Chapter 5

Management of staffing in departments and agencies

5.1   This chapter presents the Public Service Commission's (PSC) assessment of organizational performance in staffing, along with specific examples of noteworthy organizational practices. The Staffing Management Accountability Framework (SMAF) serves as the basis of the PSC's assessment of organizations' management of their delegated appointment authorities. The SMAF sets out elements necessary for a well-managed appointment system. The elements in the SMAF are of two types: key success factors and outcomes. Good performance in the key success factors should be a predictor that an organization will achieve the outcomes intended by the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA), that is the management expectations of flexibility and efficiency, the core values of merit and non-partisanship and the PSC's guiding values of representativeness, fairness, transparency and access.

5.2   The focus of this chapter is organizational performance in the four key success factors. The chapter also reports on efficiency as measured by the time it takes to staff positions. The PSC's assessment of performance with respect to the core and guiding values is presented in Chapter 3.

Assessment methodology

5.3   Critical elements of the PSC's annual assessment of organizational staffing performance are PSC operational statistics, investigation results and organizational self-reporting via the Departmental Staffing Accountability Reports (DSAR). This was the first year the assessments also included results from the PSC's Survey of Staffing. The PSC's goal in assessing organizational performance is to ensure that deputy heads are appropriately using their delegated authorities, respecting the core and guiding values and monitoring and adjusting their organizational practices and processes to ensure ongoing improvement.

5.4   The PSC assesses all organizations against the key success factors. For indicators based on quantitative measures, the PSC uses a risk management approach to reduce reporting burden and to ensure an effective use of resources. Based on quantitative measures, the PSC targets the 40% of organizations with weaker performance.

5.5   In their DSARs, organizations are required to answer specific questions about their performance and respond to any concerns and recommendations raised by the PSC in previous years. If the PSC's analysis of statistics indicates areas of concern, organizations are also required to provide the PSC with additional information for further analysis.

5.6   In assessing organizational performance, the PSC assigns four possible ratings:

• Strong performance (consistent with assessment requirements plus innovative or noteworthy practices);
• Acceptable performance (generally consistent with the assessment criteria);
• Opportunities for improvement (some assessment criteria are met); and
• Requires attention (key assessment criteria are not met).

5.7   Organizational performance results are used for a variety of purposes. Results are designed as an "early warning system" and are shared with departments and agencies with the goal of improving staffing within those organizations.

5.8   Results are also used in the development of the PSC's audit plan. Typically, the PSC's audit plan focuses on organizations with weaker performance and therefore the audits have a higher likelihood of revealing issues. During PSC audits, more detailed evidence is obtained through on-site visits, file reviews and interviews to ascertain the organization's level of compliance with the PSEA, regulations and policies. The overall assessment of the staffing system, presented in Chapter 3, considers and integrates the results from all oversight activities.

5.9   Results from the annual performance assessment are also shared with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat for inclusion in organizations' overall Management Accountability Framework assessment. The results of the best- and worst-performing organizations are shared with the Committee of Senior Officials for consideration in the performance appraisals of deputy heads.

Scope of assessment

5.10  In 2009-2010, 84 Appointment Delegation and Accountability Instruments (ADAIs) were in place between the PSC and the departments and agencies subject to the PSEA. The PSC assessed the staffing performance of 77 of these organizations. Six organizations were subject to a less formal assessment process because they were newly created. One organization was not assessed as it was under file review following an audit.

5.11  Performance results are presented for each of the key success factors based on the assessment results of 51 small, medium and large organizations.³¹ Assessments were conducted for all micro organizations but were excluded as these organizations account for only 0.5% of the public service population and 0.6% of the staffing activity. Excluding the micro organizations from the results provides a more realistic picture of the performance of the staffing system overall.

Overall assessment of key success factors

5.12  Figure 8 provides an overview of how the federal public service performed against the key success factors over the last three years, based on an aggregate average score across the four factors. For 2009-2010, the PSC assessment revealed that approximately 60% of organizations were assessed with "acceptable" or "strong performance" and close to 40% were assessed as "opportunities for improvement" or "requires attention". Overall, these findings represent an improvement over the results reported for fiscal year 2008-2009.

5.13  The results also revealed that a few organizations are performing at the two extremes of the rating scale, with approximately 4% of organizations assessed as "strong performance" and approximately 8% as "requires attention". Organizations whose performance was assessed as less than acceptable will need to particularly focus on responding to the PSC's recommendations in the coming year.

5.14  The PSC also found that medium-sized organizations were more likely to have less than acceptable performance, while large and small organizations were assessed with better performance: 8 of 22 large organizations (36%), 7 of 13 medium-sized organizations (54%) and 5 of 16 small organizations (31%) were rated as either "opportunity for improvement" or "requires attention". The main areas where organizations had greater difficulty in meeting expectations related to planning for staffing and monitoring of results.

Figure 8 — Key success factors for all organizations (excluding those with less than 100 employees)

Figure 8 long description

Source: Public Service Commission Staffing Management Accountability Framework assessment results

Note: Previous years' results have been revised to reflect the new methodology in this Annual Report. Statistics are not comparable with the 2008-2009 or the 2007-2008 Annual Report.

Delegation of staffing to deputy heads

5.15  Last year, the PSC reported that most organizations had set up frameworks to monitor their delegated authorities. In 2009-2010, the PSC expected organizations to provide evidence that they were using the frameworks to monitor staffing activity and report the results of the monitoring to senior management. In 2009-2010, 65% of organizations were assessed as having either "strong" or "acceptable" performance for this factor, as they had implemented formal monitoring of the use of sub-delegated authorities.

5.16  Approximately one-third of organizations, however, are not fully using the frameworks to report on results to senior management or address issues identified in the monitoring exercise. Organizations with "acceptable" performance are addressing the deficiencies by providing additional training to managers, by adjusting organizational policies (e.g. limiting the use of non-advertised processes), as well as by revising or developing new staffing tools. Certain organizations have limited the authority of managers who have not demonstrated sound judgment when staffing.

Imposing conditions on delegation

5.17  The PSC uses a number of oversight tools, including audits, to ensure that deputy heads exercise their delegated authorities properly and adhere to the PSEA. Depending on the conclusions of its audits, the PSC may provide an organization with recommendations for improving their staffing practices and ensuring compliance with legislative and policy requirements.

5.18  When audits find serious issues, the PSC may decide to place conditions or limitations on an organization's ADAI. These conditions or limitations depend on the severity of the audit findings and may range from requiring additional reporting, to restricting the deputy head's authority to sub-delegate within their organization, to removing delegated authorities, either partially or completely.

5.19  In 2009-2010, several public service organizations were operating with additional conditions or restrictions on their staffing activities. Appendix 3 identifies the details of the conditions or restrictions added to their ADAIs.

5.20  As a result of a Follow-Up Audit of the Office of the Correctional Investigator completed in 2008-2009, all restrictions and additional conditions were removed from its ADAI in August 2009.

Planning for staffing and monitoring of results

5.21  The PSC's assessment of this key success factor considers staffing performance from two perspectives:

• Planning for staffing and the identification of organizational staffing priorities and associated staffing strategies; and
• Monitoring of staffing results and a comparison of actual staffing activities and planned staffing strategies in order to make necessary adjustments for improvement.

5.22  Given the importance of these activities, and the differing level of performance in these two areas, the results are presented separately to highlight where attention is required.

5.23  Planning for staffing priorities and strategies — Organizations must demonstrate to the PSC that they have established staffing priorities and the associated staffing strategies. Figure 9 below illustrates that approximately 63% of organizations demonstrated either "strong" or "acceptable performance" in this area, an improvement from the previous year when only 47% of organizations had "acceptable performance". There was an increase in "acceptable performance" due in part to organizations putting greater effort into creating meaningful staffing plans and priorities.

