Integrated strategy for human resources and pay
Quarterly progress report: Spring 2024
The Government of Canada is changing the way it manages human resources (HR) and pay for public servants.
This report provides an update on our integrated strategy for HR and pay. It details how we’re improving and addressing challenges with the current pay system and our operations. It also highlights our work to explore a new modern HR and pay solution for Government of Canada employees.
Strategy health
To date, the integrated strategy is progressing within the established scope, cost and milestones. This progress report will provide details for each category, as well as featured projects, each quarter.
Scope
Cost
MilestonesScope
The strategy scope is divided into 2 components: current operations and transformation. Learn more about our featured projects for each component.
Current operations
Our continued efforts in maintaining and improving our current pay system and operations are required for the normal administration of pay and to reduce the number of outstanding transactions. Our goal is to reach steady state, which is defined as processing transactions within service standards 95% of the time and having no outstanding transactions over 1 year.
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Featured project: Unified actions for pay
We're exploring opportunities to standardize and simplify our processes, practices and systems for managing pay and HR across the public service.
That includes reinforcing best HR and pay practices for:
- employees to use self-serve functions
- departments, agencies and employees to validate and keep their information up to date in HR systems
- managers regarding hiring and HR
These are essential to make employees’ HR data more reliable and consistent, improve accuracy and timeliness of pay for employees and help prepare for the future of HR and pay.
Status: On track.
Roll-out across departments began in June 2024.
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Featured project: Pay Centre 2024 to 2025 pay operations strategy
We’re working toward implementing a modern, fit-for-purpose HR and pay system that can automate transactions as much as possible. These efforts are happening at the same time as we work to reduce the backlog and better manage transactions sent to the Pay Centre.
In April 2024, the Pay Centre estimated that close to 112,000 transactions in the backlog will get processed this fiscal year either as part of the dedicated backlog commitment, or as part of the normal course of pay processing. We do not have control over intake which has historically increased year over year. In 2023, intake was 16% higher than in 2022, 38% higher than in 2021, 66% higher than in 2020. Because of this, there is a risk that additional transactions may enter the backlog, therefore we are forecasting a net backlog reduction of approximately 49,000 transactions in 2024-2025.
First, a total of nearly 19,000 backlog transactions deemed likely to have an important financial impact on employees will be prioritized for processing. These older transactions include high-complexity work types that require more time to process.
In parallel, Shared Services Canada (SSC) will be further testing the Dayforce HR and Pay solution. To support this testing, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) committed to process the 12,000 outstanding pay transactions that Shared Services Canada employees had on April 11, 2024. As a result, SSC will have no pay transactions older than 1 year old as of April 2025.
Our goal is to process all of these transactions by March 2025. To ensure we meet this goal as we work towards resolving all outstanding transactions over a year old, we assigned more than 200 compensation advisors to this project. Consult our Public Service Pay Centre dashboard for the overall number of transactions ready to be processed at the Pay Centre.
In addition to the backlog reduction commitment, the Pay Centre estimated that an additional 81,000 backlog cases will be processed as part of associated transactions for the backlog commitment or as part of normal course of business.
Status: On track.
29% of the priority transactions have been processed.
Transformation
In parallel, we're exploring replacement options for our existing HR & pay systems, prototyping artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and experimenting with various data management models.
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Featured project: Data hub initiative
We’re exploring options to leverage data, including the use of AI, to modernize the way we deliver HR and pay services. This will best identify how we can use new technology for the current systems and for a future system.
We will create a new, centralized place to store all employee data. This video explains the initiative: A central data hub to transform human resources and pay services. A key benefit for employees will be that when they change departments, their files will move with them and not require a manual transfer, which can be slow. This creates issues considering employees are often not paid at their new rates of pay until their file is transferred, which can lead to underpayments that have to be adjusted later. The central data hub will leverage AI, strong governance and advanced analytics reporting. We recently published a Data hub initiative Request for information to receive feedback from experts.
Status: On track.
