A properly managed public service is the backbone of good government. Without motivated and competent civil servants at the helm, the ship of state can begin to wobble and weave, no matter how good the junior ranks. The City of Winnipeg's public service is far from sinking, but a recent workforce planning audit has raised concerns that it may be heading into rough seas.
In addition to a serious problem with employee morale, the audit found that 56 per cent of senior managers are eligible to retire within three years, putting "the city at a high level of risk due to the loss of corporate knowledge and management skill."
In the past, the city would simply hire new managers or promote existing employees to fill the gaps, but it's not that easy anymore. According to the audit, the city has been having a hard time filling senior positions, partly because the jobs don't pay enough and high-calibre candidates can earn more in the private sector.
Some of those hard-to-fill jobs pay over $100,000, which sounds like a good bundle of cash, until you compare it to a similar job in the private sector that pays $150,000 or more. The labour market is so tight right now that the city is even having trouble filling some entry-level positions, such as clerical jobs, because clerks, too, can earn more in the private sector.
There is an enduring myth that public sector employees are overpaid and underworked, which may be true in some cases. But it is probably also true that the private sector compensates some workers at too high a rate and others not enough. The fact is there will always be inequity and injustice in any large organization, problems that are not always easy to remedy, particularly when collective agreements are involved.
As the city audit makes clear, however, many of the city's leadership positions are undervalued. The most senior postings, which include all department heads, are the subject of individual contracts, but all other compensation levels are determined by collective agreements. Senior managers are not unionized, but their pay increases are linked to the negotiated union rate.
This poses a challenge for the city in trying to adjust wage scales to close the income gap with the private sector, but, as the audit notes, it is the same challenge faced by the private sector itself and other governments across the country. The city is now working to understand the problem and prepare for the demographic attrition that is coming.
The challenge is made worse by an apparent morale problem among city employees, which is not explained in the audit report. In the competition for motivated and gifted workers, therefore, the city will not only need to examine the way it determines executive salaries, but also the quality of the workplace itself.
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