Employee ratings “quilt” leaves new Canadian cabinet in the political cold

Canada has a new governing political cabinet but an analysis of how federal employees feel about workplace conditions shows that most new cabinet ministers are in the cold.

Quilts can be lovely, colorful things sewn and stitched together to provide comfort and warmth to those enwrapped in their offerings. I give you a different kind of quilt. Part of a matrix I put together showing the level of unhappiness Canadian federal government employees have with their department whose purpose is to protect you from the storm of change, to protect your safety and security, and to improve your economic and emotional health.

My “Quilt of Concern” shows how tens of thousands of Canadian federal civil servants in 18 key national departments rated eight important workplace conditions in the latest (2018) national opinion survey published by Ottawa. It’s easy to understand.

A red square means the good-job rating from department employees is in the cellar (the bottom one-quarter of overall results). This includes such important workplace factors as having a psychologicaly healthy workplace (50% of all departments in the quilt are in the red), having unsatisfactory work dealt with (61% are in the red), having confidence in senior management (50% are in the red), feeling valued (39% in the red), and so it goes.

What national departments are least protected by their quilts? The color-coded matrix shows the following to be in the red when it comes to having a psychologically healthy workplace, a measure that pretty well tells you how other things at work are doing: Correctional Services Canada (33% good job), Canada Border Services Agency (42%), the Status of Women department (46%), Indigenous Services Canada (50%) and Public Safety Canada (52%).

So, federal employees who are supposed to protect us from violent prisoners, to deal with illegal border crossings, to make the world a better place for women, to finally provide reconciliation to First Nations, and to generally keep Canada safe from organized crime and nasty criminals are pretty well bummed-out at work. Do you now feel warm and safe under your cozy government performance quilt as the winter economic and social storms arrive?