bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 4 (1990), p. 2
The PASO Executive and membership in Ottawa were actively involved in discussing Corporate Review both amongst ourselves, and with Management. As a result, the opinions of members were sought and passed to Management. In addition, PAFSO has formed a Working Group to meet with the Personnel Management Team on the implementation and/or negotiation of various aspects of personnel issues. Through these means, we hoped to not only protect the interests of our membership, but enhance them as well. We said to Management that we wanted to approach this whole discussion as a partnership, and we have started to find some appreciation of our point of By the time you read this the results of the Corporate Review will have been released. However, some aspects of the Corporate Review process are of continuing interest. For example, did you hear about the recommendation in the Management Consultant’s report that some of the positions at the very top of the Department should be “delayered” to provide for a more direct input of ideas to the Minister? I understand that this not-as-yet released report has been requested through Access to Information by one of the national TV networks. It should make for an interesting interview.
The Management Consultant also looked at our sort-of-matrix sort-of-management system, and he posed a very good question. If you have all these specialist staff functions like Immigration, Consular, Science and Technology, why do you then go and repeat them in the Geographic Bureaus? Good question and no good answer, so there will be pressure for some restructuring here.
My other favourite notion is that of Cost Recovery, proposed for just about everybody, as long as it is for the other guy. To give them credit, the Trade people even put an option in their paper talking about the privatization of the Trade Stream. That will not happen, but some cost recovery is being looked at. It is said that the Political Stream wanted to propose some cost recovery options, but couldn’t identify anyone who would pay. The proposal for complete cost recovery of the Immigration and Consular programs through the establishment of a Special Operating Agency (a similar set-up to that currently operating at the Passport Office) promises to be hard fought. Many Social Affairs Stream colleagues see this as a trap that will restrict them to a narrow range of jobs. However, the bonus is that they would get their own ADM.
I think that the biggest change is going to occur over the whole question of de-streaming.
As an indication of this, look at the de-streaming of the EX category, and the proposed competition for promotion to EX-1. This would take place on a streamed basis, but in the not-too-distant future will require multi-disciplinary experience to get in. Obvious point – get cross stream experience early in your career, or you will never get to the EX level.
This does raise a certain question about total de-streaming — why? I can see the need for multi-stream experience to be an effective Manager. However, I don’t at all see the need for multi-stream experience to be an effective specialist. Need a person trained in Immigration procedures be able to sell ISN telecommunications equipment to the Hungarians?
The other very interesting issue for us is the proposed restructuring of the FS group, or bifurcation as it sometimes known in learned circles. This in fact means that there would be a Professional FS group that would proceed past the current FS-2 level, as well as a parallel EX group. Managers go into the latter, specialists into the former. The main benefit would hopefully be the opening of the horrible bottleneck at the top of the FS-2 level.
Management also wants to make more grades out of the current FS-1 and 2 grades. We at PAFSO see the benefit of three grades, instead of the current two, topping out at about $70,000 – the current limit of the SM grade. The rationale for this is that many senior FS-2s do jobs as Deputy Directors or Directors which would be SM positions in any other Department. However, you should also note that this might mean that some officers would never get past the FS-l or FS-2 level – which would now top out at lower salary levels — and would be forced out of the system for economic reasons.
In any event, life after Corporate Review should, in general, be better for our members. I sense a real desire on the part of senior management to make this a better, more rewarding place to work. I also sense a commitment to getting back the pride and responsibility in one’s work that has been slowly eroding over the past few years. We on the PAFSO Executive are going to work with both our members and Management to help make it happen.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 4 (1990), p. 2. Read the rest of this issue →
