Public Sector Unions

[Michael Hardner]

There's no simple answer. Numbers are not ignored, they are analyzed to excruciating detail so the senior manager can be absolutely sure of things. Of course, the numbers are often wrong, but that's another story.

I think one of the major costs of inefficiency is too much oversight. I was once involved in paying cell phone bills. This was a complicated process which involved dividing the incoming invoices according to the business centre where the employee worked, sending copies of the invoice with forms, to the employee concerned, who had to indicate if they used the cell phone for personal reasons, and how much of the resulting cost they would therefore be reimbursing us. This form and invoice then went to their manager for sign-off before returning to us.

Seem sensible? I bet most people would say that was a good example of oversight.

I calculated that the administrative costs involved in all this - the sorting, copying, form-filling out, moving of folders back and forth, which took hours and hours and days and days) exceeded the actual invoice cost of most of the cell phones involved. You understand? It was costing more to process the invoices than the cost of the cell phones! And the actual amounts to reimbursed were generally nil or a pittance, a dollar or three. We were spending tens of thousands to watch out for a couple of hundred worth of private use of cell phones. And we still are, btw, though thank God I don't have to do it.

I could give example after example of how oversight has slowed work, multiplied forms, and increased costs of doing almost everything in government, especially anything which involves purchasing or human resources.

A private sector employer can put an ad in the paper and hire someone within a week. It takes the federal government the better part of a year to organize a competition, hold tests, conduct interviews, and finally begin to hire even the lowest level of employees. Why? To get the best employee? Well, not especially. The real point of all the complexity is to ensure there is fairness, that there is no favouratism, that there is no discrimination, that everyone has the same chance, etc. Of course, it doesn't work. Favoritism, discrimination and unfairness remain. Humans will always get around systems like that. So the immense cost in time and money - not to mention the poor work areas who can't get employees for months and months on end, goes for nothing.

You want to save money and streamline the process? Trust your employees more. Yes, on occasion, that will mean small losses by theft or misuse. But you'll save a ton of money in the end. Let managers hire whoever they want to hire right off the street. Let purchasing people buy whatever they want from wherever they can find the best deals. Stop micromanaging everything because you're terrified that your lower levels of managers will occasionally screw it up and make you look bad.

Everything you post makes sense. I am familiar with the Federal competition system and the ways that it is gamed. Trusting your employees more makes sense, but the culture is already poisoned against that.

I think you and I are on the same page with this, I only wish that more left-of-centre posters were. There's a tremendous waste of resources happening, and as I have posted - the party that discovers that it is possible to increase services while cutting costs will be well rewarded by the voters.

Also something that is not appreciated, is that organizations that are laden with rules and bureaucracy, that move slowly and achieve very little are not fun to work in. The private sector had to become lighter and faster in the 1990s but the public sector never did.

[punked]

Nonsense. The public is divorced from the mechanics of these things. It has little to no say in how the education ministry or school boards decide on preferences for hiring and promotion. The only thing the public knows is that they are dissatisfied with the general level of the quality of their children's education.

No one ever asked ME if it was a good idea for someone teaching 3+4=7 to have a masters degree. If they had I would have laughed at them.

I remain convinced from my life experience that ability to teach is an innate skill set that some have and some don't. All that education is designed to help those who don't have such a skill to get by. But it also acts to screen out those who DO have it but can't afford the time and money to go get years and years of education. We'd be better off just hiring only those who DO.

Then it is their fault. You can't get mad because the public doesn't care.

As for you thinking we should stick just anyone in a classroom you are dead wrong. The whole problem with the education system as it stands is those at the elementary level don't know enough. They can't teach fractions, they all hold liberal arts degress and because of it our students are not succeeding at the higher levels. Again if you ask the public I feel the majority would say they would like the best and brightest teaching their children maybe you don't but it got to this point some how and it wasn't the union.

[Argus]

Then it is their fault. You can't get mad because the public doesn't care.

The public cares. It just doesn't have any input at that level.

As for you thinking we should stick just anyone in a classroom you are dead wrong

.