Figure 9 — Planning for staffing priorities and strategies (excluding organizations with less than 100 employees)

Figure 9 long description

Source: Public Service Commission Staffing Management Accountability Framework assessment results

Note: Previous years' results have been revised to reflect the new methodology in this Annual Report. Statistics are not comparable with the 2008-2009 or the 2007-2008 Annual Report.

5.24  While organizations continue to improve their performance with respect to staffing priorities and strategies, 37% (19 organizations) still had less than "acceptable performance". Most of these organizations have identified staffing priorities that have been approved by senior management but generally do not have clearly defined staffing strategies directly linked to all the staffing priorities. Many failed to set out measurable expected results or performance indicators.

5.25  The number of organizations assessed as "requires attention" remains high at 25.5% or 13 organizations. An additional concern is that, if organizations have not established staffing priorities and strategies, they will not be able to communicate them to managers, employees and employee representatives.

5.26  Monitoring of staffing results — In 2009-2010, the PSC has continued to raise its expectations with respect to monitoring as organizations have developed their capacity. The PSC requires organizations to provide evidence demonstrating that they compare actual staffing activities to planned staffing strategies. To achieve at least acceptable performance in this area, staffing strategies need to be sufficiently developed to enable a comparison to actual activities.

5.27  Three years after the PSC set out expectations with respect to monitoring, 37% of organizations demonstrated "acceptable performance". However, as Figure 10 demonstrates, over half of organizations continue to have ratings of either "opportunities for improvement" (8%) or "requires attention" (55%).

Figure 10 — Monitoring of staffing results (excluding organizations with less than 100 employees)

Figure 10 long description

Source: Public Service Commission Staffing Management Accountability Framework assessment results

Note: Previous years' results have been revised to reflect the new methodology in this Annual Report. Statistics are not comparable with the 2008-2009 or the 2007-2008 Annual Report.

5.28  Most of the organizations rated as "requires attention" have no system in place to compare actual outcomes to planned outcomes and no information on which to base recommendations to senior management.

5.29  Developing efficient staffing systems will enable organizations to plan and implement effective staffing approaches in line with the core and guiding values and improve their staffing performance and overall operational effectiveness.

Organizational human resources support systems

5.30  As a condition of the ADAI, organizations must ensure that sub-delegated managers have access to staffing advisors who have passed the PSC's Appointment Framework Knowledge Test (AFKT), thereby demonstrating knowledge of the legislative and policy framework for staffing in the public service. The PSC requires that at least 80% of staffing advisors in small, medium and large organizations have completed the AFKT. Further, organizations must ensure that staffing advisors participate in continuous learning about staffing.

5.31  Nearly all organizations (96%) were able to demonstrate that their staffing advisors had participated in continuous learning. The PSC noted that only five large organizations and one medium organization did not meet the objective of having 80% of staffing advisors successfully complete the AFKT. In most cases, the staffing advisors were participating in developmental programs, or the organizations were actively working to ensure that the advisors obtained the necessary learning.

5.32  Based on the PSC's Survey of Staffing — Managers: 2008-2009, 90.5% of managers reported that they were satisfied "to some extent" (43.6%) or "to a great extent" (46.9%) with the quality of the staffing services provided. One in ten managers (9.5%) responded that they were "not at all" satisfied with the quality of the staffing services provided. Organizations where managers were less satisfied with the HR services are expected to monitor the situation and implement strategies to address the issues. The PSC will continue to monitor results, including deputy head commitments, in this area.

Organizational accountability for results

5.33  As part of the ADAI, deputy heads are expected to comply with the PSC's reporting requirements, to collaborate with other PSC oversight requirements such as audits, investigations and studies, and to make improvements where deficiencies are identified. As part of the PSC's annual assessment of organizations' staffing performance, the PSC expects organizations to respond to PSC recommendations made in previous years and to demonstrate improvement with respect to all recommendations.

5.34  The PSC closely monitors actions taken and results achieved in follow-up to its recommendations. Last year, the assessment of organizational accountability in terms of responding to recommendations from the PSC was reported in combination with the assessment of how organizations compared their staffing results with their planned staffing strategies and whether they took the necessary action. This year, the PSC is reporting on organizations' performance in response to PSC recommendations separately from other indicators.

Figure 11 — Organizational accountability for results — implementation of PSC recommendations by organizations (excluding those with less than 100 employees)

Figure 11 long description

Source: Public Service Commission Staffing Management Accountability Framework assessment results

Note: Previous years' results have been revised to reflect the new methodology in this Annual Report. Statistics are not comparable with the 2008-2009 or the 2007-2008 Annual Report.

5.35  Of the 51 small, medium and large organizations assessed in 2009-2010, 49 had received recommendations following the PSC's previous assessment of staffing performance. As illustrated in Figure 11, the percent of organizations with "acceptable performance" in implementing the PSC's recommendations increased from approximately 41% in 2008-2009 to 51% in 2009-2010.

5.36  This year's assessment revealed that 24 of the 49 organizations responded to and demonstrated improvement with respect to all of the recommendations received from the PSC and 21 organizations responded to and demonstrated improvement with respect to at least half of the recommendations. Four organizations acted on less than half of the PSC's recommendations, or acted on at least half of the recommendations but were unable to demonstrate improvement.

5.37  However, the PSC also observed that it has made the same recommendation to 12 organizations for the third consecutive year with respect to planning for staffing and monitoring results. The PSC has drawn this to the attention of the respective deputy heads and emphasized the importance of addressing the PSC's recommendations. The PSC will continue to monitor the progress of organizations in these areas.

Top performers

5.38  The results of the PSC's annual monitoring process reveal that the staffing system is operating as intended by the PSEA. Close to two-thirds of organizations have acceptable overall performance with respect to the key success factors and outcomes of the SMAF. While 11 organizations were assessed as having "opportunities for improvement" at the overall level, the 2009-2010 assessment revealed three organizations with "strong" performance without any areas needing attention. These organizations are considered top performers.

Source: Public Service Commission Staffing Management Accountability Framework assessment results

Efficiency and time to staff

5.39  In its last two annual reports, the PSC has focussed on time to staff as a measure of the efficiency of the staffing system. Based on its annual Survey of Staffing, which collects information from hiring managers across the public service, the PSC found that the average time to staff indeterminate advertised positions during the period October 2007 to September 2008 was 23.5 weeks.³²

5.40  This year, the PSC's analysis of the Survey of Staffing results revealed that there has been a significant reduction in the time required to staff collective indeterminate advertised processes, with the average time to staff these processes decreasing from 27.4 weeks in the period October 2007 to September 2008 to 24.7 weeks in the period October 2008 to September 2009 (see Table 14).³³ The overall time to staff indeterminate advertised positions has remained relatively stable, at 23.5 weeks during the period October 2007 to September 2008 and 23.0 weeks during the period from October 2008 to September 2009. The time required for non-advertised indeterminate processes remained relatively stable, averaging 13 weeks in both survey periods.

5.41  Despite the improvements that have been made, especially with respect to collective processes, the PSC believes that there is considerable potential for organizations and individual managers to further reduce the time required to staff within the existing legislative and policy frameworks. Management commitment, a strong project management approach and effective human resources support and services can all contribute to achieving efficiencies at the various steps in the staffing process.

Source: Survey of Staffing — Managers: 2007-2008 and 2008-2009

¹ The measure of time to staff is defined as the total elapsed time between when a staffing request form is completed until the appointee first reported for their new position. The observations included are indeterminate appointments for which time to staff was between 1 to 120 weeks. The data used for these calculations are unweighted.

