This award recognizes the leader and members of their team (at any level), who have impacted their organization through an innovative design and/or implementation of a HR project or initiative.
Recipient
HR Business Intelligence and Organizational Health team
Statistics Canada (StatCan)
Team Lead: Dr. Ann-Renée Blais, Chief Organizational Health
Team Members: Geoffrey Marshall-Catlin, James Hemeon, Dr. Gail Hepburn, Dr. Glen Howell, Sarah Johnston-Way, Noël Mozammel, Samuel Plasse, Dr. Istvan Toth-Kiraly and Margaret Warrick
From left to right, top row : Sarah Johnston-Way, Geoffrey Marshall-Catlin, Samuel Plasse, Noël Mozammel, James Hemeon
From left to right, bottom row : Ann-Renée Blais, Glen Howell, Gail Hepburn, Istvan Toth-Kiraly, Margaret Warrick
The HR Business Intelligence and Organizational Health team’s commitment and leadership is paving the way for Statistics Canada and other government departments to leverage data and research. Using advanced modelling and statistical methods, in addition to qualitative psychology and behavioural science, the team derived personas and key drivers for targeted interventions. They equipped managers with a practical toolkit based on scientific literature, so that they can take the most effective actions possible to address the results. Using cutting-edge Cloud technologies, the team also developed a HR Business Intelligence portal that provides timely information to managers and HR specialists on a variety of key indicators such as: talent and performance; equity, diversity and inclusion; executive scorecard; official languages; demographics; future of work; training; and much more. This ‘one-stop-shop’ approach has helped the organization deliver on its priorities. The team continues to work with organizations across the public service, as well as academia, to foster collaboration and partnerships that promote and support evidence-based decision-making, which ultimately improves the lives of employees.
“By putting employees at the center of their design and by leveraging state-of-the art methods, scientific rigour and cutting-edge Cloud technologies, they have developed strategies and new analytics encompassing all moments of an employee’s journey and related HR functions.”
Finalists
Classification Rationale Builder Team
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)
Team Lead: Jasmeet Singh, Team Leader, Centre of Expertise for Organizational Design and Classification
Team Members: Grace Langlois-White, Evalyna Phillip and Lawona Power
This small but mighty team has been the driving force behind the modernization of ECCC’s departmental classification program. The team leveraged the use of technology to develop a Classification Rationale Building (CRB) Tool that ultimately reduces the time it takes to classify a position, thereby positively impacting the timeliness of service delivery to clients and facilitating the evaluation process related to the ongoing classification conversion initiatives. Furthermore, the team accomplished the notable feat of designing, developing and launching the tool in just under five months. The result of their efforts has contributed to the retention of classification advisors, by reducing the administrative burden associated with the rational writing process, thus allowing them to concentrate on analysis and organizational design for clients. This innovative tool is available in both official languages, can be shared with other departments and is adaptable to include other classification standards. The team’s dedication, passion and engagement has been paramount to ECCC’s success in moving forward with this tool and has positioned the department for future success in meeting the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s conversion timeline.
“This team truly deserves credit for the commitment and initiative they have demonstrated in the design, development and launch of this innovative tool.”
Compensation Services Team
Health Canada (HC)
Team Lead: Natasha Villeneuve, Director, Compensation Services
Team Members: Sanjeda Ahmed, Nabiha Aboubaker Alwan, Vittoria Arthurs, Ikechkwu Arungwa, Darren Aucoin, Stania Bélizaire, Siloam Debessay, Nancy Disipio, Mathieu Durand, Suraiya Gangji, Keren Hagos, Siman Ibrahim, Fatema Khatheer, Varun Malhotra, Kevin Mavoungou, Shontelle Michaelis, Ulrick Napoléon, Donald Ndagano, Laure Ngarambe, Kazi Parveen, Mirian Sanchez, Chantal Dassi Sidje, Candace Wall and Nan Zhang
The Compensation Services Team at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada has shown exceptional dedication, strong work ethic and ability to adapt quickly to a growing, dynamic and changing workload. Serving the front-line departments in the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 response, the Trusted Sources/Timekeepers were faced with an exceptionally increased workload volume and complexity. On top of their regular workload, the team had to contend with a large influx of additional work, requiring cross-training, adaptation and the efficient allocation of resources. They were frequently required to pivot to address new priorities and adapt to meet the needs of clients to ensure timeliness of pay, which required the development of training materials, delivering in-house training and the mobility of various roles and responsibilities within the team. As new policies, procedures and directives were implemented, the team had to quickly evolve to align with the given policy strategy, vision and mandate (such as the leave portion of the Policy on COVID-19 Vaccination). Despite many challenges, the team has continued to deliver exceptional client service and program delivery.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, this team has demonstrated leadership, adaptability and resilience while supporting both Health Canada (HC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which both continued to be heavily involved in the pandemic response efforts.”
