The Public Service Staffing Modernization Project (PSSMP)

The Public Service Staffing Modernization Project (PSSMP) is a multi-year effort which contributes to providing Canadians, public servants and Public Service managers with a world-class solution to support a streamlined and transparent staffing approach across the Federal Government.

Environmental Influences

Legislative changes

The passage by Parliament of the Public Service Modernization Act (PSMA) in November 2003, began a new era of human resources (HR) management in Canada’s federal public service. The ways in which federal employees are hired, managed and supported are all being transformed.

A critical piece of supporting legislation is the new Public Service Employment Act (PSEA), which comes into force December 31, 2005. It modernizes staffing with a new definition of merit that moves away from a rules-based concept of “best-qualified” to a values-based approach that allows managers to hire qualified and competent individuals more quickly.

National Area of Selection Policy

National area of selection, a policy to gradually reduce the use of geographic criteria to establish applicant eligibility, will increase the volume of applications received for each position.

Corporate Administrative Shared Services (CASS)

The PSSMP is tightly linked to the Corporate Administrative Shared Services (CASS) initiative. CASS is focused on developing common business processes and systems for the Government’s internal services, mainly finance, procurement and human resources, including staffing, and plays a significant role in the future delivery of all human resources services across Government.

Increases in staffing actions

According to the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, external staffing is expected to increase by more than 40% over the next decade. The federal Government’s current manual staffing process will not be able to manage the increase in external staffing actions.

What is the PSSMP?

In support of the new legislation and policy, the PSSMP is about creating a system that will help Canadians apply for jobs in the public service, allow public servants to pursue their career and help hiring managers with their staffing needs as well as demonstrate leadership and encourage cross-government collaboration to effectively serve Canadians.

The PSSMP is making an important contribution to the implementation of the new PSEA. The Project will help the PSC continue to fulfill its policy and oversight roles in the new staffing era, while enabling departments and agencies, and particularly hiring managers, to assume their new responsibilities under the PSEA. It will also enable them to comply with new policies affecting merit, and more efficiently manage the staffing process. 

The Project is proceeding along two parallel streams of work. The first stream is focused on developing an interim solution for external staffing; the second stream is dedicated to developing a long-term cross-government solution for both external and internal staffing, in conjunction with the CASS initiative.

Stream One involves making enhancements to the Public Service Resourcing System (PSRS), a Web-based tool that was initially launched as a pilot project in 2003 to facilitate the federal public service external staffing screening process. In November 2005, PSRS was deployed to all PSC regions where departments and agencies have access to the system. PSRS is available to the public from the site www.jobs.gc.ca. Beginning in April 2006, interested departments and agencies will have direct access to the system. PSRS may be the first common system to result from CASS. While enhancements are being made to PSRS, the long-term solution will gradually replace the interim system beginning in 2007/2008. However, the on-going operation of PSRS is expected to continue until 2010/2011, at which time it will be retired.

More information on PSRS for departments and hiring managers is available in the PSRS Toolkit (available to Publiservice clients only).