Did I say "just anyone"? I said that those who have the skill and personality to teach should teach. Some people are great at teaching. Some suck at it. It's an aspect of your personality, usually, and your communications skills. And it's not related to how many degrees you have.

The whole problem with the education system as it stands is those at the elementary level don't know enough. They can't teach fractions, they all hold liberal arts degress and because of it our students are not succeeding at the higher levels.

I disagree. It's true that certain subjects require people more deeply versed in them - such as mathematics - than the norm. But you don't need a masters degree to teach fraction. You simply need a teacher who understands the material and can communicate it.

Again if you ask the public I feel the majority would say they would like the best and brightest teaching their childre

Certainly. I'm simply pointing out that doesn't necessarily mean people with extensive educational backgrounds. I knew and understood mathematics well enough when I finished high school to teach fractions at the elementary level.

[Michael Hardner]

There's no simple answer. Numbers are not ignored, they are analyzed to excruciating detail so the senior manager can be absolutely sure of things. Of course, the numbers are often wrong, but that's another story.

One more point on this, Argus, some numbers are effectively ignored - and I'm thinking costs and risks. Again, my solution would be to create a market for very high-quality information that includes these factors and give it to people to see.

The masses will not be interested, and that is a good thing. No, I correct myself - it is a great thing. Online forums like this would facilitate intelligent discussion and analysis and there would be no fudging possible, except in the extreme short term. The only fudging possible would be lying, i.e. fraud, and even the top brass are reluctant to do that.

[Remiel]

You want to save money and streamline the process? Trust your employees more. Yes, on occasion, that will mean small losses by theft or misuse. But you'll save a ton of money in the end. Let managers hire whoever they want to hire right off the street. Let purchasing people buy whatever they want from wherever they can find the best deals. Stop micromanaging everything because you're terrified that your lower levels of managers will occasionally screw it up and make you look bad.

Would you pair this with a regular sort of spot audit checks of random people? I can agree with loosening things up, but there still must be some kind of attempt to keep things from being consistently unfair.

In any case, though they were somewhat distracted, a family member of mine who works for the provincial government has seemingly confirmed similar cases to your former role in looking after cell phone bills. That kind of waste makes no sense to me, and I am not sure how anyone on the " left " , as Michael suggested, would think it would.

[Michael Hardner]

Would you pair this with a regular sort of spot audit checks of random people? I can agree with loosening things up, but there still must be some kind of attempt to keep things from being consistently unfair.

In any case, though they were somewhat distracted, a family member of mine who works for the provincial government has seemingly confirmed similar cases to your former role in looking after cell phone bills. That kind of waste makes no sense to me, and I am not sure how anyone on the " left " , as Michael suggested, would think it would.

These are but a few examples of things that our public services do, that are wasteful. And none of the things we're talking about are the big fish in the pond of waste. Nor are any of these the fault of individual employees, or even managers. This culture has evolved logically from the way these services were conceived and set up.

And... they achieved their purpose, but they are reflections of how business was done in a bygone era.

[Jack Weber]

Really insightful argument! A union deserves to exist as much as a virus deserves to exist. There is nothing inherently wrong in questioning the benefit of a union. Those who resort to responses such as "you are wrong because your arguments are anti-union", are those who don't have an intenlligent defence for the existance of a union.

It's as insightful as your tired rhetoric that comes right out of the NAM/Citizens' Alliance/Citizens' Industrial Alliance playbook....

Edited June 13, 2010 by Jack Weber

[Argus]

Would you pair this with a regular sort of spot audit checks of random people? I can agree with loosening things up, but there still must be some kind of attempt to keep things from being consistently unfair.

With hundreds of purchasing officers, everyone has a chance of doing business with the government. And the only unfairness is that once you have a vendor that is efficient and gets you what you need quickly you tend to go back to that vendor. I'm not sure how unfair that is. Likewise if that vendor screws up on you and fails to please you wind up moving on to someone else.

