Collaboration with Partners and Stakeholders

Definition

Collaboration with Partners and Stakeholders means building and maintaining an effective and constructive network with partners, stakeholders or contacts* who may be helpful in achieving organizational goals.

*Partners, stakeholders and contacts are individuals inside or outside the organization with whom one builds or maintains working relationships to assist in the achievement of work objectives. As such, members of the current work team and current clients, both internal and external, are generally excluded due to the nature of the existing working relationship.

Core Motivation: To develop working relationships beyond the immediate team to assist in the achievement of organizational objectives.

It's about:

• establishing and sustaining an effective and constructive connection with people inside or outside the organization who are or might be helpful in the achievement of current or future organizational goals;
• making an effort to build rapport and identify shared goals with people you believe can help advance work objectives;
• building useful partnerships with people in a purposeful manner;
• nurturing a meaningful connection so people remember you and are willing to exchange information or provide assistance when needed.

This competency focuses on building and maintaining working relationships with other individuals to obtain appropriate information or assistance in order to achieve current or future work-related goals. These individuals may come from inside or outside the organization.

In most situations for this competency, the individuals with whom you have collaborative partnerships are not your clients or part of your current work team. As indicated in the definition, the working relationship for this competency generally excludes a client-service provider relationship since Service Excellence addresses that specifically. The definition for Collaboration with Partners and Stakeholders also excludes relationships between people working in the same group or team as we find in Leadership and Teamwork and Cooperation. The definitions, dynamics, core motivations and purposes of these other competencies are very different than those included in networking with people outside your immediate working area.

Example: An Agency psychologist purposely maintains contact with the psychologists at the Public Service Commission Personnel Psychology Centre because they do similar work and therefore they can share best practices.

Purpose of this competency for CRA

Collaboration with Partners and Stakeholders encourages employees to build and maintain working relationships that will help them obtain essential information or assistance in order to advance CRA business objectives.

Progression of scale - Degree of effort to establish and maintain working relationships, and immediate to long-term benefit of the organization

The Progression of the scale works together with the underlying notions, so it is important to consider this information as it indicates how the behaviours progress as you move from level 1 to level 4. The behaviours generally build on each other.

In other words, you may:

• maintain existing working relationships while performing your regular duties;
• keep the partners, stakeholders or contacts informed on issues of mutual interest or seek input from them on specific issues.

At this level, there is a low level of effort required to maintain the working relationships, as they already exist. You take action to keep the relationships alive. The benefit to the organization is that the ongoing relationships help you perform your regular duties and achieve current work objectives.

Example/Context

An employee works in a new area where the working relationships have already been established with a few people from other government departments. The employee purposely maintains contact with them by holding regular teleconferences in the course of his duties in order to meet current work objectives.

In other words, you may:

• identify and develop a new working relationship with someone outside your current network who may be able to help you meet current work objectives;
• to address an immediate need, create a new type of working relationship with someone who you had contact with previously in another context.

At this level, the degree of effort required to establish and maintain the working relationship is greater since you need to identify a new contact. The benefit to the organization is that the new working relationship will help you perform your regular duties and achieve current work objectives.

Example/Context

An auditor in an isolated community recognized that the local accounting association was often the only source of help to business clients for communicating the latest tax changes. The auditor called the local accountants association to get a list of their members. He was able to establish new contacts with some members and sought them out when he was in the area to discuss the latest tax requirements.

In other words, you may:

• identify, develop and maintain relationships that may be helpful in achieving long term or future objectives;
• be looking for opportunities to network while working towards future organizational goals, possibly across organizational boundaries if mutual benefits are possible.

Generally, the network you are developing at this level involves more than one contact. If it is only one person with whom you are developing a working relationship to address future issues, your relationship with that person must be one that could lead to further contacts or a network potentially beneficial to your organization. For assessment purposes, your level 3 event may include a series of individual contacts when building your network for a specific future issue.

At this level, the degree of effort is significant since it is required to establish, maintain, and nurture the working relationships. The benefits to the organization may be realized in the future, as you are addressing long term work objectives.

Example/Context

An employee knew there was a strong possibility that proposed changes in a certain industry might impact on CRA’s future ability to effectively collect taxes from those working in that industry. The employee sought out opportunities to network and established important contacts with the intention of safeguarding CRA’s future interests. He consciously set out to establish rapport and made a sustained effort to maintain the relationships.

In other words, you may:

• develop in a proactive and strategic manner a planned network of beneficial working relationships to achieve the organization’s future objectives;
• establish a network of contacts with a broad range of people from external organizations, so that these individuals can be useful in the future when complex organizational issues are encountered.

At this level, the degree of effort is very high since you need to understand the stakeholders’ interests, and establish, maintain, and nurture new collaborations. The expanded network may provide longer term advantages that relate to the organization’s strategic objectives.

Example/Context

An employee created an association of import/export representatives for Canadian companies in a foreign country. They frequently communicated through social media to discuss problems faced by their respective organizations and share solutions. Furthermore, they relied on each other for any other information that they could benefit from. This network was very important to improve the service levels in their respective organizations. The employee asked the representatives to introduce him to other people in their networks so that he could better understand the impact those external organizations had on complex and strategic issues his organization was facing. He exerted a great deal of effort to develop relationships with these new contacts and spent a significant amount of time ensuring that he helped them as much as they helped him.