTW, part 4: It’s not about Subway
If you’re reading this, you’re probably in the public service (not necessarily federal, but mostly), and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard the story about the health townhall meeting where one of the executives suggested that going back into the office was a good thing because you could go to Subway for lunch and support local business.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 3: The research (mostly) shows…
For all the departments looking to have people back in the office, they frequently will use the phrase, “So, yeah, we’re looking to have people back in the office at least some of the time because the research shows that it’s better.”
And when they say it, most people listening think it is complete bullsh**.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 2: A baseline year…
In the world of performance measurement, a friend and I have a cynical joke between us that it seems like every year is a baseline year for some programs…if you’re always moving the baseline, there’s never anything to measure or report other than activities undertaken. There’s no standard for success. When it comes to the question of working from home, any year up to the end of 2019 would have been a baseline year, and there is still not much evidence of a performance standard for success.… Read the rest
WFH vs. RTW, part 1: Something to talk about
As everyone has seen over the last 2.5 years, every business entity has had to deal with the labour organization aspects of the pandemic. Separate from all the labour and health and safety issues, or supply-chain issues, one of the most pervasive questions has simply been one of location. Could employees work from home or did they need to return to work at a specified location?… Read the rest
Great practice from PHAC on HR notices
If anyone has read my HR guide, you already know that there are notices of appointments that go up on the Jobs.gc.ca portal. When it is a non-advertised appointment, and it says promotion, you really have almost no idea why the person is being promoted. It just says “non-advertised” and “promotion”.… Read the rest
Demonstrating merit, non-advertised appointments, and frustration as a manager
Normally when I write about HR, I do so as a public servant talking to other public servants on how to prepare for competitions. I might draw on my own experiences competing or running processes from the other side of the table. But rarely do I write as simply a manager talking about my job.… Read the rest
Is work-from-home the new government normal?
For those who work in government, almost universally around the globe, the workforce response to the pandemic was pretty much the same. Everybody pivoted to work from home (WFH). And as time goes on, people are generally coming to the conclusion that WFH was not as terrible as everybody used to think, the current “normal” is generally working in many if not most areas, and so as people discuss how to “build back better” (BBB), there is a general informal consensus that BBB means WFH is now permanent.… Read the rest