Notable Nominees
CCSC Peer Review Team
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
Team Lead: Amanda Niedermayer, Training and Quality Assurance Officer
Team Members: Angela Ferrer, Emiliano Galera, Marcia Holm, Natasha Kostal, Laureen Nanka, Magdalena Rolle, Christine Souchamvalis and David Sulkers
The Compensation Client Service Center (CCSC) Peer Review Team has established a framework to review compensation actions in a timely manner, identify gaps in processes, reduce pay and benefit problems for clients, and provide feedback for improvement to their peers. This initiative was no easy task to undertake, but the team was up to the challenge. They worked hard to coordinate and collaborate with their peers, management and corporate office, resulting in immediate positive impacts for clients across the agency. The team has reviewed thousands of actions and prevented pay issues that would have not otherwise been caught in a timely manner and would have resulted in inaccurate pay, potential hardship cases and dissatisfied clients, in addition to increased work efforts to correct the pay cases – if and when errors would have been caught. In short, the team clearly contributed to CRA’s mandate of putting people first by improving client experience with the CCSC.
Corporate Learning Design and Development
Health Canada (HC)
Team Lead: Ruth Kennedy, Director
Team Members: Suzanne Deluney, Alysha Doria, Nathalie Giroux and Carrie Wagner
In 2021, the Corporate Learning Design and Development (CLDD) team was tasked with modernizing the learning approach during the design and development of the Prevention of Workplace Harassment and Violence training. The learning modernization initiative included the following aspects: a learning path of short modules (1-2 hours each); a completely remote delivery; and a blend of self-paced, virtual-facilitated and peer learning. In addition, the design focused on instilling behavioural change, not solely based on knowledge or awareness, in addition to: designing eLearning with attention to known cognitive and neuroscience considerations; applying a diversity and inclusion review lens to avoid unconscious bias and to ensure inclusion; and implementing an accessibility review lens to ensure the training is fully accessible. The approach the team applied to these modules has had positive impacts in changing the future of learning design and delivery, consultative processes and accessibility, in addition to strengthening the value proposition for learning.
Corporate Workforce Planning team
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)
Team Lead: Marion Irwin, Manager
Team Members: Angela Cerone, Carole Fawcett, Elizabeth Fillion, Alison Rahim and Fouad Saade
The Corporate Workforce Planning team truly embodies excellence in public service; they are focused on evidence-based decision-making and continuously improving and strengthening HR practices, processes and tools, including the use of data analytics and digital tools. This team efficiently delivered a lean, client-centric, digitized solution for strategic workforce planning at ESDC in response to the pandemic and evolving business needs. With the new client-centric approach, the team makes connections with branch operational colleagues, then works with branch/regional clients to provide them with a strategy and plan to address their workforce planning needs. The data-driven approach equips clients with reliable and timely data on workforce and workplace challenges and opportunities, while also enabling the Corporate Workforce Planning Team to continuously communicate with clients throughout the year. Clients can use the approach in times of crisis, or during their normal operational context.
Future of Work – Hybrid Work Model
Elections Canada (EC)
Team Lead: Melissa Black, Assistant Director, Policy and Programs
Team Members: Barbara Robertston
The Future of Work – Hybrid Work Model team developed a unique design and approach to implementing and monitoring telework agreements. Through open Agency-Union consultations and a respectful approach, they provided a smooth process for managers and employees to arrive at amicable agreements. The team’s endeavor was a success because they listened to employees, adapted tools, demonstrated sound change management principles, and ensured information/engagement sessions were delivered in open manner. This approach nurtured conversations, avoided surprises and balanced employee needs with central agency policy. The team demonstrated the meaning of all public service values, which lead to a positive reception by all employees and flawless success of the telework implementation.
HR-to-Pay Integrated Client Services
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)
Team Lead: Youssef Mani, DG, HR Operations
Team Members: Morgan Bekker, Jean-Francois Boutin, Tyler Evans, Daisy Moreno, Stacie Norris, Robleh Nur, Tristan Sugrue, Cassandra Della Zazzera, and Zheng Wang
Through collaboration, the team designs, builds and implements innovative solutions to support payroll administration, such as Robotics Process Automation (RPA), which enables the automation of manual data entry and data collection across numerous software applications. The team provides support to delegated managers, which includes manual data entry workload requirements of ~21,000 entries a year. For example, HR requests to process short-term acting assignments in 2021 comprised ~35% of the annual manual data entry workload. The implementation of RPA solutions to support processing of short-term acting assignments benefited HR in various ways, but most notably to: support retention efforts; enable the department to upskill its employees to focus on more value-added work; provide timely HR advice and guidance to managers; and reduce error rates, which in turn results in the reduction of pay issues in support of the pay stabilization mandate. This innovation continues to contribute to the departmental priority of rebuilding trust in the HR-to-Pay to Pension ecosystem, the stabilization of pay in the public service and the advancement of the federal government digital transformation.
