Public Employment and Management Working Party

Transcription

1 For Official Use English - Or. English For Official Use Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development English - Or. English PUBLIC GOVERNANCE AND TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORATE PUBLIC GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE Public Employment and Management Working Party Symposium on The Government Workforce of the Future: innovation in strategic workforce planning in OECD countries Draft Agenda June 2012 OECD Conference Centre 2 rue André Pascal Paris For further information, please contact Oscar HUERTA MELCHOR, at OECD Headquarters Tel oscar.huertamelchor@oecd.org Complete document available on OLIS in its original format This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.

2 Symposium on The Government Workforce of the Future: Innovation in strategic workforce planning in OECD countries OECD Conference-Centre - Paris Draft Agenda Monday, 11 June :30 9:40 1 Welcome to Participants and Introduction 9:40 10:00 2 Mario Marcel - Chair Deputy Director, Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, OECD Secretariat Tour de Table Participants Introduction All participants are invited to introduce themselves. 10:00 11:30 3 ROUND TABLE Workforce planning in times of economic crisis: How to maintain and improve the capacity of the public service while producing savings? All country delegates are invited to take part in the discussion. Discussion will be open with a presentation from Spain. Teresa Siles (Spain video conference) Topic 1: The current economic and social challenges that require effective workforce planning (lead speakers Canada, Japan, Belgium) Topic 2: The present staffing targets and how they require effective strategic workforce planning or not (lead speakers Mexico, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Korea) 11:30 11:50 Coffee Break 11:50 13:00 3 ROUND TABLE cont d Workforce planning in times of economic crisis: How to maintain and improve the capacity of the public service while producing savings? All country delegates are invited to take part in the discussion. Topic 3: Traditional workforce planning mechanisms and the exceptional measures taken to address recent economic challenges (lead speakers: Estonia) Topic 4: The main results of the current staffing adjustment measures; positive and negative (lead speakers: France, Italy) 13:00 14:30 Lunch Break 2

3 14:30 16:00 4 Planning future competencies and skills: Workforce planning and the move towards competency management Presentations from member countries Margaret van Amelsvoort-Thoms (Canada) Questions and discussion Anne de Vos (Belgium) OECD Country Delegates 16:00 16:30 Coffee Break 16:30 18:00 5 Making workforce planning a reality: How are OECD countries implementing workforce planning? Presentations from member countries Shelley Thomas and Shanaz Porter (United Questions and discussion States) OECD Country Delegates 18:00 Cocktail Reception Tuesday, 12 June :30 11:00 6 Building a sustainable workforce planning system in the public service: Main lessons from experience Presentations from member countries Questions and discussion Bunzo Hirai (Japan) Nicola Favia (Italy) Seong Ju Kang (Korea) OECD Country Delegates 11:00 11:20 Coffee Break 11:20 12: :20 12:50 7 Building a sustainable workforce planning system in the public service: Main lessons from experience cont d Presentations from member countries Questions and discussion Raúl Arceo Alonzo (Mexico) Ana Lucia Amorim de Brito (Brazil) OECD Country Delegates ROUND TABLE In conclusion: towards a more flexible planning of the public workforce All participants are invited to state the main lessons learnt from their experience in strategic workforce planning in their country, and the main messages they take from the Symposium. 12:50 13:00 8 Next steps in the OECD work on strategic workforce planning Oscar Huerta Melchor Policy Analyst OECD Secretariat 13:00 9 Final Remarks and Closing 3

4 NOTES: SESSION 3: ROUND TABLE. Workforce planning in times of economic crisis: How to maintain and improve capacity of the public service while producing savings? Reforming the public service has become a high priority in OECD countries since the beginning of the financial crisis. Getting the right size and allocation of the public service workforce has become an important issue for governments either because they need to secure and build the capacity for service delivery at the time of limited financial resources, or because they face tough labour market competition for scarce skills. This background poses significant challenges for OECD countries to develop a more flexible HRM system, both to organise the workforce around current priorities and to prepare for future challenges. While for many member countries the economic and budget crisis is the most immediate problem affecting decisions about size and allocation, it is by no means the only issue. Ageing populations are forcing reallocation of resources to services for the elderly, and also affecting the supply of labour and the sustainability of public finances. Another key challenge, given that OECD economies are faced with changing global competition, is to make the public sector more competitive, innovative and inclusive. All of these factors will have a bearing on policies. Governments will now have to engage in strategic workforce planning and management so that they are not caught in a purely reactive mode, forced to take ad hoc measures that relieve fiscal pressures while simultaneously generating other problems. Proper management of the workforce, using an array of instruments, has made a difference in the past in how well governments deal with pressures to make adjustments. In fact, many countries were already embarked on workforce initiatives well before the economic crisis began. The new public governance solutions must effectively deal with the increased complexity and uncertainty of the decision-making environment. It demands strategic agility in public management to anticipate and flexibly respond to increasingly complex policy issues and to determine at what level action is needed. Workforce planning would contribute to create strategic insight and foster resource flexibility in government. According proper attention to this topic is a way to help countries recover from the crisis and prepare the public service to deal with other challenges. This session will focus on the economic and social challenges that require changes in workforce planning and the responses put in place by countries, and how countries are presently responding to those current challenges. This capacity to change the numbers, skills and competencies, and allocation of the workforce is a core aspect of government agility to respond to new challenges and changes in policy priorities. This main themes should revolve around the following issues: How can forward planning provide a dynamic response to the challenges created by the current economic crisis? How do governments set a strategic direction for their organisations in order to determine current and future staff needs, conduct workforce analysis, develop and implement workforce plans? Are workforce reduction measures having the desired effects? How are governments carrying out staff reallocations across sectoral priorities and organisations in the light of government s workforce restructuration efforts? How are countries deciding on staffing cuts in the light of the austerity measures? 4