Potential for further progress

5.42  The PSC believes that potential for further progress will require improvements in the success factors identified earlier in this chapter. Organizational and managerial efforts are needed at all stages of the process to improve planning, take a project management approach and ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place. Clear roles and responsibilities as well as good communications and relationships between managers and their HR advisors are also critical to achieving greater efficiencies.

5.43  In its 2008-2009 Annual Report, the PSC reported on its Extreme Hiring Makeover pilot. Over the past year, the PSC has continued to apply the concepts from the pilot when providing staffing services to organizations. The pilot demonstrated that significant reductions in time to staff can be achieved when both the hiring managers and HR advisors use a project management approach and are firmly committed to the agreed-upon deliverables and timelines. Continual communication with job seekers is also recommended. While the pilot completed an external hiring process in 45 days (from advertisement to offers of appointment), the PSC recognizes that other circumstances will impact on the overall timelines, such as responding to requests for accommodation, arranging for security clearances and, in the case of internal appointments, notifying candidates of appointment decisions and conducting informal discussions.

5.44  As other jurisdictions are doing (see Exhibit 4), the PSC will be encouraging organizations to establish their own benchmarks for time to staff to reflect their own operational requirements. To support organizations, the PSC will also make available to them the necessary data to set appropriate benchmarks as well as monitor performance.

Exhibit 4: Benchmarks for time to staff in the United States

Source: Office of Personnel Management 2009 Annual Performance Report

Collective staffing processes

5.45  Collective staffing processes are typically used when there are multiple similar positions to fill. The hiring managers may be in the same organization, across federal organizations, or across Canada. Given the size of the processes, collective staffing typically require more up-front efforts in planning and require greater effort throughout the process to coordinate managers and arrive at staffing decisions. Such processes generally result in greater numbers of applicants, impacting on the quantity of résumés to screen, testing and interviews. However, by working together, managers can share costs, administrative support, staffing knowledge and assessment tools.

5.46  Based on information of internal staffing processes from Publiservice, in 2009-2010, organizations continued to make increasing use of the collective staffing processes.³⁴ The PSC estimates that approximately 31% of all internal advertised staffing processes are considered collective processes. This is an increase from 25% in 2008-2009.

5.47  Organizations tended to use collective processes most frequently for the Purchasing and Supply and Program Administration occupational groups. Collective processes are also used to staff positions in the Administrative Services occupational group and tend to take the shortest time. These groups are considered prime candidates for collective processes because the merit criteria are likely to be consistent across a number of positions. Distinct processes tended to be used most often to staff positions in the Executive Group.

5.48  In 2009-2010, the PSC conducted an evaluation of PSC-led pools as well as an Audit of Appointments from Collective Staffing Processes to gain further insight into these staffing strategies. The findings from these two studies identified noteworthy practices and conditions for success that also support previous conclusions, such as: strong HR planning and project management are necessary for efficient management of the process; collective processes can be successful in suitable situations (e.g. entry-level positions with high similarity between positions); formation of a unit specifically tasked to manage collective processes is beneficial; and clear roles and responsibilities, good communication and effective relationships with HR advisors are critical.

5.49  To realize the benefits of collective staffing, organizations and managers need to put efforts into up-front planning, identifying essential and asset qualifications and putting in place effective HR support systems. Managers require a good understanding of the resourcing needs and the flexibilities inherent in the definition of merit in order to determine essential and asset criteria and their impact on assessment processes and tools.

5.50  Ensuring that employees understand the use of collective processes and the parameters of any resulting pools is also necessary. If pools remain active for too long, as shown in Chapter 3, they may negatively impact on candidates' perceptions of fairness and the opportunities for other qualified candidates to apply for positions as they become available. When used appropriately, additional time and effort involved in up-front planning are offset by the advantages of filling several positions or creating pools to readily fill future positions as vacancies become available.

Endnotes

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