Projects spotlights

The employee experience is at the centre of our efforts. Since the spring, we continue to make progress to ensure employees can easily consult their HR and pay information and get adequate support when needed.

The following 3 key projects spotlight on an element of work being done to improve HR and pay to better serve employees.

• Reducing the backlog of pay transactions

  Over the past year, we’ve made significant progress in reducing the number of pay cases that are more than one year old. This improvement is the result of hard work by compensation staff across the organization, combined with more efficient ways of working. We are:

  • using new tools and technologies to reduce manual processing
  • streamlining workflows through a targeted backlog reduction strategy
  • focusing efforts on the most complex and long-standing cases

  These efforts are paying off. From October 2024 to October 2025, the number of cases over 1 year old decreased by 76K (note: this volume includes ESDC repatriated cases and aligns with what is published on the Public Dashboard for October 2024), and now sits at 130K. In particular, we have reduced the number of transfer cases awaiting processing from 4K (backlog only) to 700 (backlog only). This helps minimize delays for employees in accessing their accounts and benefits when moving from one department to another.

  Overall, fewer employees are waiting for pay issues to be resolved. We’re continuing to make real progress in addressing long-standing challenges. By sharing updates of our progress, we’re helping employees stay informed. We’re also showing the impact of sustained, coordinated action across the organization. Additional information is available on our Public Service Pay Centre dashboard, updated every month.

• Artificial Intelligence Virtual Assistant

  The Artificial Intelligence Virtual Assistant (AIVA) is helping transform the way HR and pay services are delivered to public servants. By automating routine tasks for compensation advisors, AIVA allows workload to be redistributed toward backlog and more complex cases while improving both the speed and quality of service. It also plays a crucial role in facilitating the transition from Phoenix to Dayforce, by supporting the reduction of outstanding cases and enhancing the accuracy and integrity of HR and payroll data.

  Since its introduction in 2024, AIVA continues to evolve. Constant enhancements increase its efficiency, enabling compensation teams to respond to employee needs more quickly and accurately. This progress embodies the Human Capital Management (HCM) vision of delivering modern, standardized, and dependable HR and payroll services. As a vital component of our broader digital transformation, AIVA plays a key role in managing transactions at the Pay Centre and helps to process transactions faster and with greater accuracy.

  Currently, multiple solutions are under development and being tested by compensation advisors and subject matter experts. AIVA aims to build the capacity to automate case processing to alleviate manual work on new, simple cases and reorient employees towards complex cases to prevent backlog accumulation. Since April 2025, AIVA has built 14.38% of its targeted capacity for June 2026, when it’s expected to support 160,000 transactions, helping prevent future backlogs and improving service for public servants.

• Departmental readiness for the Dayforce HR and pay solution

  The Government of Canada is modernizing how it manages human resources and pay. A significant clean-up of its systems containing HR and pay data will be required for departments and agencies to be ready to onboard onto Dayforce, the new HR and pay system. The clean-up of our data is crucial and will ease the transfer between systems.

  We have ramped up engagement with GC organizations to promote a targeted organizational cleanup. The Vanguard departments (Shared Services Canada, PSPC, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission), who will be the first to onboard, are already tackling this work and making good progress.

  Preparing for change

  Vanguard departments were provided a list of pre-onboarding actions required, including:

  • Eliminating multi-banking: phasing out situations where more than one permanent employee is assigned to the same position. Going forward, staffing actions will only be approved if they use a truly vacant position.
  • Reducing vacant positions: Reduction to the recommended 5% in accordance with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer (OCHRO) guidelines.
  • Assigning unique position numbers: Every employee will soon be assigned a unique position number. Until now, this has not been the case for certain assignments, casual roles, or other temporary staffing actions.
  • Strengthening manager accountability: Increased monitoring of managers’ actions relating to pending time and labour transactions in the pay system.

  These early steps will help organizations onboard smoothly when the new system goes live.

  Supporting change together

  We’ve recently relaunched user awareness sessions to ensure we frequently connect with employees and provide an opportunity for everyone to become more familiar with the new platform. The current sessions focus on a guided tour through the configured interface and show results of feedback we’ve received from employees.

  Looking ahead

  The HR and Pay Transformation Project will improve data quality, enhance service delivery, and build trust in the HR and pay system. Together, departments are laying the foundation now for a sustainable, people-centred future.

  Status: Ongoing