5 How to avoid distorting a full and thorough process of workforce planning and use the savings agenda to modernise the workforce akin to best practice? How have countries developed or are developing the ability to understand and balance government values, societal preferences, current and future costs and benefits, and expert knowledge (strategic insight)? How have countries developed or are developing the ability to move personnel resources if and as needed; and to identify and promote innovative ways to maximise the results of resources used (resource flexibility)? How are countries ensuring the effectiveness of the workforce reduction measures? How to minimise the adverse impact on the workforce in restructuring the organisations and the implementation of operational costs reduction measures (staffing and compensation)? The discussion will be divided into four parts: 1. The current economic and social challenges that require effective workforce planning. 2. The present staffing targets and how they require and represent strategic workforce planning (or not). 3. Traditional workforce planning mechanisms and the exceptional measures taken to address recent challenges. 4. The main results of the current staffing adjusting measures, both positive and negative. SESSION 4. Planning future competencies and skills: workforce planning and the move towards competency management Strategic workforce planning is a core process of human resource management that helps to identify, develop and sustain the necessary workforce skills while satisfying the career and lifestyle goals of employees. It is a process that ensures that the organisation has the right number of people with the right skills in the right place at the right time to deliver short and long-term organisational objectives. For the public sector, it is a prerequisite for effective service delivery. Workforce planning not only identifies mission-critical occupations and the essential competencies to meet organisational goals, but also detects competency gaps. Establishing a sustainable competency modelling and gap analysis strategy to enable the identification of competency gaps and deficiencies between current and desired competency levels within the organisation is a critical component of workforce planning. The results of the gap analysis provide the basis to build an explicit workforce planning strategy to ensure the most efficient and effective means of mission accomplishment through human capital management. While measures to cut the number of public service staff and limit recruitment and promotion may create opportunities to lose unproductive staff, a challenge for OECD countries is to ensure that they are not losing the best of their staff to the private sector, or creating generational gaps or future skills shortages that will affect their capacity to address long-term challenges. Governments need to pay attention to their future skills requirements and to integrate workforce and human capital considerations into broader policy changes that could impact on service delivery. 5

6 A step that some OECD member countries are taking is to develop competency management frameworks. These frameworks identify the capabilities needed in the workforce and link together a number of human resource management activities (recruitment, staff development, performance management) to enhance capacity. Adequate workforce planning and talent development facilitate addressing evolving and future skills needs. It facilitates public sector employers to deliver service improvements and create new ways of working in a rapidly changing environment. This session will focus on issues such as: How are OECD countries planning skills and competencies required for service delivery in a context of budget cuts? How are they filling the competency gaps? In the light of the workforce reduction measures, how are countries ensuring that the most talented people with the right skills are retained? How is workforce planning linked to the strategic objectives of organisations? How are OECD countries planning for future competency and skills needs to face ecological, demographic and financial threats? How are OECD countries planning to meet the requirements in terms of competencies and skills to meet current and emerging demographic, environmental and economic challenges? How to conduct an analysis and assessment of the current skills and competencies of the workforce to meet long-term and short-term goals and objectives? How are workforce gaps defined? In terms of grades, skills and experience, competencies or a combination of these? How to develop current employees, and recruit to fill long-term and short-term goals? SESSION 5. Making workforce planning a reality: How are OECD countries implementing workforce planning? Despite current enthusiasm for workforce planning, the implementation of the practice is still in its infancy. Even, many experts and officials consider that strategic workforce planning is a concept rather than an operational reality. An examination of the workforce planning practices across OECD countries suggests that, while many countries have devised guidelines on how to conduct workforce planning, few have begun to put them into practice. Good workforce planning requires that governments are able to move and reallocate staff, and in some cases, dismiss staff. Some countries with sophisticated workforce planning mechanisms find themselves in extreme difficulties when they need to implement workforce planning, because of inappropriate staff regulations. Some other barriers to the implementation of workforce planning are related to the scale and complexity of the organisations. The availability and management of data, inadequate formal job information, limited capability data, and weak HR information systems may be barriers to workforce planning. The challenge for OECD countries is to transform the plans into a reality and put in place a strategy to transform those barriers into enablers that can support the functionality and quality of workforce planning. 6

