Strengthening Your HR Capacity
The Government of Canada Perspective
Margaret Van Amelsvoort-Thoms
Executive Director, Office of the Chief HR Officer
Government of Canada
April 5, 2013
The Evolving Role of HR – David Ulrich
• David Ulrich, one of the most influential leaders in Human
Resources, highlights the following:
– HR’s role needs to be articulated in terms of value added.
– HR professionals must be able to partner with managers on strategy – move from
activity-focused to results-focused.
– The strategic partner role demands a degree of knowledge about strategy and the
organization.
– Results-based HR organizations are automating the transactional work, and
innovating transformational work (e.g. how to attract and motivate young employees,
etc.)
– HR Professionals must know the business, master HR practices, manage change
processes, help create cultures and workplaces, and demonstrate credibility.
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Some Questions That we are Asking
• Do you consider HR as “Professionals”?
• Can HR translate external trends into impacts on your organization?
• Does HR aim to establish a partnership with managers based on
clear, consistent and credible communication?
• Does HR support the organization during change?
• Do you consider HR to be innovative?
• Overall, does HR add clear and significant value to your
organization? (i.e. do managers feel that their unit would be less
successful without HR?)
3
HR Vision
HR based on:
• Enabling Department Leaders to achieve business objectives
through provision of expert, strategic advice and guidance
relative to People Management
• Maximizing efficiency and effectiveness through best service
delivery model/offerings to clients;
• Maximizing technology to enable manager and employee selfservice based on common processes and standardized systems
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The Government of Canada Workplace in
2015 and Beyond
Some trends across organizations:
• Explore new service delivery models
• Use of modern technology to do business
• Common business processes
• Moving towards a 21st Century Organization
– Clear mission and longer-term goals
– Faster decision making and quicker “reaction time”
– Close linkages to partners inside and outside government
– Intelligent People Management - Clear performance expectations5
The Government of Canada Workforce in
2015 and Beyond
• Leaner and more agile workforce
• Diversity and bilingualism continue to be valued
• Added core value of Stewardship
Some emerging skills to support a high performing workforce:
– Versatile and agile
– Innovative
– Results-focused, productive, efficient
– Responsive: Embrace change and transformation
– Leveraging technology better
– Stronger communication
– Values-based leadership
– Analysis / Policy focus
6
Where Were We
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Collective Staffing and Recruitment Programs
4
Legend:
_____ = Current state _____ = Expected 3 year state _____ = Optimal state
* 2010 results of an HR community focus group
Manager Perceptions
• HR professionals are focused
on transactions and not strategic
advice
• Not a productive relationship
between managers and HR
• Unclear responsibilities /
expectations between managers
and HR
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Building the HR Capacity to get there…
• Common HR business processes as the foundation
• Explore new service delivery models and modern
technologies
• Moving towards generic work descriptions and
competencies for the HR Community
• Other essentials:
– Values
– Relationships
– Competences
8
Common HR Business Processes
• In 2006/07, the Government of Canada leveraged global best
practices to initiate the design of common human resources
business processes, in an effort to:
–
–
–
–
Streamline and simplify
Address inconsistencies
Address unnecessary costs
Improve HR service delivery
• Being implemented across departments; foundational to the
Government of Canada’s vision of HR service delivery.
• Implemented across departments by March 2014.
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Enhancing the Service Delivery Model
• With a foundation of common HR business processes in place,
the Government of Canada is exploring modern HR service
delivery models to further:
– Reduce costs
– Enable efficiencies and productivity
• To date, the Government of Canada has centralized Pension
services and are in the process of centralizing Pay/Compensation
services.
• More work is underway to find efficiencies through modern
service delivery models.
– Focus on automation
– Leverage modern IT tools and Systems
10
HR Generic Work Descriptions and
Competencies
• Getting the right people, at the right time, with the right skills
continues to be critical to strengthening our HR Capacity
Generic Work Descriptions
Work ascribed to a given occupational
group and level within an organizational
context
Drivers
• Foundation for HR
community development
• Support and enable HR to
manage their careers
• Facilitate hiring the right
people
•Business needs
•Service delivery
Community Competencies
Observable skills, abilities, and/or
knowledge defined in terms of
behaviours needed for successful job
performance
• Normalize performance
expectations across HR
community
• Supports retention
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Other Essentials
• Values
– Values drive culture and shape behaviour and beliefs of members. HR
needs to establish its values.
– Clearly establish and act on desired organizational values (e.g. client
service, results oriented, etc.)
• Relationships
– Should be meaningful, active and produce results (should exist beyond
law or policy)
– Ensure key relationships are based on trust and credibility (HR vs.
Managers; Management vs. Unions)
• Competence
– HR needs to understand its role and play it confidently
– Understand, accept and be accountable for expectations
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Look Beyond Legislation
• In 2003, the GoC made significant changes to the legislative
framework for human resources management.
• The foundation is in place for good people management, but the
results have not come as quickly as desired.
• A 5-year review of the legislative changes highlighted that successful
people management goes beyond the legislation:
–
–
–
–
Strengthen values to shape the culture and behaviours
Focus on building relationships, not forcing them
Ensure clear expectations and responsibilities are in place for all
Make sure the wiring (infrastructure) is in place to enable success
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Moving Towards Our Vision
Enabling
Technology
Automated transactions; managers and employees able to selfserve. Same system across the PS. “We know our employees.”
HR Data
Common
Processes
Each organization does things the same way.
HR Data
Streamlined
Policy Suite
Policies are simplified and standardized
HR Data
HR Workforce
Professionalization
HR professionals provide value-added advice and services
linked to business objectives.
HR Data
HR Enterprise
Model
HR business is delivered efficiently, effectively and consistently
across the GoC.
Growing partnership between HR and Managers
A culture shift is underway
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Questions?
Thank you!
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