CPSRENEWAL.CA Weekly: Try Our 12 Step Program

If you know me beyond the blogosphere you may know that my resolve to remain an active player in the renewal puzzle was recently challenged. While this blog provides neither the time nor the place to tackle my personal issues, I thought it would be fun to try to renew my own commitment to renewal by creating the equivalent of a 12-step program.

12 Step Program for (re)engaging in Public Service Renewal (applicable to all groups and levels)

1. Admit you are not powerless over renewal.

2. Believe that working in the Public Service, as something greater than yourself, could help you achieve a meaningful living.

3. Decide to turn your attention and skills over to the Public Service and to the care of your fellow Public Servants.

4. Take stock of your character.

5. Admit to your group, to yourself and to your manager the exact nature of your needs.

6. Be entirely ready to demonstrate your commitment to the Public Service by ameliorating yourself.

7. Humbly ask for help from others whenever required.

8. Distinguish sense from nonsense whenever possible.

9. Keep a list of everything you determine to be nonsense.

10. Work to make sense of the nonsensical, but learn from others and pick your battles.

11. Through hard work and experience, seek to improve your awareness the Public Service and build your knowledge of right and wrong and the strength to follow that knowledge.

12. Renew yourself prior to making demands on others or on the organization to do it for you. Carry this message to Public Servants and practice these principles in all your work endeavours.


Let us know – what do these steps mean to you? Do you have a thirteenth (or fourteenth, fifteenth…step)?

Have a great (long!) Thanksgiving weekend.

Round-Up: October 8

News

Here is an article about public servant pressure. [h/t to Chamika]

The EX's column.

Here is some neat info, apparently the Ontario Public Service is recruiting on Second Life.

Blogs

Etienne talks straight about straight talk and points to Gilles Paquet's and Ruth Hubbard's publication Cats Eyes (which if you recall I sat as a panelist with Gilles Paquet at an HRSDC knowledge talk a little while back), I encourage you to read the article and my speaking notes from the panel.


Call to Action

As always we want to hear from you, please feel free to leave a comment on any of our posts (we love reading them) or send us an email (you will always get one back from us).

Round-Up October 6

Here is a small editorial from the Sault Star entitled, No need to clam up.

Jessica McDonald, BC's Premier Gordon Campbell's deputy minister and head of the public service gave an interview to the Vancouver Sun. Here is a great excerpt:

"The new generation of workers is less interested in a career with one organization for their whole career than they have been in the past," she said.

"We need to grab hold of these employees in their first year and let them design their career path, rather than just assuming -- the way it was in the past -- that where they started is where they want to be out into the long term."

To really change, she said, the public service needs to shift its attitude from within.

"We want people to feel like their jobs are rewarding, like they actually have some influence over their own work environment and how they can do their job the best," she said.

Frustrated federal prosecutors across Canada are quitting over poor pay coupled with increased work loads.

The National Post came out in favour of less government regulation citing the recent listeriosis outbreak while referencing the CFIA employee who sent a classified document to his union.

Meanwhile, a bureaucrat fighting the Public Service Commission has won the right to remain anonymous.

... and, PSAC has [an] opportunity to elect '[their] employer says Fitzpatrick (c/o Hill Times so a subscrption is required) [Aside: Given, how the party that assumes power will approach its relationship with the public service matters (to both public servants and Canadians in general) but union involvment in this issue makes me a bit uneasy. Does anyone else see this as a potential conflict of interest issue? I assume their is an official policy somewhere on this, if anyone could provide us with a link on we would be happy to share it.]

Government of Canada Offerings

Armchair discussions at the CSPS have resumed. Click here to see their Calendar.

PCO just released a great page on their website, The Role and Structure of the Privy Council Office 2008 -- one stop shop for understanding everything PCO does.


Finally - thanks for all your comments (on the blog) and your emails. It is great to hear from you, keep it up.