This weekend I took some time to read through The Clerk of the Privy Council’s Action Plan for ‘renewing’ the public service and I have only one thing to say: let’s get on with it!

Isn’t it obvious from the chuckles, eye-rolling and downright mean things that people say about gov folks that changes are critical?! As our  senior most manager in the public service, Mr. Wouters is the person who could actually make change happen. Here’s what I think needs to change.

What would a “renewed” public service look like?

Typically, to create a performance framework, one must decide what success looks like. To me, a ‘renewed’ public service is an organization where people have the confidence and support to come up with and share ideas about how to work smarter, and the authority and capacity to turn these ideas into actions. People would have interesting job packages; that are challenging yet rewarding and suit each person’s skills and personality. Diverse skillsets, viewpoints, personalities, ethnicities and abilities would be present. It’s one where the approvals process adds value to the work that working level staff are doing. People would feel safe to ask questions, critique or have concerns addressed.

It means a professionalization of the public service – one where multiple, focused career paths are available, and people do not have to become managers to have an increase in salary. It’s an organization that compensates employees based on results and performance, as well as experience and ability to work together.

It’s a place where people trust and respect each other, and learn from failure and try to constantly improve, rather than fear or judge it or worse; use it as an excuse to continue to operate in ways that no longer make sense to anybody. Teams would be fluid and light on their feet – people would work on projects based on their interests, expertise, and time available and possibly move on to other projects when the need for their skill set has passed. At least some people in any organization would be responsible for working on government-wide initiatives and communicating these within their home departments.

The office would not be drab, grey, uninspiring cubicles (ok, maybe some would be) but it would include collaborative spaces, where couches, chairs & tables, white boards, markers, flip charts, electrical outlets and wi-fi provide space for people to work together. Use of online conferencing tools (like WebX, Skype) would be encouraged and available from the office and through a secure channel. Every boardroom would have these tools to conference in regional colleagues, or those working from home or another location. Public servants would live all over Canada – not just in the National Capital Region or major urban centres. Cycling, jogging and telecommuting would be the norm and showers would be available nearby.

Innovation would be encouraged. There would be a criteria and processes in place to objectively evaluate new ideas, and new ideas would flow in to this special office from front liners, senior managers, private citizens and industry.  Those with the best chance of success and impact for taxpayers would be attempted, supported by adequate resources just like William Eggers writes. Agile methodology would be applied: products and approaches would be built, tested, then expanded at a reasonable risk to reward ratio.  Everyone would be encouraged to try small, fail small, and build on (and share) what they learned.

Communication would be honest, open, frequent and motivating. Transparency would be the status quo, data and information would be provided proactively, not in response to cumbersome and costly Access to Information requests. People inside and outside the government could easily find out what was going on at any given point. The process for making decisions would be defined and success factors would be decided in advance and considered when making decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of.

This is what I envision when I think of a slick new efficient and effective public service. We can achieve great strides in this direction. We already have. And that’s what will make the public service a workplace of choice for the best and brightest in this country.