You know, once, I needed a projector (used in presentations). I did a little internet research to figure out what was best, then called a local dealer I did occasional business with. He had the machine delivered to me within three days. A few months later, when someone else needed one, I simply called him up, and he sent the same machine again. Quick, cheap, efficient. You can't do that any more. Now everything has to go through a bidding process and it takes ten times longer.

Do all the random checks you like, just don't slow everything down in the name of fairness and oversight.

There was a time I could get basic computer parts same-day. Heck, I would even take a cab to Best Buy and pick up monitors, cameras, laptops, etc. Now it takes weeks and weeks, and the stuff we get _always_ costs more, even on top of the extra administration costs.

[in any case, though they were somewhat distracted, a family member of mine who works for the provincial government has seemingly confirmed similar cases to your former role in looking after cell phone bills. That kind of waste makes no sense to me, and I am not sure how anyone on the " left " , as Michael suggested, would think it would.

Actually, the oversight is more of a right wing thing. I think the Tories were screaming for it after sponsorgate. Oversight means added costs, though, it means delays, and it means lots and lots of forms and documents to inform and get permission of higher authority before you do anything. But it's reached the penny-wise, pound-foolish state where, for example, if I want to order a stapler I have to get my manager to send a form to a clerk, who will send that on to her manager, who will okay it and send it on to the purchasing clerk. Ten years ago, when I was in admin, if an employee wanted a freaking stapler I'd just give him one.

I suppose fewer people are stealing staplers now - not that I think many ever were - but I doubt the cost is worth the savings.

[Michael Hardner]

And - to chime in as one who has looked in on larger vendor deals in the past - the purchase and project management and approval processes that large governments use tend to be ill-defined, or over-defined, and subject to constant change.

As such, the vendors have to bake in a percentage for what is sometimes called 'churn' - which can easily run into 7 figures.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually set up these deals myself, and not in my current capacity but this is how it would be done following standard processes.

[Pliny]

Everything you post makes sense. I am familiar with the Federal competition system and the ways that it is gamed. Trusting your employees more makes sense, but the culture is already poisoned against that.

I think you and I are on the same page with this, I only wish that more left-of-centre posters were. There's a tremendous waste of resources happening, and as I have posted - the party that discovers that it is possible to increase services while cutting costs will be well rewarded by the voters.

Also something that is not appreciated, is that organizations that are laden with rules and bureaucracy, that move slowly and achieve very little are not fun to work in. The private sector had to become lighter and faster in the 1990s but the public sector never did.

Argus's example is a good illustration of what occurs when accountants are running a large corporation.

I mentioned before an example of gas stations installing pay for use air pressure pumps. Any concept of service or pubic relations is lost to extracting another buck or fifty cents from anyone who steps foot on your property. Soon all the service stations will be doing it so it won't matter much but that is also an example of how businesses have been high-jacked by accountants and accounting procedures. Customer service and quality suffer

It is government's neurotic obsession with having to know where every penny is so they are not going to lose any revenues that make accountants important and can save a company money but they then they look for othe rpaces to save money and the business suffers because they have saved a nickel but lost position in the competitive marketplace due to decreased service to their clientele or loss of quality in their products and services.

One of course must keep abreast of costs in order to stay in business but I would only take suggestions from the accounting department and never let them set policy. They will spend a dollar chasing a nickel being penny wise and pound foolish.

[Michael Hardner]

Argus's example is a good illustration of what occurs when accountants are running a large corporation.

Believe it or not, those who run those corps are often very bright, sometimes even brighter than those on here.

I mentioned before an example of gas stations installing pay for use air pressure pumps. Any concept of service or pubic relations is lost to extracting another buck or fifty cents from anyone who steps foot on your property. Soon all the service stations will be doing it so it won't matter much but that is also an example of how businesses have been high-jacked by accountants and accounting procedures. Customer service and quality suffer

If people are willing to pay for it, then it works. The gas station I go to doesn't charge for bikes, just for cars.

It is government's neurotic obsession with having to know where every penny is so they are not going to lose any revenues that make accountants important and can save a company money but they then they look for othe rpaces to save money and the business suffers because they have saved a nickel but lost position in the competitive marketplace due to decreased service to their clientele or loss of quality in their products and services.

