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UCS UPDATE
August 15, 2001
"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Mark Twain
Contrary to any rumors you may have heard, UCS is not dead. In fact, according to Treasury Board, the initiative is not only alive, but it is kicking. Treasury Board has assured us that corrective measures are being taken to address the concerns raised by the Association since the inception of this initiative.
One of the measures undertaken by the UCS Division (UCSD) of Treasury Board was to once again engage the services of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to perform an audit of UCS Work Descriptions (WD) to determine their rateability, from an evaluation point of view. This audit was performed in January/February of 2001, and a report was submitted to Treasury Board in March 2001. Once the findings were studied, the Association was provided with a summary, which included statistics related to the Financial Management (FI) occupational group. In addition, a meeting was scheduled between the Association, UCSD officials, and a representative from PWC to provide a de-brief on the findings, and clarify any points or address any concerns. The Association has studied the findings and attended the de-brief, and we would like to make the following comments/observations.
The purpose and scope of the audit was narrowly defined to determine rateability but only in the sense that a rating committee could find words in each element which could be matched with a rating level for that element.
What the audit did not do was:
- Determine if a rating for an element was appropriate for the level and group of the position being rated; and
- Determine if the rating level for one element was consistent with the rating level for another element in that work description.
What the study did show was:
- For some positions, the work descriptions were often too short owing to elements or sub-elements not being described - skipping elements or sub-elements will be detrimental to the rating of the position;
- Shorter work descriptions where the text was targeted to the highest level were easier to rate than long work descriptions where several paragraphs were provided for each element;
- Work Descriptions in the 11-15 page range had the highest level of rateability; and
- People (both managers and incumbents of a position for which a work description is being written) need more training in the fundamentals, i.e. some (employees) still expect a WD to cover things that are not pertinent to UCS ratings. Training is an important element of change management.
In addition, statistics relating to the overall quality of specific WD Elements were provided to the Association, and they show that, as of one calendar year ago, the elements that were most problematic for the FI community were Leadership of Human Resources, Money, Job Content Knowledge, Communication and Intellectual Effort. When one compares the percentage of poorly rated work descriptions, by element, to the rest of the public service, it is quite evident that all communities have the same areas of concern. In reality, the FI work descriptions rate slightly higher than the Public Service average. It is important to note, however, that these findings predate the various UCS Reference Tools that were developed to help address these very problems, so the data is, quite possibly, obsolete.
However, all FI's are, as always, strongly encouraged to ask management for another opportunity to review their WD, and to make use of the key messages and activity statements provided in the UCS FI Reference Tool.
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