bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1997) — Summer 1997 // Été 1997, pp. 4–5
by Marie A. Stamp
Once upon a time, or so the story goes, being a member of Canada’s Foreign Service was its own reward. In those golden years, passing the Foreign Service Exam held a mystique akin to receiving a peerage: the recipient, having grasped the key to the gates of high society and privilege, bore the honour of his grave responsibilities with grace and magnanimity, confident his distinguished and important service to the nation would be well-rewarded. And they all lived happily ever after.
The reality is that more and more of the work of the Foreign Service is done inside windowless cubes in not-very exotic Ottawa, and as many FS-Is have learned in their introductory years, much of it is shared with non-Foreign Service colleagues. Those same colleagues are better paid, travel more, gain specialised knowledge, have more mobility across Departments, can compete for promotions, can still be posted abroad, and are psychologically unencumbered by the archaic performance review process.
For many new recruits, most of whom accepted substantially lower salaries to join DFAIT, this unexpected realization has been sobering. Many are asking themselves: are there better international careers than what the “traditional” Foreign Service can offer? Is “rotationality” really worth it? About thirty-three FS-1s (including one Immigration officer) will take their first posting this summer, and most expect the experience abroad to answer those questions.
In response to a brief survey of FS-1 attitudes and expectations of their first posting* nearly 80% of respondents said they expected it would help them make up their minds about how long they would remain dedicated to this career. It seems many believe a foreign posting will make them more marketable than ever.
“I expect to gain an understanding of government’s role in promoting Canadian business abroad and facilitating export development, particularly for SMEs, as well as of the business community’s needs and expectations. I also want to gain an understanding of the context and realities of doing business in a developing country, the development of trade policy, and situating trade objectives in a larger relational framework….
The attitude of most of those polled suggests they believe they are undervalued by their current employer, since most expect the posting experience to increase their value in the labour market. FS-ls expect they will have other options, it not other offers upon completion of their posting, and most (61%), say they would consider requesting Leave Without Pay to try their luck elsewhere. Only 16% said they had no intention of looking anywhere else on their return.
How did so many new recruits get so blasé? Most start out pretty keen, despite the lower wages. The majority (78%) claimed that they accepted the lower salary when they came to work at DFAIT because they expected the experience would be worth it, and nearly all have benefited from great opportunities for professional development and travel (such as second-language or foreign-language training, the Foreign Service Institute, and a cross-Canada tour). In casual conversations, most seem to be enthusiastic and energetic, and claim that the work is challenging and enjoyable. Nonetheless, a surprising 45% of those answering the survey indicated that their career expectations thus far have been largely or somewhat frustrated. Clearly, many think they can do better.
While most FS-1s certainly came to work here with their eyes open, many expected quicker improvements in salary and a better system of personnel management. While half of survey respondents agreed that making do on their starting salary (about $32,000 per year) was among the most frustrating things about being an FS-1, a slightly greater number (62%) put the bureaucracy (including the seeming unfairness of the posting process and performance appraisals) on their list of top frustrations of their pre-posting years. The list of disappointments also includes heavy work demands, management attitudes and insufficient recognition for knowledge and experience gained elsewhere. Half agreed they would not work as hard for the same salary if they did not have the chance to be posted abroad.
An important characteristic of these new diplomats-in-waiting is their age. Nearly 70% of those who responded to the survey are between 30 and 40 years old. This group has had other, better-paid work experience, and these officers are already well-travelled and multilingual (55% speak more than two languages). From this perspective, a stint in the foreign service may be just a stepping-stone, not a career but a job like any other. This is a group that may not share previous generations’ expectations of a career for life, and they are old enough to know there is no “happily-ever-after” at DFAIT or anywhere else. But it’s precisely from this perspective that it’s tough to accept DFAIT’s conditions: you have no opportunity to compete for a promotion even if you’re ready for it, additional responsibilities are not compensated with “acting pay”, and — although families are expected to make do on one salary for years at a time — that salary is scarcely enough to support a family while in Ottawa. If the current review of Foreign Service Directives results in any decrease in compensation, that one salary may not be enough to support a family abroad either.
“I expect my posting to be the defining factor of my career in the Foreign Service. Although pay is a factor, I think that interesting work and the chance to live abroad make up to a large degree for the lack of monetary incentive. However, when I have a family, both the pay and the efforts to accommodate spouse and children will be much more influential factors, as I don’t know if I could afford to keep this job if I had more personal responsibilities….”
Forty year-olds feel they have paid their dues, are ready for management responsibilities and expect to afford a family life, a mortgage and a car. A younger person or a single person can more easily afford to be a Foreign Service Officer. So the question is, could a multilingual, highly-trained forty year-old with substantial work experience abroad do better for him/herself than the $38,000 per year he/she will be probably be earning on return to Ottawa? Many FS-1s seem to think so. Between January and May 1997, seven — most of whom had one posting behind them — left the Department to find challenges elsewhere. This is a question the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration will need to address to in order to avert a fundamental crisis in human resources in the years ahead.
Perhaps we Foreign Service Officers are slightly prone to overstating our potential opportunities, and perhaps the number of us who would actually take advantage of them are smaller still — there’s a topic for another author and another survey — but what of it? The Government may be unconcerned about its ability to replace “defectors” from the Foreign Service. As we are often reminded, thousands of hopefuls still line up to take that multiple-choice test every year to qualify to replace those of us who move on. But those fresh troops will quickly face the same disappointments if nothing improves. Those answering our survey joined, on average, less than three years ago, yet all but one respondent claimed to have reservations about recommending the Foreign Service as a career choice today.
In that case, can our departments really afford to disregard what seems to be a growing and profound disaffection among the members of a workforce it has spent so much to recruit and train? And if so many new recruits feel this way now, what might be the mood among the FS-2 population with no hopes of promotion, and without even the right to earn “acting pay” on secondment anywhere else?
Moreover, what does this portend for the future management of DFAIT’s leadership in international affairs? If other federal departments (17 of 23 have international programs/policy divisions and 25 federal agencies or departments are involved in international business development) can offer better international careers for people with specific qualifications, for better pay, less family disruption, and more career-growth possibilities than ours, what will a small corps of resentful “generalists” have to contribute? What role will ex-Foreign Service Officers even play in “La Relève” among our own ranks? Even DFAIT’s own Trade Policy Branch (that Olympus of the elite among international traders!) is no place for generalists. The real substance in that field is for those that dedicate their careers to it, and the best and brightest on Olympus did not all take that foreign service exam way back when.
* Of the 33 officers going on their first posting this summer, only 21 were in Ottawa at the time of the survey in mid-April; 18 replies were received.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1997) — Summer 1997 // Été 1997, pp. 4–5. Read the rest of this issue →