One of course must keep abreast of costs in order to stay in business but I would only take suggestions from the accounting department and never let them set policy. They will spend a dollar chasing a nickel being penny wise and pound foolish.

I'm not sure if that is the reason - but it strikes me that companies were more like this 20 years ago, and govt. is just behind the times.

[Shwa]

There's no simple answer. Numbers are not ignored, they are analyzed to excruciating detail so the senior manager can be absolutely sure of things. Of course, the numbers are often wrong, but that's another story.

I think one of the major costs of inefficiency is too much oversight...

You want to save money and streamline the process? Trust your employees more.

So what you are saying, in effect, is that very people that screwed up with all this inefficiency, have the right to hire off the street.

In fact, I know several senior bureaucrats that were 'recruited' from the private sector without any competition process. I suspect this practice is fairly common and the timeline for such 'efficiencies' would coincide with the CPC government. Furthermore, temporary contracts are awared for off-the-street mid and low positions all the time. Some of these temporary contracts are hired on full time, others are not renewed. This particular practice has been going on for a very long time in the federal and provincial governments.

So your argument is missing a little something.

A private sector employer can put an ad in the paper and hire someone within a week. It takes the federal government the better part of a year to organize a competition, hold tests, conduct interviews, and finally begin to hire even the lowest level of employees.

Not quite Argus. I have seen first hand the hiring practices of a large international automotive manufacturer, and simply don't hire in a week. In fact, there is as much bureaucracy in this particular corporation as I have ever seen in the federal or provincial government. They have job fairs, lengthy vetting of qualifications and interview processes. Sometimes a new hire takes months. Luckily, they also have an inventory of experienced workers who get first crack at those jobs.

We don't want to run the bureacracy like Sears or Home Depot. There is a little more at stake than curtains or tool sheds.

Why? To get the best employee? Well, not especially. The real point of all the complexity is to ensure there is fairness, that there is no favouratism, that there is no discrimination, that everyone has the same chance, etc. Of course, it doesn't work.

Yes it does work. It isn't perfect, but it works far better than perpetuating the glass ceiling or old boys club which it was designed to replace.

Favoritism, discrimination and unfairness remain. Humans will always get around systems like that.

The oft heard refrain of the jilted public employee. The problems of the world have already been solved in the taverns and bars across the nation; and those of Canada in the cafeterias in most federal departments.

So the immense cost in time and money - not to mention the poor work areas who can't get employees for months and months on end, goes for nothing.

Completely untrue. There are several hiring instruments available for the various levels of government including temporary contracts within and outside the organization, not to mention interal acting positions and contracts. In fact, most departments now are modernizing their processes to expediate the movement of employees within or between the departments, which is far more efficient and cheap than hiring off the street.

Yes, on occasion, that will mean small losses by theft or misuse. But you'll save a ton of money in the end. Let managers hire whoever they want to hire right off the street. Let purchasing people buy whatever they want from wherever they can find the best deals. Stop micromanaging everything because you're terrified that your lower levels of managers will occasionally screw it up and make you look bad.

Small lossess? Are you referring to the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost to fraud, theft, misuse every year? How about those EI employees that 'help' their family and friends get EI faster than the average Jill or Joe? How about those small 100k computer contracts that PWGSC employees slip to their neighbours or buddies? How about those canoe contracts from DND?

And you want looser hiring practices. Right. You say yourself that people will get around systems like that. Then why make it easier for them?

Edited June 14, 2010 by Shwa

[Shwa]

Nonsense. The public is divorced from the mechanics of these things. It has little to no say in how the education ministry or school boards decide on preferences for hiring and promotion. The only thing the public knows is that they are dissatisfied with the general level of the quality of their children's education.

No one ever asked ME if it was a good idea for someone teaching 3+4=7 to have a masters degree. If they had I would have laughed at them.

Complete and utter nonsense. Your local municipal slate includes school trustees that hold public meetings, your local school board has community representatives as well as any local schools in your area will have a school community councils - most of which have public meetings. It is a participatory system and the choice is yours, like it is for everyone else.

