Service Culture and Workplace Innovation in the Public Sector

1. Service Culture and Workplace Innovation in the Public Sector Week 8

2. Service Culture and Workplace Innovation Issues • Use of Technology (by public sector workers or by public) • Workplace and Work Organization • Employee Satisfaction • Management/Supervision of Employees • What combination of factors can lead to a better “service culture”?

3. PS2000 – announced December 1989 • Surveys of public sector workers had indicated problems. • “Low morale was endemic, and the further down the hierarchy, the lower it was” (Inwood, 2012: 306). • Led to launch of PS2000, led by Clerk of the Privy Council, “with the intent that the public service would engage in a thorough self-examination, and ‘heal itself’” (Inwood, 2012: 306).

4. PS2000 • “A major theme of the PS 2000 report was improved service to the public through empowered and innovative public servants within a context of accountability for results achieved as well as for the way things are done. The report manifested the inherent tension between various public service values, for example between professional values like innovation and efficiency and democratic values like accountability and the rule of law” (Kernaghan, 18). • Kernaghan, Ken. 2007. A Special Calling: Values, Ethics and Professional Public Service. Public Service – Studies and Discoveries Series. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer.

5. Program Review • After 1993 focused on austerity measures, the federal government launched a Program Review to cut spending. • “morale among public servants plummeted and the malaise…deepened” (Inwood, 2012: 309).

6. La Relève • Leadership, Action, Renewal, Energy, Learning, Expertise, Values and Excellence • Launched in 1997 by the Clerk of the Privy Council to investigate and address a “quiet crisis” of public service morale (Inwood, 2012: 309-10). • In 1998, La Relève became the Leadership Network.

7. An on-going challenge • “while governments across Canada have done a great deal to improve service to the public, the objective of creating a genuine ‘service culture’ seems as difficult as ever to realize” (Dutil et al., 2010: 52).

8. Employee Satisfaction and a Service Culture • The “satisfaction mirror” • “employees who were happy in their jobs were more likely to deliver better service than employees who were not” • “employee satisfaction as a critical link between internal service quality and customer satisfaction/retention and profit” (Dutil et al., 2010: 52).

9. Challenges in public sector • The nature of the work • The nature of the service • “it is difficult to maintain a service culture where the clients have no incentive to seek the service except to avoid an outlaw existence” (53). • Substantial incentives may be required • Efforts may be expensive • “The nature of the public service culture – a product of conditions of work, legal obligations, labour unions and work ethics – is vastly different” (Dutil et al., 2010: 81).

10. Examining Public Employee ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Commitment’ and ‘Engagement’ • A commonly raised issue is discretion. • “In Canada, the work of Carroll and Siegel…depicted an unsatisfied work force struggling in vain for some discretion and latitude in applying rules and procedures” (Dutil et al., 2010: 55). • “Scholars have long suggested that a key to improving the interface between the service provider and the customer is to provide more discretion to the employee in resolving issues…This issue is not without controversy” (Dutil et al., 2010: 67).

11. Examining Public Employee ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Commitment’ and ‘Engagement’ Working with Clients • “The issue of improving the rapport with customers is not easy to resolve. Government service providers must deal with Canadians from all walks of life that have little choice in dealing with government” (Dutil et al., 2010: 66). • “The task of serving demanding clients – who may resent bureaucracy and its ‘red tape’, who are impatient with process, and who may have little understanding of the implications of their complex demands – can be daunting” (Dutil et al., 2010: 66-67).

12. Examining Public Employee ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Commitment’ and ‘Engagement’ Working with Supervisors • “A critical aspect of employee satisfaction is the relationship with supervisors” (Dutil et al., 2010: 69). • “Supervisors in the public sector…have few things to offer particularly effective employees” (Dutil et al., 2010: 75).

13. Examining Public Employee ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Commitment’ and ‘Engagement’ Training Opportunities • “It is fair to conclude that employees across Canada feel as though they need more training and development opportunities” (Dutil et al., 2010: 77).

14. Service Canada College • See website • “The Service Canada College is Service Canada’s national corporate learning institution. Our College is modelled on the “corporate university” concept found in an increasing number of corporations and public agencies in Canada and around the world.”

15. Can the public sector create a “Service Culture”? • Dutil et al. (2010: 53) argue “that while a ‘service culture’ can be promoted in the public sector, its impact will be limited by a number of factors that invariably impair the construct of a genuine public service ‘value chain.’”

16. Can governments create a genuine service culture? • “The answer is yes, but on condition that there are no expectations that its service culture will ever resemble that of the private sector” (Dutil et al., 2010: 81).

17. Democratic Administration and Public Workers

18. Democratic Administration and Public Workers • What is the goal of democratic administration? • The central role played by and potential for bureaucratic discretion. • How should that discretion be contextualized, politicized and used?

