The Service Canada College: Making the grade
by Joanna Baker and André Leclair
Service Canada, though barely a year old, is already changing the way the government delivers services to Canadians. And now the newly created Service Canada College is putting service excellence at the heart of everything the organization does.
"Survey after survey has made it clear to us that Canadians want one-stop, easy to-access, personalized service. They want the information they need on government programs and benefits delivered to them in a timely fashion by professional, responsive and knowledgeable staff,” said Hélène Gosselin, deputy head of Service Canada.
The new college is modelled on the “corporate university” concept adopted by a growing number of corporations and government agencies in Canada and around the world.
Companies such as Bombardier, Westjet, Canada Post and Bell have deeply rooted corporate training institutions and virtual learning communities. They understand that a highly skilled workforce gives them an increased competitive advantage. They also know that providing employees with opportunities to learn and grow professionally helps attract and retain talent. It also enables management to bring a consistency and coordination to all corporate learning and operational training activities.
Once all learning activities in an organization are grouped under the umbrella of a college or university, it becomes easier to negotiate with outside academic institutions for accreditation of the corporate college learning programs. This enables students to embark on life-long learning – laddering into other educational qualifications.
Service Canada has embarked on a significant culture change initiative. It needs to implant a culture of service excellence in all its employees – not just those on the frontline of client service. It has the opportunity to develop service excellence and client service curriculums that can be made available to other government departments and other levels of government.
Putting citizens first
A greater coherence in learning activities across the organization will ultimately translate to a win-win situation for Service Canada, employees and citizens. Citizens win by getting service from more knowledgeable employees. The organization benefits from the increased energy that learning organizations foster. Employees win through access to more learning opportunities and more clearly marked career paths.
“The training our people get is part of our unique value proposition to other government departments when they ask us to deliver services to Canadians on their behalf,” said Élise Boisjoly, director general of Service Offerings and Strategies.
“The college will provide a much more powerful lever for continuous learning in the workplace,” said Richard Rochefort, director general of Learning Programs at Service Canada. The emphasis on continuous learning will become increasingly important as Service Canada becomes responsible for delivering more services.
As that suite of services grows, the organization is “bundling” services and benefits together in ways that make sense for various client communities. This client segmentation approach is being used to tailor services to groups such as seniors, families, persons with disabilities, aboriginal people, youth, residents of rural and remote areas, and newcomers to Canada.
“The ultimate goal is to meet high service standards for everyone. The client who comes in for a pleasure craft licence for their new boat has very different service needs from a person coming for employment support,” said Boisjoly.
According to CitizensFirst4, a recent study by the Institute for Citizen Centred Service and the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, there are clear links between good service, citizen satisfaction, and confidence in the public service.
Supporting employees in achieving their service delivery potential
Service Canada is taking a leadership role in government to formally recognize the role of service delivery as a profession, and a career, in the federal public service. It is acknowledging that service excellence is more than meeting clients' and citizens' needs. It is about providing employees with the training and tools to perform to this high standard and valuing employees who are essentially the face of government for Canadians.
“The Service Canada College is a demonstration of our organization’s commitment to our employees,” said Gosselin.
Joanna Baker is chief of Internal Communications for Service Canada. André Leclair is a communications officer with Service Canada.
SIDEBAR
Providing Professional Recognition
As a corporate learning institution, the Service Canada College is not only breaking new ground in terms of lifelong learning and training but it is also adding a very important component to its ambitious agenda: professional recognition.
As it develops the Service Canada curriculum, the college is entering into discussions with the Community College Network to get third-party program certification. “We want to ensure that the investment our staff members will make in continuous learning and training will be recognized by colleges and universities,” explained Richard Rochefort, director general of Learning Programs. Already, a number of community colleges have shown interest in providing third-party certification for Service Canada College programs.
This approach is modeled on existing community college certification arrangements involving major organizations, such as the Canadian Forces Community College Program, in which participants get academic credit from a network of post-secondary institutions.
Another innovative aspect of Service Canada College operations is a partnership with the Department of National Defence to lease the Canadian Forces Learning Management System, a computerized system for managing student registration, learning plans and career paths.
The Regina Learning Centre
The college's new national learning centre for service excellence is one floor below the flagship, state-of-the-art Service Canada Centre, in the new Government of Canada Building in Regina.
The Regina learning centre will combine classroom learning with hands-on, practical training, personal coaching and e-learning.
The first cohorts of Service Canada employees participated in the first two-week component of the pilot program in September, and early reports indicate that it is working well.
Mastery in Service Excellence
The Service Excellence Certification Program features three levels of service excellence “mastery,” reflecting the functions and levels of Service Canada client-service providers.
The Service Excellence Certification Program has focused initially on level two employees – those providing direct face-to-face services to citizens. Over the coming months, similar programs and certifications will be developed and implemented for level one employees – those supporting or leading level two employees. Ultimately, all Service Canada employees will be offered some variation of the service excellence program, in recognition of the fact that “if you aren’t serving the client, you’re serving someone who is serving a client.” The financial or human resource agent in Service Canada is ultimately as responsible for service excellence as the frontline worker.
Service Canada at a glance
Service Canada is the Government of Canada’s one-stop, easy-to-access service delivery network for a wide range of government programs and services.
Service Canada makes it easier for Canadians to get the programs and services they need when and where they need them — whether they’re applying for a passport or a Social Insurance Number; receiving Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan or seniors’ benefits; searching for a job or planning a career; or just looking for information about government programs and services.
Service Canada’s Network
§ Over 22,000 staff across Canada
Call 1 800 0-Canada
§ 56 million phone calls annually
Click on servicecanada.gc.ca
§ 4.8 million e-transactions annually
Visit a Service Canada Centre
§ 6.7 million visits to Service Canada Centres
