Dear Ms. LaRose, please tell me a couple of words about yourself, about your role in the project. 

 I am a former public servant with the Canadian federal public service, and I have worked there for about 34 years. I  retired a couple of years ago and since then I have been doing consulting work, including this work with the project team working on human resources management in Ukraine’s civil service. Specifically, I am helping to support the development of leadership competency profiles. 

Please tell me more about these leadership competency profiles: what are they? And, what are their function generally in human resources management?   

Well, first of all, a competency is a characteristic such as a skill, knowledge, behaviour, ability that people require in order to perform their work effectively. And every function, every job requires a certain number of competencies – you need to know certain things, you need to have a certain number of skills to perform that job well.  A competency profile is a collection of all the competencies required to perform a particular function. So there may be five, or ten, or however many are appropriate for that particular job. A leadership competency profile is a competency profile required to perform the functions of leadership and management effectively within the civil service. These are the profiles that we are developing for Ukrainian civil servants ­- leadership competency profiles, in other words identifying the set of skills, knowledge and behaviours and other attributes that leaders and managers in Ukraine’s civil service need to have in order to perform their jobs and functions well.  

How would you describe the quality of leadership in the Ukrainian civil service? What qualities should be improved or developed? 

 It is hard for me to say because I do not know the leaders and managers well, but I can tell you that we have consulted with leaders and managers in the civil service quite extensively. They are the ones who must tell us what they do, what they need to do and what skills and competencies they need in order to perform their jobs and functions. Some of the things they told us in terms of an ideal manager or leader in Ukraine’s civil service include, for example, a need for a high degree of professionalism to ensure that leaders and managers possess good knowledge of Ukraine’s civil service (i.e. how it works, the mandates of different organizations, all related government processes, and the legal framework within which they undertake their work, etc.)

Managers and leaders also need to have possess good technical knowledge in their areas of specialty. So, for example, if they happen to be an accountant  - they need to have a good knowledge of the technical requirements related to accounting in addition to any managerial responsibilities they might have. They need to be results-oriented - that is what they told us. Achieving results is very important and leaders must necessarily maintain a focus on results. They also indicated that there are other desired competencies – namely being a good decision-maker, having good strategic, analytical thinking skills, being self-motivated to improve the workplace and work processes, being a good team player, working well with people, being effective at dealing with the people issues in their organizations – all of these are characteristics that were commonly identified among all people that we consulted.  These are very similar qualities to the ones that one would expect to find in leaders in any environment - whether it is in the private sector or public sector within or outside of Ukraine. I think managers within the Canadian public service with would identify many of the same characteristics.  

How would you assess the level of interest from the members of the focus groups? 

 They were very–very interested. We held four focus groups and each one lasted about two hours. There was no shortage of talk. Everybody participated extremely well – presenting very good ideas and openly sharing their thoughts. There was a great deal of common interest and common information that was provided.  At times there was disagreement in terms of priority competencies, however, in these instances individuals would disagree with their colleagues and offer their opinions for consideration by the focus group. We enjoyed a very good dialogue – one that was very exciting to listen to – one that offered a lot of insight into the desired profile of leadership competencies for leaders and managers in the Ukrainian civil service. 

Who took part in the focus groups? 

Our focus groups included deputy ministers, heads of departments, heads of sectors, heads of units and their equivalents across central executive government bodies. We tried to capture the input of  that group of people in the civil service who have management and leadership responsibilities - those that have a team that they work with. Approximately 600 questionnaires completed by leader-managers across the civil service, and, in addition, through focus groups, we consulted with an additional group of manager-leaders – which proved a very good representative group.  

Do you plan to follow up on or build on these competency profiles with some training for leaders? 

Yes. The next step following all this consultation is to develop draft leadership competency profiles. We then plan to consult one more time with leaders and managers as well to make sure that we understood well what they told us. Further, that when they read the competency profiles they look right to them -  that we have included all relevant information and there is nothing important that is missing.  When this process is complete,  we shall prepare a final version of the competency profiles.