[Shwa]

Argus's example is a good illustration of what occurs when accountants are running a large corporation.

I mentioned before an example of gas stations installing pay for use air pressure pumps. Any concept of service or pubic relations is lost to extracting another buck or fifty cents from anyone who steps foot on your property. Soon all the service stations will be doing it so it won't matter much but that is also an example of how businesses have been high-jacked by accountants and accounting procedures. Customer service and quality suffer

It is government's neurotic obsession with having to know where every penny is so they are not going to lose any revenues that make accountants important and can save a company money but they then they look for othe rpaces to save money and the business suffers because they have saved a nickel but lost position in the competitive marketplace due to decreased service to their clientele or loss of quality in their products and services.

One of course must keep abreast of costs in order to stay in business but I would only take suggestions from the accounting department and never let them set policy. They will spend a dollar chasing a nickel being penny wise and pound foolish.

This sir, is the insight that most people miss and is right on the money. Quite a few federal & provincial hiring practices use the MBA as the mother of all qualification for the executive level. And when you have MBA's devising social policy, you run into problems I think.

Edited June 14, 2010 by Shwa

[Renegade]

It's as insightful as your tired rhetoric that comes right out of the NAM/Citizens' Alliance/Citizens' Industrial Alliance playbook....

I take it that you must of read it the? That's good, but I haven't. Thanks for the pointer. I'll be sure to look it up. Nice to know that some one agrees with me, even if people with no logical argument do no.

[Michael Hardner]

And you want looser hiring practices. Right. You say yourself that people will get around systems like that. Then why make it easier for them?

Shwa, here we find you again defending the status quo of how big government operates.

I find it hard to accept your position, in that it seems to say, not "it's bad and should be improved" but "it's fine". People I know inside the government have talked about the process as Argus has, and I worked there as a student as well and feel his description is close to the mark.

[Michael Hardner]

And when you have MBA's devising social policy, you run into problems I think.

When you DON'T have MBAs administering services and watching costs, it's also a problem.

And... if this process was run at least at a basic level of efficiency, we would be able to get statistics on the hiring timelines, cost of programmes, etc.

[Shwa]

Shwa, here we find you again defending the status quo of how big government operates.

I find it hard to accept your position, in that it seems to say, not "it's bad and should be improved" but "it's fine". People I know inside the government have talked about the process as Argus has, and I worked there as a student as well and feel his description is close to the mark.

First of all, I am certainly not "defending the status quo of how big government works" but pointing out the flaws in the information that is being relayed which are likely specific instances used to generalize, which creates a wildly inaccurate picture. The hiring practices of the government are not perfect, but they are one heck of a lot better than what they used to be, even with the flaws. If you don't think so, then ask yourself what they bother to change them.

You can cite your brief experience all those years ago mixed with some insider information, but when was the last time you had a go over of the Public Service Commission?

Here is the link. Have a read and find me some large changes you would make to the current processes. Be radical even. Then we can have a rational discussion instead of a mere bitchfest. Here is the PS jobs link for Ontario. Go at it.

[Shwa]

When you DON'T have MBAs administering services and watching costs, it's also a problem.

And... if this process was run at least at a basic level of efficiency, we would be able to get statistics on the hiring timelines, cost of programmes, etc.

No one is saying that an MBA is bad for some government processes. And if you want statistics and such, then I presume you are well aware of the Access to Information Act and how to go about getting information you want?

[Argus]

So what you are saying, in effect, is that very people that screwed up with all this inefficiency, have the right to hire off the street.

Uhm, no. The people who 'screwed up' are the senior management people who created the rules, oversight and policy.

In fact, I know several senior bureaucrats that were 'recruited' from the private sector without any competition process. I suspect this practice is fairly common and the timeline for such 'efficiencies' would coincide with the CPC government. Furthermore, temporary contracts are awared for off-the-street mid and low positions all the time. Some of these temporary contracts are hired on full time, others are not renewed. This particular practice has been going on for a very long time in the federal and provincial governments.