Lake Louise, Yoho & Kootenay Field Unit – Human Resources team
Parks Canada (PC)
Team Lead: Suzy Whitty, Human Resources Manager
Team Members: Katrina Defreitas, Susan Einfeldt, Rebecca Hurlstone, Ruthanna Large, Marie-Helene Lessard, Aleshia MacLean, Jesse Ritsch, Lisa Shoup and Sheila Whitehall
The Lake Louise, Yoho & Kootenay Human Resources team delivers an outstanding level of service, maintains a very positive attitude and works in close partnership with the teams they support. On top of doing their work exceptionally well, this team has gone above and beyond to develop new tools that have not only enhanced their own capacity, but can also serve to assist other HR teams across the Agency. The team took initiative to work collaboratively with managers and IT to leverage the Jira software to create, log and register approvals for standard HR services. This has streamlined and accelerated workflows, while improving consistency. Additionally, the team organically developed a procedure manual to help HR assistants train new hires following a significant turnover cycle. This HR Assistant One-Note evergreen reference tool serves as a one-stop-shop for all new HR Assistants. Their creativity in developing these tools and their support for all team members has been greatly appreciated by all.
Leave Cash Out Moratorium
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)
Team Lead: Véronique Veillette, Director
Team Members: Gianna D’Andrea, Cindy Horvais, Jessica Lalonde, Karine Lagacé-Prescott, Cinthya Lucu, Kathleen Mamourou, Karine Martel, Stephanie Moore, Suzanne Quesnel and Tara Zaleski
In 2016, a moratorium was imposed on the mandatory cash out of employee leave balances overages, due to the Phoenix crisis. Following the TBS announcement in December 2021 of the moratorium being lifted and excess leave balances being paid out as of March 31, 2022, a working group was created to cope with this emerging issue. This multi-disciplinary team came together to create a project plan that ensured all stakeholders were involved in sharing their ideas, identified and mitigated any anticipated challenges, and determined how best to execute the many moving parts of this initiative to enable a successful outcome for ESDC and the rest of the Government of Canada. This successful working group has set the standard for future initiatives that involve multiple disciplines, clearly demonstrating that success will come if everyone is moving forward together.
National Engagement and Recognition Team
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)
Team Lead: Joel Simard, Manager, Project Services
Team Members: Camille Bisaillon, France Coderre, Camille Friesen, Christina George, Gergana Georgieva and Danika Renaud
ESDC’s National Engagement and Recognition Team (NERT) has demonstrated an outstanding level of resilience, innovation and dedication as they adapted and modernized their service delivery to the hybrid work environment. In the last few years, employees have been put to the test, making recognition more important than ever. Over the last year, the NERT was able to quickly revamp their national offerings to continue supporting ESDC in their priority to build an employee-centric culture, which includes recognition as a key pillar. The team worked hard to restructure the Deputy Minister Awards of Excellence (DMAE) to accommodate the new work environment, which included mobilizing key stakeholders across 25 branches, liaising with offices of five Deputy Ministers, and working in close collaboration with the communications team to promote activities. With a record-breaking year, the team received praise on their agility and ability to pull off such an event amid new ways of working. The team also concentrated their efforts to support ESDC in their response to Passport Canada’s request surge by developing tools to support management and employees.
Re-Entry to the Workplace
Health Canada (HC)
Team Lead: Justine Radulovic, Director, Corporate Labour Relations
Team Members: Jessica Armstrong, Chantal Chartrand, Michael Coxford, Jeff Fawcett, Marie-Eve Gamache, Crystal Johnston, Theresa MacKinnon-Roy and Véronique Potvin
In early September 2022, the Deputy Heads of Health Canada (HC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) announced that both organizations would be moving towards a hybrid model, with most employees on-site 40-60% of the time. Additionally, all employees on a hybrid schedule were expected to have a Hybrid Work Agreement (HWA) in place by September 20, 2022. The Labour Relations team successfully supported both organizations through this ground-breaking transition – an enormous undertaking, within an extremely tight timeframe. In addition to the development and implementation of an entirely new process and HWA form, along with the development and dissemination of tracking tools and weekly dashboards, the team was required to log almost 10,000 HWAs in a matter of weeks. This was a truly monumental task, over and above regular labour relations operations.
Staffing Operations
Public Safety Canada (PS)
Team Lead: Mélanie Lapointe, Manager, Staffing Operations
Team Members: Marc Dagenais, Kristen Desousa, Léonce Philoctète and Amanda Warren
The Public Safety Human Resources Staffing and Compensation team has been instrumental and vital to the successful creation of the Firearms Compensation Program (FCP). The team mobilized itself quickly to create a resourcing plan, process staffing actions and enable the branch to hire many resources within a short time to address critical key deliverables of the program. Additionally, the team created strategies with collaborative partners in security, information technology/information management and other areas to adopt a tiger team approach to ensure swift hiring and onboarding practices. The Director General of HR enabled the program by ensuring the team had dedicated support with frequent check-ins to monitor and adjust to the program’s growth and challenges.
