My email at home, my website messages, and my Teams messages at work have been beeping at me quite regularly ever since the federal budget came down. Many of them are from people who I haven’t heard from in a while, saying, “So, what’s new?” followed almost immediately by “…and what do you know about the upcoming cuts?”. It’s not a surprise question. From the supply side, I did work on Strategic Review and DRAP 10+ years ago for our branch of about 750 people. In addition, I have spent a good portion of my last 20 years not only … Continue reading →

So. *cough* Right, a way forward. Sure. Why am I hesitating so much? Because this instalment is inherently challenging to nuance correctly. When I write, I try to stick to “explaining what is”, not “what should be” nor even very often “what could be”. I describe, I elaborate, I explain. I unpack complex elements. I try very hard to leave “shoulds” to others. And even in this post, I’ll try to stick only to what is possible, not what we “should” do. As I’ve argued in the last four posts on this topic, there are certain realities we have to … Continue reading →

In previous posts, I outlined an approach to wage-setting that combined three wage elements that are already baked into wage rates for the Public Service: Now, I have to confess. I broke out the rack rate and commute rate from the overall wage rate (call it W) because everyone should understand that those elements are already built into the current wage rates. And because they are not the same evidence base as the calls for regular wage increases. There is rarely anything new to include in the rack or commute rates, so the focus tends to be just on inflationary … Continue reading →

In a previous post, I argued that most rhetoric espoused by some of the f***muppets (i.e., a narrow group of PS who disseminate ill-informed opinions on blast and crowd out more productive conversations) doesn’t accurately reflect how wages and labour markets work, not even in the public service context. My original argument was that the PS combines three wage elements (reworded here for simplicity) that are already baked into wage rates: I also apologized to academic specialists for renaming the elements and ignoring the long history of these elements, and to non-academics who will likely still find me too wordy. … Continue reading →

In a previous post, I argued that most rhetoric espoused by some of the f***muppets (i.e., a narrow group of PS who disseminate ill-informed opinions on blast and crowd out more productive conversations) doesn’t accurately reflect how wages and labour markets work, not even in the public service context. My original argument is that the PS combines three wage elements (reworded here for simplicity) that are already baked into wage rates: I should probably apologize if any academic specialists read this post. Not only have I chosen my own names for the components over the terms in the literature, but … Continue reading →

It was interesting to see various reactions to my last post about f***muppets who don’t understand how wages work in general, or PS labour pay rates, in particular. While some readers engaged on the substance, some had serious misgivings about using the term f***muppet. If you want to see my original post, you can find it here: Someone subsequently shared my post on the Reddit forum, so if you’re so inclined, you can read the reactions and analysis of the post over there. I have follow-up posts planned on wage components, but I want to explain what and who I … Continue reading →

I am active in the Canadian Public Servant /Reddit forum, not the least of which for issues that I generally cover in my HR Guide. People share the link regularly, which is humbling, but the forum is about way more than simple HR. I often have views but I don’t often engage, deferring to others who have better insights and/or more palatable ways to explain some things. On a few topics, I try to avoid engaging because, well, there are too many idiots in the forum who have virtually no understanding of how compensation works in a formal system, and … Continue reading →

Over the last twenty years, I’ve given numerous presentations on preparing for competitions in the federal public service (aka my HR guide called Be The Duck!). Lately, it is less of a presentation and more of an “Ask me anything (AMA)”-type format. I did one a few years ago with Health Canada, and they invited me back again this year as a joint presentation organized between Health Canada and PHAC, plus various friendly departments around town. My presentation was called Career Compass: Navigating your career in the public service, and I knew some of the Qs in advance. I grouped … Continue reading →

As you can see on the PolyWogg.ca site, I have a PolyWogg Guide to HR competitions in the Canadian Federal Government. I cheekily called it Be the Duck as an extended metaphor, and I wanted something similar for another book in the same vein about being a manager. So this week’s FlashForwardFriday project is my future guide on being a manager, called Be the SheepDog: Managing from the Middle. I went with the idea of a sheepdog rounding up sheep. It’s cutesy, a bit whimsical, maybe, and the dog is cute. The challenge is to know what to cover in … Continue reading →

Last week, I mentioned that I would start doing FlashForwardFriday (FFF) where I will talk about upcoming projects. At the time, I outlined my plans for an introduction to astronomy. This week, I’m revisiting my first, only and original guide, Be the Duck: Succeeding in Canadian Federal Government Competitions. The current version The short version of the long history is that, way back in 2004 or so, a friend asked me to present to a bunch of new, young civil servants on how to prepare for competitions. Two weeks later, I got an email from someone asking me about my … Continue reading →

My biggest output to date is my HR guide, in all its forms, going back to 2004 or so. I’m happy people like it, the price doesn’t hurt ($0, downloadable PDF with no friction to access), and there is limited competition in a narrow niche. But I have plans for other guides, and to that end, I’ve been working on some cover pages for the books to serve as inspiration. My list of planned books is growing, though, and I have decided to start working on some of them before I retire instead of waiting. HR-related books First and foremost, … Continue reading →

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. Not someone who speaks Duck, or who knows Ducks, or who has worked with Ducks, but rather that you are indeed a duck. Preferably the best dang duck they’ve ever seen. But definitely you want to say “I’m a duck”. I developed the cover long before I had … Continue reading →

I think I’ve mentioned more than once (hah!) that I think in frameworks. It’s one of the reasons why I wrote my HR guide. I have a framework that works for me, it makes sense to me. More importantly, it lets me make sense of the HR world AND to be able to communicate that approach to others in a way that often resonates with them and let’s them understand it. I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I don’t have the deepest insights. I’m not the most experienced with the most profound understanding of a topic. But I … Continue reading →

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: That is the whole process start to finish, generally speaking, for a fully-assessed pool. By contrast, a partially-assessed pool would be if they stop / pause their process any time before Step 6 (the last assessment phase before language testing). Let’s look at an example Let’s assume someone wants to hire three junior analysts and they have nine very basic common elements: Now let’s assume that there are three OTHER knowledge elements, as if there … Continue reading →

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: And then they’ll grade D for communications on how you did across all three questions. Sometimes they’ll give you a question and evaluate your Comms only on that question, but most do a global score for Comms. But today’s … Continue reading →

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. Even some inexperienced managers frequently want to say, “Well, of course, you should say yes. Holding people back is just short-sighted”. If that is your frame, it DOES appear to be mean … Continue reading →

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. And when you drill down, the answer is actually wrong. The question actually has three separate components. A. Can a PM report to an EC? If you ask the question of classification experts, you will … Continue reading →

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. In those instances, the popular … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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… Related posts: WFH vs. RTW, part 6: If management is left to their own devices WFH vs. RTW, part 7: No black swans required WFH vs. RTW, part 4: It’s not about Subway Stargazing 2019, outing #22 – Outing to the AstroPontiac Observatory

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. Others want to argue that the employer has consulted with employees on the best way forward and many have said RTW is a good thing that offers benefits that WFH don’t. They did pilots, and the people have spoken! Others want to argue that it isn’t safe … Continue reading →

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. But, today, I have a different goal. I want to tell people what to do if they want WFH as a continued option for the future and not as a slowly diminishing option until everyone is … Continue reading →

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”. While people in the past might have complained about stuff if they were actually AT work to colleagues, etc., the growth of … Continue reading →

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. I don’t care if one person reports that Transport is doing something and all heck breaks loose arguing it’s either not what someone else heard or it’s not the right thing to do or they spelled cluster truck wrong. But … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →