Que sont devenus les fidèles fonctionnaires de I'administration publique canadienne?

La Fonction publique canadienne vit, depuis quelques années, un important changement culturel: les programmes et services ont ete repensés, les méthodes administratives modifiées, les services à la clientèle adaptés aux nouvelles technologies, et la taille de lÉtat considérablement réduite. Des programmes d'encourage-ment au départ anticipé ont été offerts à de nombreux employés. Pourquoi a-t-on décidé de quitter la Fonction publique canadienne? Si tout était à recommencer, prendrait-on la même décision, au même moment et aux mêmes conditions? Comment réagit-on à la perte d'emploi?À quels types d'activites consacre-t-on son temps depuis que l'on a quitté son emploi? Y a-t-il des projets d'avenir? Les reponses a ces questions different-elles selon que l'on est aujourd'hui retraité ou retraité-actif? 930 ex-fonctionnaires de l'administration publique canadienne de la région du Québec ont été interrogés, dont 616 retraités et 314 retraités-actifs. Des différences ont été observées entre les deux groupes en termes de profils, de motivations à quitter la Fonction publique canadienne, de valeurs et d'intérêts, de réactions vis-à-vis de la perte d'emploi et en terme de réceptivité vis-à-vis les alternatives au départ anticipé qu'aurait pu leur offrir la Fonction publique canadienne. Également, les analyses montrent que la Fonction publique canadienne a manifesté un intérêt très limité dans la mise en place de stratégies qui lui auraient permis de maintenir en emploi une bonne proportion de pré-retraités qui auraient préféré, par exemple, le désengage-ment progressif à la fin d'emploi. Abstract: There has been a major cultural change over the last few years within the Canadian Public Service: programs and services were reformulated, administrative methods were modified, client services were adapted to new technologies, and the scope of the government has been greatly reduced. Early-retirement incentive programs were offered to many employees. Why would an individual decide to leave the Canadian Public Service? Were he or she to start all over again, would the same decision, at the same time and under the same conditions, be taken? How is the individual responding to the loss of employment? To what type of activities is time devoted since leaving employment? Are there projects with a future? Are the answers to these questions different depending on whether or not the individual is retired? Nine hundred and thirty former Canadian public administration employees in the Quebec area, including 616 retired and 314 retired but working, were interviewed. Differences were noted between the two groups in terms of profile, reasons for leaving the Canadian Public Service, values and interests, reactions to the loss of employment, and receptivity to the alternatives (other than early retirement) that the Canadian Public Service could have offered them. Analyses also show that very little interest was shown by the Canadian Public Service for implementing strategies that would have allowed it to retain among its employees a high proportion of early retirees who would have preferred, for example, gradual disengagement instead of outright termination.     

Low-Hanging Fruit: Leadership,Perceived Prosocial Impact,and Employee Motivation

Transformational leadership affects public service motivation, but little is known about the context dependency of this association. If citizen contact and, therefore, relative perceived impacts on others and society differ, the association between transformational leadership and motivation is also expected to differ. Analyzing public employees and their leaders from four organizational contexts, we find that employees have relatively higher perceived impact on others and are more user-oriented in contexts with high citizen contact. The association between transformational leadership and employee motivation also depends on employees’ perceived impact, implying that some fruit hangs lower than other when leaders try to increase employee motivation.     

Rethinking Security: Organizational Fragility in Extreme Events

Providing public security is a fundamental function of government. As the class and degree of threat vary, government agencies must adapt to changing conditions or risk failing their basic mission. The events of September 11, 2001, illustrated the limits of governmental performance in identifying and interrupting actions intended to harm innocent citizens. These events are examined against the resources, range, and limits of governmental capacity to adapt to the emerging threat of terrorism, and an alternative perspective on administrative performance as a complex adaptive system is proposed. This perspective redefines the search for public security as a dynamic process that balances mechanisms of control with processes of information search, exchange, and feedback among public, private, and nonprofit organizations and is supported by a well–designed information infrastructure. The article concludes that the search for public security is an interactive learning process that, while guided by public organizations, must involve responsible participation by private and nonprofit organizations as well as an informed citizenry.