People at a very senior level can bend the rules on occasion. As to how much bending, that depends on the department or agency involved. Over at Passport, they let out "emergency" contracts without competition, and then convert them into term positions which are renewed until the employee can get into a competition and be hired. Where I work, its very rare to hire anyone without going through the competition process. I'm only aware of three cases, and all were attractive blondes who had been temps working for directors. because HR screwed up the external competition so badly no one was available, and because there is an absolute time limit of 20 weeks on temp employees, the decision was made to hire them on as term employees rather than replacing them with more temps. However, even they had to get into a competition and pass the tests in order to be given permanency. To say people are given term contracts without competition "all the time" is simply not true in most federal departments and agencies.

We don't want to run the bureacracy like Sears or Home Depot. There is a little more at stake than curtains or tool sheds.

I am not aware of the competition process adding anything whatever to the quality of the employees we get. The people we brought in off the street were of a higher quality than what the competitions supplied.

Yes it does work. It isn't perfect, but it works far better than perpetuating the glass ceiling or old boys club which it was designed to replace.

The HR process in government is so incredibly expensive and unwieldy, and consumes so much of management time that it simply would make more sense to scrap it. I know of one manager recently, who, along with her senior team leader, had to stay behind work, both spending 5 hours on the paperwork needed for HR in order to transfer 2 employees in from other departments. HR paperwork has become so intense, especially over the last five years, that most managers now have to spend a lot of extra time, ie, staying after work or working at home, because of it.

The oft heard refrain of the jilted public employee.

Not sure where you get that from. I'm doing fine, myself. In fact, after only a year or so of an internal process, I have fulfilled all the myriad requirements and passed all the silly tests required to get into a higher level position and my manager will be pulling me from the pool within the next week or two.

You can't just promote someone, you see, not in government. Managers have no authority and no say on who gets promoted. That's up to HR and it's testing and competency profiling. I have not yet met a manager, btw, who isn't disgusted the HR processes.

Completely untrue. There are several hiring instruments available for the various levels of government including temporary contracts within and outside the organization, not to mention interal acting positions and contracts.

HR has been cracking down on acting positions where I work to the point it's very difficult for a manager to get approval (from the director general level) to give anyone an acting. Temporary contracts? You mean temps. Yes, we were forced to make use of many of them in my last organization because our staff kept getting promoted or stolen, and HR was taking forever to hold a competition. We wound up with about 10 of 14 positions being filled by temps. Needless to say, it was a disaster all around. The unit cohesion collapsed and service levels plummeted. This again is because of rules.

You see, once upon a time when we needed a new employee and there was no pool to draw from we'd ask our people if they knew anyone good looking for work. Then we'd send that person to a temp agency we knew, and that temp agency sent them to us. We'd keep extending them until they got into a pool, and then drawn them from it. It worked wonders. Then the rules changed and we were no longer able to hire from a particular staffing agency, and HR kicked up a fuss about the length of time some of the temporary workers were staying, insisting on the 20 week rule. The result was the unit virtually collapsed. It took, you see, at least ten weeks to actually show some familiarity with the work, and by the time they started to get halfway competent we had to replace them with new temps who knew nothing.

In fact, most departments now are modernizing their processes to expediate the movement of employees within or between the departments, which is far more efficient and cheap than hiring off the street.

Funny. I know a woman who just moved between departments. Or rather, who did so two and a half months ago. She just got her first pay cheque at her new organization. Her old organization is hounding her to repay them for the two months they continued to pay her (mistakenly) after she left. The two agencies are supposed to deal with each other on things like that but apparently, the only guy at one who knows how has been off sick for a month.

Small lossess? Are you referring to the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost to fraud, theft, misuse every year? How about those EI employees that 'help' their family and friends get EI faster than the average Jill or Joe? How about those small 100k computer contracts that PWGSC employees slip to their neighbours or buddies? How about those canoe contracts from DND?

