Tag Archives: civil service

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

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. We just traditionally haven’t done that transition for all the usual pressures related to remote workers and supervision/monitoring, and some unique pressures related to privacy, taxpayer dollars, and supporting Ministers in person.

Paul Taylor over at Governing.com wrote an article about five changes he sees coming to the public service post-Covid. Here’s an excerpt:

Your Cubicle. Our Conference Room. Where Did They Go? Your space may get bigger as facilities staff reconfigure space to conform with the 6-foot separation requirements. Coupled with limits on group size, that is likely to grow cubicle row into what were once conference rooms.

  » Read the rest
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Admitting I was wrong – Workplace 2.0

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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”. Don’t get me started on the carpets. But before I talk about Workplace 2.0, let me talk for a moment about my last 20+ years of office accommodations.

Government accommodations

From 1993 to 1997, I was with Foreign Affairs. Generally, everyone had a closed office, boring off-white metal-like walls, brown doors, small window next to the door (usually, but not always), desk plus computer table, chair, guest chair, bookshelf and filing cabinet. With enough room that you could often have two people squeeze in front of the desk as guests, and have a quick meeting.  » Read the rest

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The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 3

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. In both areas, there were missed opportunities galore.

Today I want to talk about the way forward.

What were the criteria?

There really weren’t any forward-looking ones, at least not upfront. They had some generic elements under governance, but that was it.

What the REAL criterion should have had

It is pretty simple — is there a plan in place going forward that addresses major issues, is risk-based, and is written down. There are lots of bells and whistles beyond that, things like cost and timelines, but the most basic element is “Do they have a plan?”  » Read the rest

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The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 2

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. 

Today I want to talk about the current state of pay requests outstanding.

What were the criteria?

There were two elements to the state of pay, and the first one was:

Problems related to paying public service employees are identified, and the nature and impact of these problems are understood.

To understand the first problem, the auditors relied upon the following documents.

  • Pay Disbursement Administrative Services Order, 2011
  • Directive on Financial Management of Pay Administration, Treasury Board
  • Policy on Results, Treasury Board
  • Directive on Results, Treasury Board
  • Supporting Effective Evaluations: A Guide to Developing Performance Measurement Strategies, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
  • COBIT 5: Enabling Processes, Information Systems Audit and Control Association, ISACA

As with the review yesterday, the policy on results, directive on results, guide to PM strategies, and COBIT 5 are virtually worthless to the exercise.  » Read the rest

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The Phoenix audit we could have had – Part 1

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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. Yep, I’m a public admin geek. I was even somewhat amused when I saw the news coverage about how aggressive the report was in its condemnation. And, if you weren’t a regular reviewer of audits, you might just go with the press conference and some of the findings and think, “Okay, they’re being appropriately harsh”.

Except the OAG knows how to be harsh when something isn’t working, and the language they would use for that kind of screw-up wasn’t present in the report. So let’s look at the report and see what they COULD (or even should?)  » Read the rest

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