Feature: Transparency by design
We're committed to supporting and encouraging departments to effectively manage their HR. We're shifting our approach to be more transparent and proactive with public servants. This includes:
- putting the employee experience at the centre of how we do HR and pay
- ensuring consistent HR management across the Government of Canada
- sharing our plans for HR and pay with employees and the public
We want employees to know what to expect. This includes information about decisions on the future of pay within the federal public service. Transparency will be the rule, not the exception. This progress report, as well as the new GC Employee Pay and Benefits Facebook page, are part of our commitment to transparency by design. Through this, we'll provide guidance and information to employees and the public. The next step of the project will be to begin quarterly briefings with public service employees, unions, Parliament and the media. We'll also release documents on the Open Government portal.
Status: On track.
The first quarterly progress report launched in July 2024.
Cost
It’s crucial that we invest in the current HR and pay systems and operations so the 430,000 current and former employees receive their bi-weekly pay. Investments are also needed to resolve backlog transactions from past years. At the same time, we’re testing a new, modern and integrated HR and pay system designed to meet the current and future needs of the public service.
Fiscal year 2024 to 2025
Current operations
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Current operations (2024 to 2025)
These are projections for this fiscal year. It's expected that amounts may move depending on requirements and priorities through the year.
- $350.3 million for the Pay Centre and its compensation advisors to handle pay and benefit transactions for over 250,000 employees, as well as reduce outstanding transactions
- this includes processing transactions like actings, new hires, transfers and promotions
- $234.6 million for pay applications and information technology (IT) support, which includes programming, and improving the pay and HR systems, as well as 24/7 IT operations to ensure systems work correctly
- this amount includes the contract with IBM Canada valued at $120.2 million (taxes included)
- $101.3 million for pay administration, which is responsible for managing pay and benefits (bi-weekly pay) for over 430,000 current and former employees, ensuring data is accurate, implementing collective agreements, issuing tax slips, conducting audits, and more
- $63.9 million for business support and internal services, including program oversight, training, reporting to management and other departments, and more
- $50.5 million for the Client Contact Centre, which answers questions from all public servants and handles simple issues
- this funding also supports the MyGCPay application, which helps employees understand their pay and benefits
- $350.3 million for the Pay Centre and its compensation advisors to handle pay and benefit transactions for over 250,000 employees, as well as reduce outstanding transactions
Transformation
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Transformation (2024 to 2025)
These are projections for this fiscal year. It's expected that amounts will move depending on requirements and priorities through the year.
- $85 million for Dayforce to continue to support us in expanding testing more complex scenarios and configuring the system to our specific needs
- this total includes $2 million of unspent funding from 2023-24
- $55 million for PSPC to continue exploring a new modern HR and pay solution
- this includes expenses such as salaries for public servants, internal services, training, and more
- $22.7 million for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat to pursue simplifying HR processes and procedures, as well as to support initiatives such as the new central data hub
- $85 million for Dayforce to continue to support us in expanding testing more complex scenarios and configuring the system to our specific needs
Milestones
The project milestones allow us to track and publicly report on our progress.
Checkmark = Completed; Circle = In progress
Spring 2024
- Completed: Launch of the new GC Employee Pay and Benefits Facebook page to support employees
- Completed: Budget 2024 provided funding for the exploration of a new HR and pay system
- Completed: Launch of the Data hub initiative Request for information
Summer 2024
- In progress: Publish the first quarterly progress report
- In progress: Deployment of 4 new HR and pay best practices across departments, through the Unified actions for pay
- In progress: Launch MyGCPay HR integration
- In progress: Begin using an AI case advisor to support compensation advisors
Project spotlight
Each quarter, we put the spotlight on an element of work being done to improve HR and pay.
Government of Canada Employee Pay and Benefits Facebook page
On April 29, 2024, we launched the GC Employee Pay and Benefits Facebook page. The page provides compensation information and updates for employees, while supporting current and former public servants by responding to their general questions regarding pay and benefits.
Responses to these questions from employees are provided by our agents; however, employees are asked to contact the Client Contact Centre for specific questions about their personal cases.
This Facebook page is part of a broader strategy to better support current and former public servants, to be transparent with them and to build confidence in the next HR and pay solution. By communicating with public servants, it also helps us better understand their experiences.
The page already has more than 4,500 followers. We’ve answered dozens of questions from current and former public servants. Like and follow the GC Employee Pay and Benefits Facebook page today so you don’t miss a thing!
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