I'm not talking hundreds of thousands. I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars spent on needlessly wasteful oversight. I gather you're comfortable spending a hundred million to prevent the loss of a hundred thousand, but to me that seems a pretty dodgy business model.

And you want looser hiring practices. Right. You say yourself that people will get around systems like that. Then why make it easier for them?

What I said is that if people in positions of power, ie managers and up, want to scam the system on behalf of someone, or against someone, there are still a number of ways they can do it. Thus all the rules don't really stop favoritism or discrimination by those who are inclined to do it. All they achieve is to hamstring the vast majority of managers who actually believe in following the rules and guidelines.

[Michael Hardner]

First of all, I am certainly not "defending the status quo of how big government works" but pointing out the flaws in the information that is being relayed which are likely specific instances used to generalize, which creates a wildly inaccurate picture. The hiring practices of the government are not perfect, but they are one heck of a lot better than what they used to be, even with the flaws. If you don't think so, then ask yourself what they bother to change them.

You keep using the term 'not perfect' - but nothing is perfect.

From Argus' description and my own knowledge the government process IS highly flawed and leads to problems in hiring people quickly.

You can cite your brief experience all those years ago mixed with some insider information, but when was the last time you had a go over of the Public Service Commission?

Here is the link. Have a read and find me some large changes you would make to the current processes. Be radical even. Then we can have a rational discussion instead of a mere bitchfest. Here is the PS jobs link for Ontario. Go at it.

How does posted policies help us in this discussion ? Can you tell me how long it takes a manager to fill a seat, on average, when positions need to be filled at various levels ? And how does that compare to industry ?

[Michael Hardner]

No one is saying that an MBA is bad for some government processes. And if you want statistics and such, then I presume you are well aware of the Access to Information Act and how to go about getting information you want?

The last refuge of the bureaucracy is to send people to 'access to information' act. To my knowledge, it stipulates the legal minimum you have to do to provide information to the public, who is trying to pry it from the jaws of Ottawa.

Perhaps we should just submit a class action lawsuit to the government. That would get us the information we need, although the timeliness of the information is likely "NOT PERFECT".

[Shwa]

Uhm, no. The people who 'screwed up' are the senior management people who created the rules, oversight and policy.

And they hire off the street or make street-hires available. Or make new University grad recruiting possible. Or create policies which address the short terms needs of critical workloads to front line or back end staff. Or intake from provincial governments, etc.

To say people are given term contracts without competition "all the time" is simply not true in most federal departments and agencies.

Point out where I said that.

I am not aware of the competition process adding anything whatever to the quality of the employees we get. The people we brought in off the street were of a higher quality than what the competitions supplied.

Internal competitions have the benefit of getting employees who are oriented, familiar with some aspect of the bureaucracy and sometimes even highly trained in a specific area of technical expertise This affects the "quality" of the internal hire versus the external hire, thus a "benefit."

The HR process in government is so incredibly expensive and unwieldy, and consumes so much of management time that it simply would make more sense to scrap it. I know of one manager recently, who, along with her senior team leader, had to stay behind work, both spending 5 hours on the paperwork needed for HR in order to transfer 2 employees in from other departments. HR paperwork has become so intense, especially over the last five years, that most managers now have to spend a lot of extra time, ie, staying after work or working at home, because of it.

So what you are saying obviously points to incompetence at the managerial level because they can't do their job. And you want to give them the ability to simply hire off the street based upon whatever criteria they think fits. The whole HR process now was devised to counteract that very concept because it doesn't work and creates unfair hiring practices. I would not go about recommending an HR overhaul because of simple middle management incompetence.

I "know" several managers in a very large federal department who have created pools of candidates that they dip into for new hires or internal competitions. They created these pools in anticipation of several factors of workload, attrition, etc. They process hundreds of applications, interview dozens of candidates and place them in the pool once they are qualified. Then, when a job comes up, they go to the pool for a suitable candidate. Now, once they pools get to a certain point, they start another process. I believe many private sector corporations do the exact same thing.

You can't just promote someone, you see, not in government. Managers have no authority and no say on who gets promoted. That's up to HR and it's testing and competency profiling. I have not yet met a manager, btw, who isn't disgusted the HR processes.

