A Values and Ethics REALITY CHECK

BY Carole Robinson Oliver

Gary Barber, Senior Director for Liaison, Evaluation and Accountability Directorate (LEA), Office of Public Service Values and Ethics (OPSVE)

Public service values underpin everything that we do as government employees” says Gary Barber, Senior Director for Liaison, Evaluation and Accountability Directorate (LEA) within the Office of Public Service Values and Ethics (OPSVE). “They’re behind every aspect of management accountability.”Barber and his team, in the OPSVE, are committed to enhancing a culture of integrity within the federal government. This culture has been strengthened across the system by promoting ethical behaviour through the implementation of various policies, procedures, practices and programs. The challenge many departments and agencies are facing, however, is in measuring ethical practices in their organization. How can departments and agencies understand what works well and what areas need improvement with regard to values and ethics without measurement?

This is where the Canada Public Service Agency comes in. The Agency’s Office of Public Service Values and Ethics’ mandate is to ensure that the public service has the necessary management infrastructure, practices and results to support a strong culture of public service values and ethics, consistent with the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service and the Management Accountability Framework (MAF).

The Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service sets forth the values and ethics of public service to guide and support public servants in all their professional activities. Barber emphasizes that although the Code dates back to 2003, the four public service values it defines — democratic, professional, ethical and people values — haven’t changed over the years. “What has changed, however,” according to Barber, “is the shift we saw in the 1990s towards decentralization and delegation of authority, where people were getting contradictory messages and being pulled in two different directions. On one hand they were expected to be innovators and risk-takers and get results; yet on the other hand, they were still expected to stick to the rules, go by the book and stay out of trouble.”

The OPSVE helps public servants deal with this tug-of-war through a number of ways, one being their role in the Treasury Board’s Management Accountability Framework (MAF). The MAF defines the conditions that need to be in place to ensure government is well managed and it also promotes management excellence, and values and ethics head the list of the ten key management expectations. Via annual assessments, OPSVE considers results from previous values and ethics initiatives as well as both current and future plans to address any areas of concern. The MAF also assesses whether or not a values and ethics risk assessment strategy and appropriate mitigation strategies have been implemented in the organization.

In addition to providing organizations with a clear picture of what is working and what isn’t with regard to values and ethics, OPSVE is committed to ensuring federal departments and agencies have the necessary infrastructure, practices and tools in place to sustain a strong culture of public service values. The Directorate has developed techniques for examining values and ethics performance in the areas of leadership, people management, organizational culture, risks and controls in conducting government business.

The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) is now working in partnership with the OPSVE to develop both qualitative and quantitative tools to help the organization identify issues of importance and concern to both management and employees, develop focused follow-up actions and measure progress resulting from values and ethics initiatives.

Ethical Climate Survey

The Ethical Climate Survey is designed to help CSC assess how it is performing in the area of values and ethics and employee engagement. The survey seeks employee and management perceptions on the organization’s workplace culture and environment in order to serve as the basis for an active and ongoing dialogue on important values and ethics issues, which may improve organizational performance with regard to values and ethics.

The questionnaire is organized around five areas, the first being leadership. Respondents are asked to anonymously rate a series of questions on a five-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” on the perceived degree to which leaders are effectively leading the organization, the perceived integrity of leadership behaviour and the perceived leadership commitment to promote values and ethics in the organization.

The second area of questions is on organizational culture in order to understand the degree to which employees feel they can trust their supervisor, senior management and peers; employees’ understanding of ethical issues and dilemmas; and employees’ ability to make decisions when ethical issues and dilemmas arise.

To understand the people management component of CSC the survey asks questions related to the work unit environment and if it is perceived to be free of harassment and discrimination, and the degree to which the work unit is perceived as collegial, supportive and productive. In addition, there are questions related to career path, workload, staffing practices, recognition and job fit.

Lastly, the effectiveness of policies and guidelines is measured by asking employees of the degree of awareness and understanding of the ethics and disclosure mechanisms, and the degree of adequacy of values and ethics training. Also included are questions on controls and the perceived risk areas.

Values and Ethics Risk Assessment

While it is important to seek employee and management perceptions on values and ethics behaviours, it is equally important to assess concrete practices and strategies in the organization. As such, the Values and Ethics Risk Assessment tool asks managers to look at their own business line, to identify the inherent risks associated with it, to review the safeguards already in place, and to develop risk mitigation strategies to address any gaps.

“Our desire is that organizations use both tools and come up with an integrated action plan,” Gary Barber explains. “In the ethical climate surveys, we’re dealing with employee perceptions of ethical breaches, which may or may not be the reality. They might over-estimate or under-estimate the ethical risk.”

“Together, these two tools form a really good reality check,” says Barber, “in the sense that departments can uncover risks that were not previously identified and therefore were not being managed. On the flip side,” he adds, “it could turn out that the risk is minimal, even though the perception of risk is high.”

Since measuring and improving values and ethics practices in an organization is an ongoing process, the Values and Ethics Branch at CSC will be comparing the results from the Ethical Climate Survey and the Values and Ethics Risk Assessment tool by re-administering them to see whether the values and ethics training and other activities have made a positive difference in the working lives of CSC employees.

Note: OPSVE has developed on-line values and ethics courses for all employees, managers and executives that will be available through the Canada School of Public Service in early 2008. Stay tuned! ♦