Then, the expectation is that the first real use of the profiles will take place in the area of training. We hope that the organizations responsible for training leaders and managers will be in a position to undertake meaningful needs analysis of the leader-manager population against the competencies that are set out in the profiles. So, for example, if we include a need for more strategic thinking in the profiles, these organizations will then work with leaders and managers to determine their learning needs with respect to strategic thinking, and will design learning and training to build that particular competency. This approach will apply for other competencies as well.   Clearly priorities have to be established - identifying the most important areas that require development.  There is obviously a lot of activity with regard to leadership competency profiles.

Beyond the profiles, the Ukraine Civil Service Human Resources Management Reform (UCS-HRM) Project also consists of several other elements,do you plan to be  involved in other aspects of the Project? 

This (leadership competency profiles) is my main area of involvement. However, because the leadership competency profiles are the basis for other human resources elements, namely, as I mentioned, training, and also performance evaluation; and later, we expect that competency profile material will be used to assess people for selection or promotion, I will have a role later on as the profiles relate to these processes. I know that there are other advisors working in those particular areas. It shall most likely be a case of coordinating and working with them to ensure that we have a common understanding of what is required.  

Your experience in civil service is really impressive. Based upon your experience, how would you identify the difference between the management of human resources in Ukraine’s civil service as compared with Canada? What can Ukrainian human resources managers learn from Canadian experience?

Well, there are many similarities and many differences as well, because the local environment is unique. Obviously, that makes the challenges for managers in Ukraine different from those for managers in Canada. It does not mean that they are better or worse, they are just different. 

I think one of the differences I have noticed from the conversations I have been involved in, and I presume I understood well the translation is that in the Canadian public service managers understand that managing people is one of their primary responsibilities and that they, for example, are responsible for selecting members of their work teams, for identifying the training needs for those people and working with them to develop their skills, for managing their performance on a daily basis, for dealing with problems, etc. And, that role concerns managers of all levels including the most senior levels.  My impression is that managers at lower levels work closer with employees in the Ukrainian civil service, however the more senior they become, the less they see human resources management as one of their key responsibilities, and it is primarily the human resources department that oversees all of that work. I think that is a big difference in terms of how people perceive their roles.  Apart from that, a lot of things I heard were very similar in terms of analytical thinking, decision making, etc.  

Do you see challenges and obstacles to human resources management in Ukraine’s civil service, constraining the introduction of best international practices? 

Again, I am not all that familiar with the Ukrainian context, so please take that into consideration. But one of the things that we saw through the surveys and the focus groups is that there are a lot of changing priorities and plans. As a manager, you are asked to do one thing today, and tomorrow maybe something else, and the next day - something else. You and your teams have to very quickly respond to these new demands. So much of your time is taken up responding to these new demands that you do not have much time to sit back and think and to engage in some planning. You are not able to plan over a longer period of time.  

At the same time, you are not left with a lot of time to spend on human resources management. If you are always responding to crisis, you do not have as much time to think about what you really need the the longer term and to start working towards that those longer term needs.  Certainly, in Canada we have our changing priorities, but I think there is probably more stability for civil servants in the day-to-day operations, and they have more time to devote to management functions as opposed to constantly responding to the changing work environment.  

What special impressions from the experience of last week do you have? 

Every civil servant that I have met over the course of my career irregardless of the country or government they represent demonstrates  a dedication to doing a good job, to serving their organization, to serving their country, and to serving with a very high degree of professionalism. I have experiences like  this in Canada, I have seen it in other countries, and I have noted this quality in Ukraine as well. We all approach work a little differently, we have different priorities, needs and situations, but this seems to be a common tie that binds all civil servants together around the world. People seem to be very engaged in the process in Ukraine  and genuinely want to improve their lives and the lives of their organizations. I think they are very excited about future changes. This is great as this looking-forward is precisely what is required to continue to move civil service reforms forward in Ukraine.