7 Ways of working, data accuracy and capability and capacity to deliver can be distinguished as the biggest enablers to make workforce planning a reality. This session will focus on issues such as: How are countries ensuring the smooth implementation of workforce planning decisions? How do countries monitor workforce planning progress? What are the most current barriers faced by OECD countries to engage in workforce planning? How are countries addressing them? How are countries translating workforce planning decisions into operational objectives? How to create a culture of accountability for creating and implementing quality workforce plans at every organisational level? How do countries measure the success of the workforce planning initiatives? How are HR units co-ordinating with management levels to design and put into practice a workforce planning strategy? How to improve the accuracy of data for an informed workforce prediction? Sometimes workforce planning is seen as solely cutting leading to resistance from managers and public employees, how are countries overcoming resistance to planning? SESSION 6. Building a sustainable workforce planning system in the public service: main lessons from experience OECD research suggests that workforce planning remains an underused instrument across member countries, although some have developed sophisticated systems to link workforce planning and management with strategic planning. For those organisations that have created workforce planning programmes, the final key to real success is simply focus and time. That is, ensuring efforts are focused on critical workforce segments, and that managerial time is dedicated to arriving at practical conclusions and executing meaningful resourcing and development decisions. One of the major risks to the sustainability of workforce planning is the fact that some decisions may extend beyond the mandate of the government and that a change of government may lessen the commitment of the political leadership. Achieving a culture of focus and time goes beyond an initial commitment to workforce planning; it goes to an organisation-wide desire to create a performance-driven culture that is focused on citizen-centric service delivered by a talented and responsive workforce. To build a robust workforce planning system, it is necessary to involve different stakeholder groups. This is critical to ensuring transparency and feedback of the decision-making processes, and achieving a wide government vision of the public workforce. Since the public service tends to be highly unionised, engaging the public service unions and gaining their co-operation is likely to be important for building support for workforce planning decisions. One of the key factors for success is to ensure a realistic and consistent approach to workforce planning through careful project management. A clear definition of the roles and responsibilities of the bodies accountable for workforce planning is critical to enhance accountability. The challenge for governments engaged in workforce planning is not to prescribe and control all decision-making or inhibit the iterative dialogue and collaboration required to support and enrich the process, but facilitate appropriate levels of planning accuracy, and accountability. 7

8 Workforce planning requires a systematic assessment of and reporting on results as a way to ensure sustainability and enhance accountability, but there is no clear evidence that countries have yet arrived to this stage. Workforce planning managers should count costs, measure outputs, assess outcomes, and use all this information in a systematic process of feedback and continuous improvement. Experience indicates that the primary measure of success in workforce planning would be a better alignment of demand and supply requirements of competencies and skills. This session will focus on: What building blocks are needed to be in place to make workforce planning part of the organisational management culture? How to create accountability for meaningful workforce planning at organisational and management levels? Who should be held accountable? How to ensure that workforce planning strategies have the necessary leadership support? How can senior management facilitate the process of creation of a workforce action plan? How are all stakeholders kept informed about the process and clear information is circulated to support the implementation process? To what extent are unions, professional bodies, and networks part of the strategic workforce planning process? What is the role of the central HRM body in the workforce planning process? To what extent workforce planning is delegated to line ministries and agencies? What are the main requirements in the management of civil servants to ensure the long term sustainability of workforce planning decisions extending the time horizons of reform beyond government mandate? How are countries assessing the degree of success and evaluating the results of workforce planning decisions? What methodology and indicators could be adopted to assess the extent of improvement and success? Supporting implementation of workforce planning Case studies proposal In order to support OECD countries in the implementation of the staff adjustments strategies, the OECD Secretariat proposes developing case studies that will review the size and allocation of the workforce across sectors and administrative and service delivery posts. The aim is to identify the room for manoeuvre that countries have and the means to retain skills and experience, and help manage the industrial relations aspects of downsizing. OECD studies reveal that more is to be done to break down the barriers to redeployment and mobility, in order to support the restructuring of services and the optimal use of skills. SESSION 7. ROUND TABLE. In conclusion: towards a more flexible planning of the public workforce Workforce planning is a relatively new big thing on the HR agenda of the public service across OECD countries. As governments face increasing competition for talent with the private sector, an ageing workforce and a fluctuating economy, they are beginning to see the need to avoid getting left behind. Workforce planning is not an easy process and its track record to date is somewhat patchy. Drawing lessons from experience has two faces: it is about learning ways to make workforce planning better and about learning how to increase the chances of success. 8

9 Many of the issues surrounding the failures relate to a misunderstanding of the process and the aim of the workforce planning rather than inherent problems with the practice or models. It is not a stand-alone event which organisations should conduct once a year using a fixed template for all units. The challenge for governments is to see workforce planning as an ongoing process which reacts to both internal and external changes and is sensitive to the different needs of the different units within an organisation. Probably a key message for countries is workforce planning should not aim to predict the future but to set the context for other plans. In this round-table participants will discuss: What lessons can be drawn from past experience in workforce planning? How can the practice of workforce planning be improved? How can HRM practices and employment provisions be made more flexible to support the implementation of workforce planning? What are the limits of workforce planning? 9