Mental Health Crisis in the Public Service

In today's Ottawa Citizen, there is an article on the Federal Public Service and the doubling in mental health disability claims between 1991 and 2007 and its impact on productivity and innovation in the public service. Mental health disability claims now make up 45% of all disability claims in the Federal public service.

The following is an extract from the article:

It’s an affliction among the country’s nurses, teachers, police, military and bureaucrats at all levels of government, undermining innovation, productivity, quality of service, policy-making and even the relevance of our democratic institutions, said Bill Wilkerson, founder of Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health.

Stress, burnout and depression is evident in all workplaces, especially in times of economic turmoil. But few employers have as profound a problem as the federal public service where the health effects of mental distress has been termed an epidemic.

“The public service is a tsunami of distractions — meetings, everything questioned, delegated, people moving … and no one is really in charge,” said Wilkerson. “It’s the most transient, fluid, unsettling work environment on the planet, so why wouldn’t people be anxious and in distress? They are human beings.”

The public service is heading into uncertain times. Speculation is rife that the public service will be the first place the Harper government turns when wrestling with the deficit. There are rumblings of changing or cutting public servants’ pension and benefits plans.

But Wilkerson argued the big savings will come by reforming management in the public service, which will go a long way to reducing disability claims. He said the across-the-board cuts that government’s typically resort to will only eat into the public service’s productivity.

“Pension reform and benefit reconstruction will not save the government money until it creates a work environment that protects mental health and the disabling effects of job stress and depressive disorder. Depression is the public health crisis in the government of Canada. Period.”

Similarly, he called the government’s so-called renewal of the public service, largely aimed at hiring new recruits, a “vision without hope” unless it focuses on improving the work environment. Instead of getting at problems with management, the government has hired thousands of new young workers and placed them in a toxic environment.

Wilkerson singled out two major trends that are crippling the public service. The biggest is the rapid and high turnover of people bouncing from job to job.

“The churn is remarkable, like a ship at sea casting about in turbulent waves and cascading until one day it tips over and sinks.”

A symptom of this is public servants’ obsession with delegating tasks until no one is really knows who is responsible for what. He said stories abound of revolving-door managers who are oblivious to how their behaviour affects others.

What’s needed is a cultural overhaul that brings back “human relations, not labour relations,” said Wilkerson. That means treating people fairly, with respect, giving them authority and fulfilling jobs. Without these basics, people “ruminate” and seethe — the key indicator to stress and depression, Wilkerson said.

So what do you think? Is Mr. Wilkerson correct and does his analysis also pertain to the provincial, territorial and municipal public services?

Preparing the next Generation of Public Servants

I was having a conversation a few days ago about what kind of skill sets governments are seeking when they are recruiting public servants and what recent employees are saying that they need in terms of skills.

In my years in government I worked in different areas - policy development, program management, operations and financial/fiscal policy. I wanted to have a fully rounded experience in government and was lucky enough to work in different areas and ministries. Having worked most of my career at the Ministry of Finance (Treasury Board, Fiscal Policy) I was always surprised by the lack of financial understanding in some key areas. I was always of the view that a fully fleshed out policy document had to have a robust financial analysis (and these days the full detail of the accounting issues involved - don't you just love PSAB!). But too many times, policy documents were developed without a full understanding of the financial impacts.

Which brings me to what some recent MPA graduates said in a survey that was part of a research paper sponsored by the Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA) and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS). The respondents to this survey noted the need for more practical education and that there should be more senior practitioners as instructors. They would have like to have been exposed to real life examples of briefing notes, cabinet submissions/ memorandum to cabinet and treasury board submissions.

As well, they would have wanted greater exposure to actual governmental processes such as budget & estimates and central agency and cabinet approval processes. They also commented that it would have been good to have greater exposure to financial management, government accounting, project management and HR management. Finally they recommended that real life public policy/administration case studies be used to complement the theoretical course work.

Well what can I say! Are schools of public administration & policy listening to this feedback? I hope so! And to those schools and to governments I want to underscore that IPAC which brings together academics and practitioners has a well developed case study program that we are in the process of revitalizing. We have over 150 cases in public administration and policy & we are in the process of refreshing these cases, developing new cases and we will soon launch a new case study website. Stay tuned for more in this early in the new year.

Recruiting New Talent

The October 31st issue of the Economist has an interesting article entitled "Public Service Careers: A tough search for talent" that looks at the on-coming demographic problems that Western countries face in revitalizing their respective public services.

The article references an OECD survey showing that at least 30% of central-government workers were 50 years of age or older and that due to generous early retirement provisions, many of these workers would. be retiring in the near future. In Canada the proportion of Federal government employees over 50 years of age has grown from 20% in 1995 to 33% in 2005 according to this survey.

The new way of working - in a networked government with policy issues that cut across government departments and across governments - means that the skill set that governments look for are different than in the past. As well, government is no longer the sole source of information and ideas. A multitude of think tanks and NGO's have carved out a significant role in policy development in the Western world and government policy shops have to work and also compete with them.

At the same time that governments are focused on recruiting new talent and on developing programs and supports for new professionals, they should not forget that the next cadre of public sector leaders will come from those who have been in the service for 10 or so years (the Generation X-ers who are in the 30's and early 40's).