CONTEXT
The below themes are the front-of-mind topics for the Band 3-5 leaders I interviewed in an org design & talent-acquisition context (hire and/or procure).
Because I’ve rapidly and temporarily onboarded into this space, I may touch on things we’re already doing or are aware of. In those cases, I hope this adds useful evidence to our efforts - please forgive my incomplete understanding of the details.
I also hope this helps socialize topics across the Talent & Marketplace teams.
For what it’s worth, I leaned into all this detail because I believe in the DTC branch humans and the work we do ❤️🔥
It may feel frustrating to live in the problem-space rather than jumping to solutions, thanks for sitting in it with me. For most of these topics, we need more discussion and I need the experts (staff and leaders) in the room informing the conversation.
Next steps: share themes w/ Leadership (May 22), do some rapid prioritization and identify which themes to explore further, together, toward experiments and pilots.
This page is a shared-space to identify themes & add staff insights, current experiments/partner engagements. Working in the open - in one place.
I appreciate this is a lot of detail - some folks will need it, esp. as I transition into other work. I will also be delivering a condensed deck, or equivalent - tbd / watch this space.
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Big picture sentiments, and how folks see our role in the system:
“In the big picture transformation context I would like to see some of the structural issues I see with agile and specifically in the kind of hiring, procurement, job description space solved. I'm working on my little corner of the government trying to do what I can to put my best foot forward under the policy and legislative constraints that are around me. One of the reasons I took this meeting is because I'm hoping that from your vantage point, possibly those policy and legislative constraints can be changed.” 🔥
“I don't know if the goal should be so much like hire more digital capacity. It's more like how do we harness what we have more effectively and more efficiently? Because eventually we just have a whole bunch of chickens running around, but like, nobody kind of gathering them or pointing them in a direction.”
what happens if we scale misaligned, relatively unsupported digital practices that are new and unfamiliar to many BCPS folk?
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Our place in the hiring and procurement ecosystem
A There is a bustling ecosystem of hiring and procurement supports that folks access today - with mixed experiences and historical baggage in the big picture system (a strategic opportunity - addressing pain points, past fails, fears and differentiating ourselves)
The “Digital Talent” roles we support in hiring & procurement services are just a slice of their broader org design strategies
e.g. one participant, a Leader transforming their org, isn’t managing an agile team or DT job profiles - they’re bringing in functions like change management to create the conditions for agility and service/product success, and they consider those change management roles part of the digital work
My point: we won’t be able to address all hiring and procurement needs, but when folks do come to us, we can make it memorably seamless while responding to their biggest blockers and desired outcomes to nudge transformation/modernization forward
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Growth & development, re-skillingTL;DR: Develpment intersects with org sustainability, retention, digital delivery outcomes, and is front of mind for Leaders, with opportunities for DTC Branch to lean in: on the ground, and in a systemic-change context. 3 components in this section: agility and flexibility in context of PSA/BCGEU (hard/systemic), up/re-skilling current staff and managing change, programs to attract & develop jr. talent (Sam is running discovery now). |
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Connected-Service interviews (Tess) “So you know it, it's really recognizing that the world is not this "You're a cog in the machine and you're just doing this fixed job" concept. We need to get away from that to to really build the organization, and it's gonna change dynamically as people come and go and people grow and develop” folks are leaning into agility, future-thinking, and realizing we need to operate differently to create sustainable conditions for digital talent to achieve outcomes & impact folks are grappling with the tension between flexible org design models and encouraging staff to lean into new knowledge/skill/ability, within the PSA/BCGEU context — service opportunities: lean interim advice, explore systemic context?
“I think it's tough for some people… I actually I'm pretty sure some people on the home team don't really see themselves in the modernized space” staff perceptions that vendors historically get the “interesting, shiny & new” work and don’t have “skin in the game” re: long term implications of decision making and outcomes - this has impacted employees and organizations - engagement, turnover, etc. folks are grappling with how to support valued staff in seeing their place in the modernization context - there can be fear, angst, turnover with observations that agility isn’t for everyone, some folks thrive in uncertainty, others need more structure (valid - ties into inclusion and accessibility, this also could have more to do with implementation than agility itself - orgs early on the learning curve can be overly rigid/dogmatic about the practices, not always investing in the human side of change) common example: Business Analysts re-skilling into Scrum Master, Product Owner, sometimes Service Design roles to support re-skilling today, folks encourage attending meetings (identify interest, gain context), shadowing, low risk opportunities to gain experience, and training/education — service opportunity
“I don't have the resources, and the people I work with are [digital practitioners] and they can tell me what topics they want covered, but they can't tell me how to do it, so I have reached out to the federal government and I have their curriculum writers assisting me with developing a program. I actually have Camosun College and Royal Roads that have offered services as well. But yeah, that that whole career ramping and the formalization of it is, is what I'm looking at doing now.” The same dynamic is playing out in the Design community, folks are meeting with Emily Carr, UK Gov folk, etc. to try and figure out ways to grow and develop staff folks are trying to build their own programs, partnering with external institutions, aren’t always aware of others storming on similar initiatives - would it be worthwhile to get all those humans in one room? share, prototype, support each other… domains are different, foundations similar?
Growth-minded is a top quality folks seem to be looking for - intersects with “fit” curiosity, openness and willingness to learn kept popping up across topics & conversations - sometimes as a pain point, or a perception that Jr. staff are more open to growth Hypothesis to test: I’m curious if there is a change management layer missing in the transformation work, broadly, where the transformation is uncertain and stressful for some employees (depends on how it’s introduced & rolled out over time), and we maybe aren’t appreciating what a jarring change it can be for some BCPS folk, incl. the contradictions and workplace traumas: some folks have been discouraged or punished for stepping outside their job profile (and developed responses/strategies accordingly), now they’re being encouraged to be more flexible - we can’t blow past that /soapbox
Connected-service thinking: how might we align/integrate our talent-development efforts with the new Performance Development Platform (PDP) for a sense of cohesion
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What we know of & can learn from today: MoTI TELP NRIDS Jr. Full Stack Developer path CITZ Cybersecurity & Digital Trust Co-op program Design community efforts - ENV, GDX, DO/Lab, CITZ IMB CITZ - Service BC and Cybersecurity teams exploring development programs Vendors are indicating some friction and tradeoffs with mentorship built into contracts BCPS staff can be defensive/resistant - can impact the transformation work, team dynamics, create distractions (change/people management gap?) Vendor staff may not want to or be skilled in ‘teaching’ the act of being a “player” and “coach” at same time can be challenging and may be impacting outcomes - the transformation work on it’s own is often quite complex More research/perspectives needed
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Experiments & collaborations: |
Maturing & supporting digital practices, guilds/chapters TL;DR: |
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Connected-Service interviews (Tess) “I think that we've moved in the right direction, but much like our legacy systems, I think we suffer from legacy practices in the HR policy space and and I would say that we're getting better - I would put it as 25 to 30% better able to deliver on digital services than five years ago. So we're moving into the right direction, but it's kind of like with moves to the cloud, you have all this legacy crap sitting there and you know, you have to deal with it. You're trying to move everything you can over this way, but it is a journey like it does take that that time, and we often don't have the resources, money, people and stuff to really make that switch in one go.”
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Existing research / staff insights |
Experiments & Collaborations |
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