Branding the Public Service E

Purpose of this presentationDevelop a shared understanding of branding, propose key actions, timelines and next steps in developing a brand for the Public Service of Canada... Some Fac

Branding the Public Service of

Canada

December, 2007

• What are brands, purpose and PS branding

• Developing the brand: approach, steps and timeline

• Building the brand

• Early initiatives

• Next steps

• Branding initiatives underway

Purpose of this presentation

Develop a shared understanding of

branding, propose key actions, timelines and next steps in developing a brand for

the Public Service of Canada

What is a Brand?

• A brand is “promise” future employees, employees,

consumers, clients, citizens believe in

– Branding is much more than a logo, a tagline or

a slogan

• Branding is:

– A 360˚ look at every aspect of the organization

– Every touch point with members of the organization’s target audiences (external and internal)

• Branding requires consistency, clarity and commitment

Some Facts about the Public Service

• Canada’s largest employer – approximately 250K employees

• Canada’s most national employer – 1,600 points of service across

Canada

• Canada’s most international employer – present in more than 150

countries

• Offers over 1,000 different types of jobs

• Offers real opportunity for advancement – 36 CEO-equivalent positions and over 4,500 executives

• Works in many different lines of business (economical, social, cultural, scientific)

• Delivers vital services that touch citizens’ lives every day

• Has a direct impact in the country and in the world

• Average age of a new indeterminate employee is 36 years

• Average age of new EXs is 46 years

• Canada Post Corporation (CPC)

• Canadian Blood Services (CBS)

• Parks Canada (PC)

• Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

• Canadian Museum of Civilization

• Business Development Bank of Canada

• Farm Credit Canada

• CRA, DND, RCMP

• Province of British Columbia

Branding in Government Organizations

Why a Branding Strategy for the

Public Service?

• To support government’s plan for a stronger Canada

• To support one of the key objectives of the government to

strengthen and promote Canada’s foundational values of

freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law

• To build employees’ trust and pride, and encourage them to act

as ambassadors for their organization, its values, products and services

• To attract and recruit qualified new employees

• To reflect government’s efforts in ensuring that the Public

Service meets the evolving needs of Canadians and the

Canadian society with excellence in policy development and

advice, and professional service delivery

Why now?

• Demographics and labour market urge to position the PS as an employer of choice

• Commitment by Clerk in PS Renewal Action Plan

• 100th Anniversary of PSC and 140th Anniversary of the PS in 2008

• Recommendation by the PM Advisory Committee

on PS

• Suggestions made by the Senior Level Committee

on Retention and Compensation

PS Branding and Sub-brands?

Public service branding needs to be flexible to allow for strong complementary sub-brands

“customized to suit the particular needs and circumstances of individual departments and

agencies or functional communities”

– Some departments (e.g CRA, DND, RCMP, etc.) have

developed and are implementing a brand with emphasis

varying from recruitment (DND, RCMP) through to business development (CRA).

Mission

(options)

1 Serving the public and the public interest

2 Canadians serving Canada with excellence and pride

3 Canadians serving Canadian interests

4 Serving Canadians

5 Serving the public interest

6 Dedicated to excellence in public service

1 Building a strong Canada

2 Keeping Canada strong

3 Make Canada better

4 Building a country that is a source of pride

5 Contributing to Canada’s advancement

Vision

(options)

Prospective Employees Audience Segment #2Current Employees Audience Segment #3Canadians Audience Segment #4Parliamentarians

Students New Graduates

Mid-Career ManagementSenior

Members of

Equity Groups InstitutionsEducation

Individual Public Servants Managers

Individual departments / agencies

Functional Communities Unions

General Public Influencers

Business Leaders Community Leaders Academia

Functional

Professionals

Audience Segment #5 International

What to Brand for?

professional and adaptive

Approach with our Value

Proposition

1 Holistic – cannot be only

about recruitment or culture

Development Process

1 Intelligence gathering, analysis and consultations

2 Discuss branding approach, lessons learned, identify key

contacts, etc

3 Presentation of preliminary findings and approach to DM PS

Renewal Committee and other senior-level committees

4 Public tender and engagement of a professional firm

5 Development of the PS-wide branding strategy

6 Engagement of key stakeholders (DMs, DG Communications,

Managers’ Community, Unions, Youth, HRMAC, etc.)

