Message from the Chief Human Resources Officer: Policy Suite Reset, Performance Management and Working Remotely

March 30, 2020

From Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Colleagues,

Policy Suite Reset

The new Policy on People Management and the Policy on the Management of Executives and related directives come into force on April 1, 2020. These new instruments and guidance can be found on GCPedia, and following April 1, they will be posted on Canada.ca.

While developed well before COVID-19, these new instruments, which simplify and modernize our policy suite, usher in changes that will help you respond, including by allowing you to:

• Waive the two-year waiting period between Interchange Canada assignments
• Facilitate ad hoc telework and flexible arrangements
• Extend classification decision-making authority to accredited casual workers and consultants and allow non-accredited but trained individuals to process low risk classification actions 
• Use deputy directed classification decisions to test innovative classification solutions

An extensive outreach and training effort focused on these changes and others has taken place with your subject matter experts.

In addition to the changes mentioned above, these new instruments include sub-delegated authorities permitting us to vary requirements more nimbly going forward. We are, accordingly, actively considering further changes that would facilitate the ability of your organizations to respond to the rapidly evolving situation in which we find ourselves, and we remain attentive to your specific requests in that regard.

Performance Management and Performance Assessments

In light of COVID-19, we are suspending deadlines for the completion of 2019-2020 employee performance reviews and the administration of performance pay for both executives and non-executives, subject to any collective agreement or legislative requirements. Specific adjustments to the process, deadlines, and guidance will be communicated in the coming weeks.

Working Remotely

To respond to the massive growth of remote working, we have expanded our web content to address key issues relating to productivity, information management, and mental health, among others, and have provided links to other helpful resources such as the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s Staying Cyber-healthy during COVID-19 isolation and the Canada School of Public Service Digital Academy’s Busrides’ Going Remote Guide.

We will be adding content progressively, linking to additional material and other resources. Please share this with those within your organization, reminding them to check it regularly for updates.

Thank you for your support as we do our best to protect the health of our workforce and aid the government’s response.

Nancy Chahwan
Chief Human Resources Officer
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat / Government of Canada