Serving the “Faceless Bureaucrats”
As Canada’s largest employer, with a workforce of approximately 262,000 employees, the health and wellness of the Public Service are vital to the success of Government of Canada (GOC). Enhancing mental health and workplace well-being is one of the most critical challenges in providing the best care for our public servants. In the twenty-fifth Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada, the Clerk remains committed to the improvement of mental health and well-being of the GOC workforce. It is worth mentioning that the words “mental health and workplace well-being” appeared 24 times in his report.
We have one of the best public services in the world, and we cannot take this for granted. As former Clerk of the Privy Council, Mel Cappe once said in his opinion piece “Let’s respect the ‘faceless bureaucrats’ who keep Canada running.”
“We take for granted that each day, because of the work of dedicated and committed Public Servants: Thousands of planes take off and land safely; hundreds of thousands of people come through the border securely; thousands of prisoners stay incarcerated and in remediation; our food is assured safe; thousands of communities are well policed; OAS, EI and CPP cheques are delivered to the right people at the right time in the millions; path-breaking research is undertaken in government laboratories; and nobody notices.”
**Report by the Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System.
***S. Sairanen, D. Matzanka and D. Smeall, “The business case: Collaborating to help employees maintain their mental well-being,” Healthcare Papers, 2011, N. 11, pp. 78–84.
****Mental Health Commission of Canada, “Workplace Mental Health.”
Given this rise of mental health issues, the first cohort of Government of Canada’s Entrepreneurs (GCE) is working on a project that aims to investigate and develop technology-based tools to enhance workplace well-being, better engage with the public servant, and to increase productivity.
You may ask, “So what is a gap in the workplace well being that GCEs are trying to address?” Well, currently, there is only one survey (Public Service Employment Survey — PSES) for measuring workplace well-being at GOC. This survey is a snapshot in time and does not allow for ongoing, real-time data collection to help understand the well-being of employees and organizational culture over time.
Our GCE team’s idea, based on strong experimentation, is to implement a mobile application that will reward public servants. Individuals can accumulate redeemable points (e.g. Scene Points, Aeroplan etc.) when they make healthy workplace well-being lifestyle choices (exercising, taking stairs instead of an elevator, dietary choices, etc). This initiative will also complement the Public Service Employee Survey with real-time data collection allowing senior management access the knowledge and data about their organization’s workplace well-being and mental health in the way that current system (very static) does not recognize.
Furthermore, we will be co-creating the intervention with key stakeholders (including human resources professionals, procurement officers, data scientists and impact measurement experts, privacy analysts, union representatives, etc.). The intervention will then be piloted within multiple departments across GOC.
Our team also plans to explore the feasibility of developing an application in-house and consult with performance measurement experts to develop a logic model to support a performance measurement framework.
It emerges that the mental health and well-being domain at GOC is lagging in the application of innovative approaches and technology-based tools. I made this insight when my team at DND developed and evaluated the Road to Mental Readiness (R2MR — iOS | Android) mobile application. R2MR is currently (at the time of this writing) the only in-depth mobile app designed in the government dedicated to putting critical mental health resiliency training within reach of all Canadian Armed Forces and their family members, anywhere and anytime. The Working Mind training currently given to the rest of public servants is based on the R2MR curriculum and is offered by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. In my next blog post, I will share my experience and lessons learned while developing and deploying the R2MR app.
I have been privileged and honoured to be able to serve our “faceless bureaucrats” who run Canada and serves the public every day. Please reach out to me with your questions and comments; I look forward to updating you on the progress of our project in the coming months.
Hamid Boland is a GC Entrepreneur based in Toronto. Follow him and the GC Entrepreneur cohort on twitter: @hjboland and @GC_Entrepreneur
The Deputy Ministers Task Force on Public Sector Innovation, mandated to play an action-oriented role in experimenting with emerging tools and approaches, has identified workplace well-being as a key priority project for the Government of Canada Entrepreneurs. With the support of the Task Force, GC Entrepreneurs are exploring how technology-based solutions can be used to promote workplace well-being. Learn more