Simply untrue. The only requirement for this appointments-without-competition is that the hiring poster be publicized for anyone that wants to grieve. The reason they don't use this method often is because it is seen as unfair. Like your three blondes example. However, acting appointments can be made permanent without competition so long as certain criteria is met.

HR has been cracking down on acting positions where I work to the point it's very difficult for a manager to get approval (from the director general level) to give anyone an acting. Temporary contracts? You mean temps. Yes, we were forced to make use of many of them in my last organization because our staff kept getting promoted or stolen, and HR was taking forever to hold a competition. We wound up with about 10 of 14 positions being filled by temps. Needless to say, it was a disaster all around. The unit cohesion collapsed and service levels plummeted. This again is because of rules.

And what rules specifically refer to "unit cohesion?" The same rule that states you must blame HR for middle management incompetence? Again, the frequent refrain of the jilted public employee.

You see, once upon a time when we needed a new employee and there was no pool to draw from we'd ask our people if they knew anyone good looking for work. Then we'd send that person to a temp agency we knew, and that temp agency sent them to us. We'd keep extending them until they got into a pool, and then drawn them from it. It worked wonders. Then the rules changed and we were no longer able to hire from a particular staffing agency, and HR kicked up a fuss about the length of time some of the temporary workers were staying, insisting on the 20 week rule. The result was the unit virtually collapsed. It took, you see, at least ten weeks to actually show some familiarity with the work, and by the time they started to get halfway competent we had to replace them with new temps who knew nothing.

Yep, seen plenty of that over the years. I have also seen plenty of instances where certain employees were forced upon a work unit to the detriment of the productivity. I have also seen cases where pools were created in two weeks out of local folks and the work went smoothly and the task was completed as required. None of these is a postive indication that the overall process is in peril or broken beyond repair.

I'm not talking hundreds of thousands. I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars spent on needlessly wasteful oversight. I gather you're comfortable spending a hundred million to prevent the loss of a hundred thousand, but to me that seems a pretty dodgy business model.

Come on Argus, what a silly question. Show us the hundreds of millions in HR oversight. If you are going to assert something don't use dodgy red herrings to try and wrangle yourself out of the mud.

What I said is that if people in positions of power, ie managers and up, want to scam the system on behalf of someone, or against someone, there are still a number of ways they can do it. Thus all the rules don't really stop favoritism or discrimination by those who are inclined to do it. All they achieve is to hamstring the vast majority of managers who actually believe in following the rules and guidelines.

No, the present HR practices don't stop the rule breakers, but make it difficult for them on any effective scale. Those practices are in place for a reason and they have been pretty reasonable over the years compared to what they replaced. If it forces a few whiny middle managers to actually do their job instead of sitting on their hands or playing Solitare all day, well tough. If they don't like it, McDonalds is always hiring, but if they can't gut it through a little paperwork to score some new hires, then I believe they will be only qualified to flip the burgers.

[Shwa]

From Argus' description and my own knowledge the government process IS highly flawed and leads to problems in hiring people quickly.

Which is my point. Argus' description and your own knowledge is flawed. That would naturally lead your opinion.

How does posted policies help us in this discussion ?

You're kidding me right? You give your opinion about "government process" yet you do not even know what they process actually consists of. That is a titch dishonest in my books.

Can you tell me how long it takes a manager to fill a seat, on average, when positions need to be filled at various levels ? And how does that compare to industry ?

One would think that since you think there are "problems with hiring people quickly" that you would have that information already, so please, do share.

[Shwa]

The last refuge of the bureaucracy is to send people to 'access to information' act. To my knowledge, it stipulates the legal minimum you have to do to provide information to the public, who is trying to pry it from the jaws of Ottawa.

Perhaps we should just submit a class action lawsuit to the government. That would get us the information we need, although the timeliness of the information is likely "NOT PERFECT".

Your reply leads me to believe that you know very little about the Access to Information and Privacy Acts, their use and requirement. Is this true?