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→Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Added more to the FAQ
== Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ==
== Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ==
Welcome to the GCmobility FAQ where we try to capture the most frequently asked questions.
Welcome to the GCmobility FAQ where we try to capture the most frequently asked questions.
=== Is GCmobility a technology project? ===
While GCmobility is excited with the opportunities that exist with various IT solutions to support a mobile workforce, GCmobility is most concerned with:
* People: The people impacted by mobility and the interactions and collaborations they may have with others
* Policies: The Acts, Regulations, Policies, Standards, Directives and other policy instruments and frameworks that enable mobility
* Processes: The processes that mobile workers are constantly needing to navigate such as on boarding, orientation and off boarding between departments.
* Services: The services that are in place to support mobility including enterprise IT solutions, individual departmental service desks as well as the ecosystem of HR innovation programs tackling various aspects of the mobility issue.
=== Who Has the Mandate for Mobility ===
Currently it is unclear if any single minister has the overall mandate for mobility within the public service. The best that we have seen is that it is a shared responsibility among multiple deputy heads within and between departments. This causes problems for mobile employees in that is is sometimes unclear where the mandate of one deputy head or one department starts and the other begins. This can often cause issues to be unaddressed, with the ultimate result in mobile workers feeling the discomfort of areas of responsibilities falling through the cracks.
=== What is the solution proposed by GCmobility ===
We are often asked what solution are we proposing. The challenging response is that we actually don't have a solution. If the solution was easy as buying one IT products, commissioning one 3rd part independent report, implementing a tried and true governance model or any number of other potential solutions then the issue around mobility would not exist and nor would the GCmobility initiative. So our first approach is to try and define the problem of mobility. Perhaps the solution is to treat all mobile employees the same as with VIP Executives services, or perhaps we can just tweak an internal process, or maybe even a handshake agreement for two deputy heads to collaborate on a solution.
==== What is the problem with mobility anyhow? I have moved around government for years without problems ====
Well Done! The Government of Canada is a mobile organization for sure! The data also suggests that if you have positive mobility experiences you most likely are an executive employee. Executives continually measure between a 30-40% mobility rates. In support of this mobility there are "Executive" processes for HR, IT, accommodations etc etc. Employees are hired, retired and moved continually. The problem is not IF we are mobile but HOW and at what COST. GCmobility is collecting stories of Mobility Failure. Some examples include persons with disabilities waiting over a year for accessible laptops, Subject matter experts not being approved to use the tools they need, security validation processes taking over 100 days, employees not getting paid the right amount or at all, vacation and other leave not being transfered appropriately, duplicated e-mail and network user accounts, and the list goes on.
=== What are GCmobility timelines? ===
While timelines are hard to hammer out given that mobility is wicked problem that is not well understood, there are many uncoordinated efforts to solve different parts of the mobility problem, there is no clear ownership of mandate, executive services are already in place for the more mobile employee groups and no single solution has been identified, GCmobility has targeted 2024 as an initial timeline to have 30% of the workforce be hypermobile. History seems to suggest these timelines may shift.
=== What do you mean by mobility? ===
Think of GCmobility as solving mobility problems for public servants who self identify as gig workers. In the context of GCmobility, we are most interested in career mobility of public servants as public servants. So although this may exclude hiring and retirement, GCmobility is most interested in the retention phase of an employees career.Therefore mobility in this context is the deliberate movement of empowered employees to move where and when suits them, not just their employer or hiring manager. We are also interested in investigating other types of mobility such as workforce mobility, where deputy heads may move whole workforces from one priority to another. Talent mobility is another use case which tends to be driven by hiring managers needing to build their teams with the talent they need to succeed. While Workforce and Talent mobility are key, there are many initiatives focused on these mobility types. GCmobility is focused on Career Mobility of hyper mobile employees who may move through multiple gigs in a single year with mobility rates of 100%-400%. This is career mobility for gig workers.
=== Have you thought of creating an Enterprise Mobility Service? ===
The closest thing to a mobility service we have found in government are the multiple Executive, or VIP services offered by individual departments. For an enterprise Mobility Service to be successful, many things would need to fall in place. This service would need to be delivered by a single department, who would have combined mandates across multiple service lines including staffing, HR, Accommodations, IT, Service desk, Pay, leave, etc etc etc. Currently many departments face barriers between these service lines within a single department. These issues, if unresolved, would just be magnified by the department that would be responsible for such a combined mandate. GCmobility feels that the issues around mobility need to be deeply understood and systematically solved for each service line. Not simply sequentially going through each service line and fixing issues, but doing so in parallel with many iterations and a HUG number of failures along the way. This is hard work and requires strong SHARED leadership. If an enterprise solution one day exists, it will be because the problems were solved at a smaller scale.
=== How do you plan to scale what every solution you find? ===
By leveraging a partnership approach, we want to analyze issues of mobility between a small group of deputy heads. Mobility is not a solo sport, so no single department can solve it on their own. Also, there is no sense of disrupting over 100 government entities as we experiment, try, fail, learn, and build new solutions. GCmobility is aiming to work with at least 3 deputy heads of different departments. If three deputy heads can offer up leadership, resources, time and space to experiment on new mobility models then scaling occurs when we add the 4th deputy head and the solutions don't break. If they do then we need to experiment, fail, learn etc with 4 partner deputy heads and scale incrementally. Perhaps the solutions work for 5 departments but fail when we hit 10. Or maybe we can find solutions across science departments but solutions break with central agencies or those belonging to the security portfolio. In short, we won't know until we start small, and the smallest partnership size that makes sense is at least 3 and a max of 5 to start.
=== Do you have any evidence of this scaling approach working with other programs? ===
One model of scaling that has followed a similar approach is Canada's Free Agents. Although it started at NRCAN as a single department in scaled through the concept of "co-horts", then it scaled to other departments. As of this writing (October 2019), Canada's Free Agents has just added a fourth department to the model. While there are some obvious signs that scaling might be a challenge, especially trying to ensure all Free Agents have a similar experience regardless of what department they call home, the model of scaling through collaboration seems to be working. While Canada's Free Agents is governed by an interdepartmental ADM level steering committee, it is unclear what governance model may work for GCmobility.
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== GCmobility Partners ==
== GCmobility Partners ==
