Profile: Lynn Lemire-Lauzon

Human resources expert makes Public Service work for all Canadians

The federal public service is the best place to work in Canada these days, says Lynn Lemire-Lauzon, and she ought to know.

Lynn was responsible for rewriting the Executive Management Policy that governs the working relationship between the federal government and its senior management.

When she moved to the Leadership and Talent Management Sector of the Canada Public Service Agency in February 2005, Lynn’s job was to review the suite of policies applicable to the management of executives in the Public Service, which includes directors, directors general and assistant deputy ministers.

Headed policy team

As the Director General of the Executive Management Policy Branch, Lynn headed a team of policy advisors who updated policies on organization and classification, terms and conditions of employment, compensation, performance management and career transition. Lynn received a 2008 Public Service Award of Excellence for her work in this area.

After working for 15 years in human resources for the Executive Group, Lynn recognized the importance of effective management policies for that group. She also worked in human resources at the Treasury Board Secretariat and prior to that, at Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for several years.

“After doing so much work in operations, I had seen a lot of policies that needed improvement, so I was glad to have the opportunity to make some changes,” Lynn says.

Lynn began her career as an executive assistant in the Public Service in 1974, after graduating with a degree in Business Administration. After working for the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for several years, she began studying human resources.

According to Lynn, modernizing the federal public service executive management policy was vital to the organization. “With an aging workforce and a significant number of people taking retirement, there is a big gap to close. It is a time of hiring, transferring knowledge and trying to retain people, and there are big changes being made. To attract and retain a new generation of executives,” she says, “the government needed to revitalize its policies.”

Policy changes were needed particularly in the senior levels of the Public Service, Lynn says. “In the higher levels, you need to have policies that will attract the best and the brightest. When competing in a very fierce labour market, you need to be competitive. My job was to encourage recruitment and retention in the senior ranks of the Public Service.” As Lynn points out, the Public Service needs highly qualified leaders to provide sound advice to government and service to Canadians as a whole.

One of my goals

Now that her policy work is done, Lynn says she is ready for a change herself. And she’s taking retirement in the near future. “I am proud of having revised the executive management policy,” she says. “I wanted to do that before I left. It was one of my goals.”

So why is the Public Service such a great place to work? “It’s the biggest enterprise you can work for in Canada. Its diversity and size offer so many opportunities inside and outside Canada.” And, thanks to Lynn, new executive management policies are geared to the needs of the next generation of Canadians.

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