Engagement and Outreach

Development of an engagement and outreach strategy to

• Managers network and Conference

• Communications community and Conference

• Communications strategy for external audiences

• Dialogue with key stakeholders on best practices in branding

• Presentations to senior-level committees: DMs PS Renewal

Committee, Communications Council on PS Renewal, DGs Council

on PSMA, Regional Federal Councils

 Conduct executive research

 Conduct employee focus groups

 Conduct stakeholder research

PHASE THREE

Strategic Planning

 Identify the opportunity

 Develop brand platform, promise and character

 Establish and test

PS positioning

 Consult with DMs Committees

 Develop and test brand identity

 Develop implementation framework

PHASE FOUR

Brand Strategy and complete Implementation Planning

 Develop/finalize brand strategy

 Develop/finalize internal/external implementation plan

 Implementation

 Evaluation

C: Start the Implementation, Live the

Brand and Monitor

A: Define the PS Brand

Approach B: Build the Brand Strategy and launch a series of early initiatives

Timelines

Early Initiatives

PHASE FIVE

Implementation and Evaluation

PS Renewal Activities

Issues and Challenges

• Brand has to be relevant to our targeted prospects, our employees and Canadians in general

• Diversity of the Public Service

• Positioning and Messaging

• Managing and sustaining the brand

Managing the Brand

• Requires strategically-driven senior

management leadership and

commitment (e.g Clerk and DMs)

to ensure success

• An accountability mechanism to

make sure “we walk the talk”

• Engagement and buy-in by opinion

leaders at all levels across

government (including bargaining

agents)

• Generate buy-in and bring the

organization and its various

components into alignment with

the brand (I.e deliver on the

promise of the brand)

• Monitoring and assessing the

brand performance

Sustaining the Brand

• Holistic and consistent approach

• Change of government direction

• Timing considerations (e.g

impact on collective bargaining)

• Requires a long-term and sustained commitment of resources for implementation

• Requires in-place systems to support and facilitate the brand (i.e recruitment and staffing processes)

Linkages and partnerships

• Central agencies, PSC, PCO, TBS, Finance

• Canadians serving Canadians (e.g Service Canada)

• Department and agencies

• Unions

• CCO and other reps of functional communities

• Networks (Youth, Manager Community, HR Council, HRMAC, DM PS Renewal Committee, etc.)

• NGOs (e.g United Way, YMCA, etc.)

Benefits

• Attract highly skilled workers to the PS

• Motivate, retain and engage employees

• Strengthening the image of public

servants and public service with

Canadians

Anticipated Results

• Establishing “brand equity” for the organization (e.g goodwill and “benefit of the doubt”, useful in times of crisis or policy change).

• Communicating a set of values that speak to employees,

future employees and Canadians

• Improving the PS and its different entities’ ability to

communicate and internalize its corporate vision and mission

• Increasing consistency of internal and external

communications

• Provide a strong platform for future policy or program

development and services

Lessons Learned from Others

• Branding is a long process, take the time to

brief and re-brief to build support

• Branding is still misunderstood, take

the time to brief and re-brief to build

120K/month (04-06) to a record of 1.3M

in March 07Source: DND, August 2007

• Continued to gather intelligence, consulted and held meetings with senior management and key groups and individuals in various jurisdictions, departments and agencies – Farm

Credit Canada, Government of BC, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Department of

National Defence (DND), Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), PSC, TBS, PCO, Service Canada, CPSA etc)

• Developed and updated a strategic Framework that sets out the key issues and a proposed approach to branding the PS

