You may recall a while back we told you that PMSD for CMG-represented staff was being put on hold while a joint union-management committee investigated ways to improve the process. The National Joint PMSD Committee is now ready to take the next step in re-launching PMSD and here’s what we’re planning.

WHAT IS IN IT FOR ME?
Performance Management and Staff Development is back. So why should you care about PMSD?

If you are a CMG member, you will have a chance to get regular and quality feedback about your job. You’ll have a chance to talk about development opportunities to help you do your job better. PMSD will also include discussion of your career goals and the support needed to help you achieve them.

If you are a manager or supervisor, you will get a regular chance to have a quality discussion with the people who report to you about performance and how it fits into the needs of your unit. The PMSD discussion provides an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day operational demands of your unit and think about and discuss direction with the members of your team. You can help an employee get better at what they do through development and career opportunities.

In particular, the process provides
– A chance to be heard
– An opportunity to recognize contributions
– A chance to work on common goals
– An opportunity to shape your future

YES, BUT WHY BOTHER!
You may remember an earlier attempt to do Performance Management and Staff Development at the CBC. For a variety of reasons, it didn’t work well for many people. Some of you are probably cynical because of that. So a joint CMG and CBC management committee has worked hard to fix the problems and try to make it better for everyone’s benefit.

PMSD is in the Collective Agreement between the Corporation and CMG, and therefore all CMG staff are required to participate in the process. For more details please see Article 39 and Appendix W of the Collective Agreement. It is in the contract because union and management believe that PMSD can help with both employee job satisfaction and Corporate performance.

SO WHAT IS THIS NEW IMPROVED PMSD?
PMSD as a concept has not changed. How we do it has. Key elements of the changes include:
– A focus on the quality of the conversation, to ensure it is personal, relevant, interesting, specific and measurable
– Making sure there is an equal emphasis on performance objectives, and on developmental and career objectives
– Stressing reality – all objectives must be realistic: performance, development and career
– Adopting a broad view of development that can include temporary assignments, projects, secondments, mentors, etc. in addition to classroom training
– Making PMSD more local and connected to the work you do and your personal situation?.no more simply cascading objectives
– A simpler PMSD form and flexible annual cycles of PMSD conversations, more attuned to needs of the units and individuals
– Shared ownership, making sure PMSD works will be in the hands of local management and CMG representatives

HOW WILL YOU ENSURE ALL OF THIS HAPPENS?
To help us get there, we will be providing a variety of training and Information sessions. Union members and management/supervisors will be participating in the information sessions together ? ensuring we all receive the same message. We will also conduct an ongoing “quality audit” to catch problems and fix them.

But before we go national with PMSD, we will pilot it first. We will launch the pilot in Manitoba and expect this pilot to continue into April. Following that, and the implementation of any required changes, we will roll out the new approach to all CMG affiliated staff starting early next fiscal year.

WHY MANITOBA?
We feel that Manitoba is an excellent pilot location as its size and scale of operations are big enough to be representative of many different scenarios yet small enough to be manageable as a pilot.

We met with the Local PMSD Joint Committee, local union representatives and Manitoba Human Resources in Winnipeg on February 9th.

There will be one hour Information Sessions for all employees beginning in the coming weeks. Supplementary training for Managers and supervisors on PMSD will follow thereafter with the expectation that PMSD conversations begin and continue over the following six to eight weeks.

There will be opportunities for feedback at each step of the process to help us get a sense of what is or is not working so that any required changes can be implemented. We are also looking to the Local Committee to assist in collecting this invaluable feedback.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff in Manitoba for participating in the pilot and for all of their help in trying to make this a successful process for all participants.

The National Joint Performance Management and Staff Development Committee:

CMG
Barbara Saxberg
Rick Warren
Michael Tymchuk
Harry Mesh (Co-chair)

Management
Fran?ois Pageau
Martin Marcotte
David Ross
Saira Gangji
Catherine Gregory
Johanne Doucet (Co-chair)