Category Archives: HR Guide

Is work-from-home the new government normal?

PolyWogg.ca
February 7 2021

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

Articles I Like: 21 HR Jobs of the Future

PolyWogg.ca
August 13 2020

Harvard Business Review’s mailing include a link to a cool article by Jeanne C. Meister about what HR people will be doing in the future, or doing “more of” in the future, given the impact of COVID-19 and the likely enduring switch to working from home. It’s based on a think piece from one of the thousands of organizations looking at the “future of work”, and there are tons of these reports coming out, as they have for the last five years.… Read the rest

Why I hate “inventories” in Government of Canada HR

PolyWogg.ca
June 20 2020

There are processes in GoC HR called “inventories” and they are often done in one of three instances, all of them generally bad for the applicant:

A. They are hiring for LOTS of different categories

You’ve likely seen these, as it will say “Come work at Transport! We’re hiring AS-01, AS-02, AS-03, AS-04,…” and they then list 7 levels of AS, 5 levels of PM, 7 levels of EC, etc.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: Five Changes Facing Public Employees When They Return to the Office – If They Do

PolyWogg.ca
May 22 2020

As a public servant, and similar to every other industry, there is a lot of speculation about what post-Covid workplaces will look like. Many of our operations can be done well-enough from home, and the challenges we have now are mostly about IT infrastructure, home office solutions, and privacy. Much of our work is digital and email-enabled, so it’s not a giant leap to work from home.… Read the rest

Lynda.com: PowerPoint 2013 Specialist – Lesson 02: Working with presentations

PolyWogg.ca
May 13 2020

Since I’m working from home, I’m doing some training to improve my Powerpoint skills, training that I probably can’t access from the office normally nor would I ever have time to do it. I can see from the names of the videos that Lesson 02 (22 minutes) looks at creating and saving, changing themes, slide masters, headers and footers, and file properties, which seems pretty basic.… Read the rest

Articles I Like: The Best Mentors Ask These 8 Questions

PolyWogg.ca
May 12 2020

Because of my interest in helping people with HR processes, and learning techniques to be a better manager in general, I am frequently attracted to articles about mentoring. I’m also frequently disappointed with those columns that advocate a “one size fits all” closed approach to mentoring.

So colour me surprised when I saw an article on Pocket recently about questions that the best mentors ask, written by Gwen Moran (and originally shared on Fast Company).… Read the rest

Lynda.com: PowerPoint 2013 Specialist – Introduction + Lesson 01: Navigating Powerpoint

PolyWogg.ca
May 7 2020

Since I’m working from home, and I have an opportunity to do some additional training, AND I found out that the Ottawa Public Library has free access to Lynda.com training, I thought I would try to improve my Powerpoint skills. I use Powerpoint for various things at work, as well as some basic graphics work for my website from time to time, but I’ve never really had any formal training in it, particularly not in really getting the full bang for my buck.… Read the rest

OPL resources: Lynda.com

PolyWogg.ca
March 23 2020

Many of you have heard of Lynda.com before and if you have, you likely know it as that “IT training platform”. What you may not know is that it has become rebranded as LinkedIn Learning, and depending on how you get to it, you may see different logos. The Ottawa Public Library has an option to log in through their site, for free, you just need your OPL library card and a 4 digit PIN (likely the last four digits of your phone number, unless you changed it).You… Read the rest

OPL resources: Language tools while working from home

PolyWogg.ca
March 23 2020

For those who are in language training, or who simply want to take advantage of some extra time to work on their language skills, the Ottawa Public Library has some language resources available. You’ll need an active OPL library card for it to work, and if it prompts you for a PIN you don’t know, it is probably the last four digits of your phone number.… Read the rest

OPL resources: Research tools while working from home

PolyWogg.ca
March 23 2020

If you are struggling to access decent resources while you’re working from home, here’s a quick overview of some of the resources from the Ottawa Public Library that might be of interest to you. You’ll need an active OPL library card for it to work, and if it prompts you for a PIN you don’t know, it is probably the last four digits of your phone number.… Read the rest

Government working-from-home in the time of pandemics

PolyWogg.ca
March 15 2020

I’ve been following the TBS announcements, as most government employees have been, trying to figure out if and when they will tell us simply to work from home across the board. Right now, managers are told to be as supportive as possible for people wanting to work from home. Yet we can’t even call it telework as most of them will have no “tele” options at all — many don’t have a connection or app to connect remotely, and for those who do, most networks don’t have the bandwidth or server power to handle EVERYONE logging in remotely.… Read the rest

Mental Health in the Workplace – My role as a manager

PolyWogg.ca
November 18 2019

Unless you have been living under a rock, you would know that one of the latest pushes in all management circles — public, private, C-suites, academia — is to figure out how to improve workplaces so that they are supportive of good mental health. But part of that push is recognizing that we are not there yet, and even if we were, life happens outside of the workplace too, and eventually, even the most awesome place to work is going to deal with mental health issues with its employees.… Read the rest

HR Guide – 12 – Special Tests

PolyWogg.ca
April 15 2019

PolyWogg’s (Completely Informal and Totally Unofficial) Guide to Competing for Jobs in the Canadian Federal Government

This section is an incredibly difficult one to design and write for two reasons. 

First and foremost, there are a lot of special tests administered by the Public Service Commission. According to their website as of July 23, 2019, they have six tests designed for administrative support; eleven tests for officer level (plus two others that have been retired or replaced); twelve more for management level; and six “other” ones including three forms of second language ability, plus some other unique ones for management.… Read the rest

Admitting I was wrong – Workplace 2.0

PolyWogg.ca
May 28 2018

I work in a government office complex, and for the most part, our offices tend to look like they were designed and approved by accountants. Actuarial accountants. And auditors. We don’t have 50 shades of gray, we tend to have three. Light gray, dark gray, and something in between that is probably “light gray that got dirty and will never get cleaned”.… Read the rest

The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 3

PolyWogg.ca
December 14 2017

This is my last post on the Phoenix audit by the Office of the Auditor-General. In the first of three parts (The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 1), I talked about governance and oversight. Part two (The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 2) dealt with the level of details provided in terms of the state of pay.… Read the rest

The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 2

PolyWogg.ca
December 14 2017

Earlier, I ranted about the actual audit of Phoenix that was done by the Office of the Auditor General (A disappointing audit of the Phoenix problems). And in my post yesterday (The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 1), I talked about what I expected to see or at least thought we could have seen, regarding governance and oversight. … Read the rest

The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 1

PolyWogg.ca
December 12 2017

When I read the Office of the Auditor General’s audit of Phoenix, I was beyond disappointed (A disappointing audit of the Phoenix problems). In part, I think it is because I am too familiar with audits from my previous job where I read just about every audit done by my department in the last nine years, plus some of the broader OAG ones.… Read the rest

A disappointing audit of the Phoenix problems

PolyWogg.ca
November 23 2017

As a civil servant, I was incredibly disappointed with the recent Phoenix audit, although maybe I just expected too much of it. Things that should have been clearly there, I would have thought, were in fact absent. Wording that I expected to be extremely harsh was toned down. Recommendations that would seem to be obvious ways forward were missing in action.… Read the rest

My cold, crass heart and Phoenix victims

PolyWogg.ca
November 21 2017

I wrote earlier on Phoenix and attempted to deconstruct the mess that it has become, although perhaps it is more apt to say the mess it was from the beginning and remains so even now. My focus was on the process, and some people asked me about an apparent lack of sensitivity or where my anger was for the disaster on the victims’ behalf.… Read the rest