19. What is the goal of democratic administration?

20. Workplace Democracy • “The fundamental purpose of workplace democracy…must be to develop the capacity for self-management and democratic citizenship as widely and deeply as possible.” - McElligott, 2001

21. Democratizing the public sector workplace • “Hierarchically ordered offices and permanent officials are replaced by temporary delegations of duties and power” • “Job specialization is discouraged, and expertise is demystified and shared as tasks are circulated” • “Community is valued over impersonality, and formal rules are minimized to facilitate substantive, rather than procedural fairness” - McElligott, 2001

22. Public Sector Workers and the Public • “The task is to develop new state structures which liberate state workers’ capacity for empathy and policy control, while ensuring accountability to clients rather than to a vaguely defined public interest.” - Sossin 1994

23. Workers and Citizens • “Rather than churning out passive recipients of whatever the state deems appropriate, and holding to a professional model that prizes neutrality, distance, and self-sacrifice, workers would engage with clients in a process of training for democratic citizenship” - McElligott, 2001

24. The central role played by, and the creative potential for, bureaucratic discretion.

25. Public Workers’ Discretion • “Delivering social services in an efficient and effective manner presupposes that the services are adapted to individual needs.” • “Relying strictly on routinized decision making makes the service ill-attuned to individual needs and hence less likely to attain its objectives.” • “The real difficulty arises in determining just how attuned to individual needs the service should be and therefore just what the boundaries of acceptable discretion are.” - Peters and Pierre, 2001

26. Public Workers’ Discretion • “it seems imperative that front-line workers expand their scope for discretionary decision-making” • “discretion must be defended because it is an essential component of front-line work, which allows employees to inject their own values and priorities into the job they do” - McElligott, 2001

27. Public Workers’ Discretion • In his study of Employment and Immigration Canada, Greg McElligot (2001) found that “front-line workers often used their discretionary powers to undermine the grand plans of senior bureaucrats”

28. Bureaucratic Morality? By the Book? • It’s not my job. • Some other department. • I don’t make the rules, I just follow them. • I’m sorry, this is not the proper form. • I wish I could, but I simply can’t…do that…answer that question. • Come back tomorrow. • Oh, I wouldn’t have said that.

29. Bureaucratic Morality? Discretion? • I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but if… • No one will check on this. • You can’t do it that way, but if you call it this instead… • Technically, it doesn’t comply but… • Well, it’s really supposed to be done that way, but what really matters is… (P. Schlag 1991 cited in Sossin, 1994)

30. How should bureaucratic discretion be contextualized, politicized and used?

31. Street-Level Bureaucrats • public-sector workers whose services are delivered through direct communication between themselves and their clients • The defining characteristic of street-level bureaucrats is that they daily “grant access to government programs and provide services within them” (Lipsky, 1980: 3). • a result of their direct and immediate contact with their clients, street-level bureaucrats are especially inclined to “put the client first” and to side psychologically with the client against the formal norms of bureaucracy

32. Public Sector Unions • “state unions – as presently structured – have no mandate to represent state clients…interests may be shared, but they also conflict, and it is presumptuous for the organized to speak for the unorganized” • Public sector unions need to incorporate the interests of the public and specifically their clients within their vision, their goals and their struggles. - McElligott, 2001

33. Public Service Councils • To bring together those who currently provide and use various sorts of social services. • “Meeting regularly, such councils could share information, uncover gaps in the provision of public services, act to fill some of them through collective action, and explore longer-term goals” • “to promote the growth of visible, living organs of ‘deeper democracy’” - McElligott

34. Democratic Administration • Advocates of democratic administration argue that customer satisfaction and a service culture are modest goals – too modest. • The goal should be to empower citizens and public sector workers.

35. On-Going Issues at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

36. More Trouble at Service Canada • Security Breach Shuts Federal Job Bank • “The online job bank operated by the federal Human Resources department has been out of service for two weeks after an unspecified security breach.” • “Jobless Canadians who have tried to consult the employment database have met a message saying the ‘Job Bank is temporarily unavailable due to technical difficulties. We regret any inconvenience.’” • Service Canada Reopens Job Bank After Two-Week Shutdown

37. Continued Restructuring at Human Resources Canada • Human Resources Minister Quietly Axes Student Job Centres - Service Canada Centres for Youth • “The employment centres for students that have opened every spring for more than four decades in communities across Canada have been cancelled by the federal Human Resources department, which says it can offer the same services online.” • “The elimination of the centres will save Ottawa about $6.5-million a year.” • Youth.gc.ca

38. “Standardizing Public Service” • “The Experiences of Call-Centre Workers in the Canadian Federal Government” • By Pupo and Noack • How have these changes (technological innovation, one-stop-service) impacted public sector employees?

39. Reminder: Essay Deadline • Do not submit essays via email. • Bring them to the lecture on the due date • Or submit via the political science office during office hours.