Bad Structure

A few weeks back the Chief Clerk of the Privy Council stated one of her priorities is to make the Canadian Public Service a healthier place to work.

If you are unaware, the Chief Clerk is the top public servant in Canada, all this will make more sense with this crucial bit of info.

Canada has a well compensated Public Service. However, a lot of people end up on stress leave, a much higher ratio than in most private companies. The Chief Clerk wants to fix this. Unfortunately, I have not heard anyone address the real problem.

I have made some basic assumptions in this argument. First, when people start a position, they want to do a good job. Second, people want to contribute to the organization's success.  I think most people approach their work life from this position and the Public Service is full of people like this. These may be the people that end up stressed out and on leave.

The problem isn't the people, it's the structure. The people doing the work and the people approving the work are not properly lined up. Because of scandal, mismanagement, bad press, and an inability to lead properly, in many offices the person doing the work is several levels lower in the organization than the person approving the work. National Defence Headquarters has this problem as well.

In the normal course of a well functioning organization, your boss approves your work, full stop. In very exceptional circumstances, your bosses boss approves the work. It should never go higher than that, ever.

The big bureaucratic machine that provides services to Canadian does not operate like this.

It is not unusual for work to go up three or four levels for approval. This is wrong.

When a task is needed, the person who will be approving the task should look around at the direct reports and assign the work. If they do not have the time, they should look at what they are doing. If they are too busy vetting the work of the people below them, there is the problem. They shouldn't be vetting work, they should be approving work.

Think about it, if a task comes down through four levels, the original intent will probably be distorted. As the draft work goes up, it will get vetted and tweaked. After all, if you don't add anything to it, why are you looking at it. Then it will get to the top and finally approved. However, the person who completed the bulk of the work will not see their work be successful and will not receive good feedback on how it could be better next time. With all this, frustration ensues.

Now, if you are pretty good at your job and you get promoted, you more to a position where you don't create and you don't approve. You are really just a cog on a wheel. That will cause you to feel ineffective.

The Public Service suffers from the same problem that every other organization tends to suffer from. The people at the top got there through the existing system and they rose through it so, why can't everyone else be successful in this system.

The stats show people can't. 

The Public Service needs a major overhaul. Responsibility needs to be moved down the organization chart or work assignments need to move up. If a public servant is doing the work, his boss must be the final approving authority of the work.

All this will make public servants feel like they contribute to the organization. They will get effective feedback and grow in their positions. The organization will become streamlined as tasks can be assigned and completed very quickly. Who knows, they may be able to get more done with less people.

If you want to make an employee happy, give them the authority and freedom to make decisions and get their job done, with the support for unusual situations. Yes there will be mistakes, but that's ok. As long as they are not always the same mistakes, we can live with that as it may well be cheaper than paying people to vet other people's work and not approve anything.