• Developed a PowerPoint presentation to complement the Framework and made

presentations to senior-level committees, e.g DMs’ PS Renewal Committee, DG

Communications on PS Renewal, Human Resource Council, Regional Federal Councils

• Created three supporting committees comprising a Steering Committee with ADM-level members, a Working Committee with DG-level members, and an Advisory Group made of experts from various non-governmental groups such as academia, private sector, media, Crown Corporations, and held initial meetings

• Developed mission and vision statements

Next Steps

• December 2007

– Gather profiles for the first issue of A Day in the Life/Did you know? Theme: Diversity of positions in PS

– Select the company with expertise in branding through the competitive process (RFP)

– Final report of market analysis reports

– Strategy development for Engagement and Outreach

• January 2008

– Meeting with the three branding committees

– Meeting with the Functional Communities leaders

• February 2008

– Post a Did you Know?

– Launch of job shadowing project

– Development and finalization of branding strategy

• March 2008

– Second issue of A Day in the Life / Did you know?… Theme: Diversity of locations of jobs in the PS

– Testing of Brand promise and character with key audiences

• April 2008

– Post a Did you Know?

– Completion of strategy and development of implementation and evaluation plans

• May 2008

– Post a Did you know?

• June 2008

– Soft launch of brand during PS Week

– 3rd Issue of A Day in the Life/Did you know? Theme: Front line services to the public

• October 2008 and on - Implementation of brand strategy, tracking and evaluation

• Ongoing – Engagement of stakeholders, presentations and seminars, outreach, inreach and participation at events such as the 100th anniversary of the PS Commission and the Public Service week

• Ongoing – Continuous tracking and collaboration with various stakeholders to ensure successful implementation and sustainability

Annex - “Early Initiatives” during planning/development

phase

Under development:

• A Day in the Life… - real-life stories profiling public servants on the job

• Did You Know? – interesting facts and figures about the public service

• Job Shadowing for students – pilot program to match students with public

servants in their field of study

Other proposed activities:

• Be a PS Ambassador Initiative

• Use champions to have case studies in Universities/Colleges to ensure students think about PS as a challenging and

interesting place

• Contests for High School Students / Debates

• Curriculum mini-course in PS (during Spring break)

• Use of Statistics Canada Outreach Network to share some early messages for schools

• Tell your PS Story Website

• Internal Newsletter to all of PS

• Bring your Kid to Work Day

• GC’s success story online portal

• External Newsletter to the Public

• Op-Eds on the Public Service

• Encourage and show case volunteering efforts by public servants (potential partnership with GCWCC

Annex – PS Renewal Activities where branding

elements can be integrated

Communications

• Integration of PS renewal messaging in departmental employee communications;

distribution of integrated plans to all employees; learning plans; A Day in the Life…

Planning

• Integrated human resources/business planning;  Roundtables and seminars; Learning

events with senior PS leaders – ongoing; Learning modules and leadership courses; lessons learned dissemination at a national Public Service Executive Conference – January 2008; Recruitment plans and strategies; “Fast Track” staffing model 

Recruitment

• Recruitment activities to increase the number of post-secondary graduates appointed

directly to indeterminate positions – March 2008; Collaboration with functional communities and departments/agencies to implement recruitment plans in the area of human resources and Information Services – March 2008

Employee Development

• Talent management Plans implemented by COSO and DMs for all ADMs – 2007/2008;

Revised performance management approach for all managers

Enabling Infrastructure

• Various activities related to process and infrastructure that can reinforce the positioning

of the brand – March 2008

Annex – Lessons Learned about

Timeframes and Costs

– Development costs: Approx $1M

– Timeframe: From development of Mission, Vision, Values Statement to start of

implementation (mid-07): 18 months

• Province of British Columbia

– Development Costs : Approx $500,000 so far, two thirds of cost for research and

remaining for development of artwork (including logo)

– Timeframe: almost one full year so far, and not completed yet