FSWEP 2.

0: Recruiting a Motivated Civil

Service
Blueprint 2020
Patrick Obendoerfer
Anisa Vangjeli
Russell B. Ferguson
Carleton University
Executive Summary
Existing in a period of increased scrutiny and evolving challenges, the Canadian civil service
must develop innovative and cost effective approaches to recruit quality personnel. This proposal
undertakes this challenge by recognizing and capitalizing on the current Federal Student Work
Experience Program's enormous recruitment potential. Through an altered assessment process
and the addition of a second tier titled FSWEP 2.0, we propose a strategy to better align qualified
applicants with jobs that match their interests. Ultimately, this will increase the chances that
students will be satisfied with their employment and continue working with the civil service into
their careers.

Introduction
As the civil service approaches the year 2020, it exists in an era of unprecedented challenges
related to increased globalization, greater attention from media, and a relentless pressure to cut
costs while maintaining services. In response, the civil service must develop creative strategies to
attract and engage new talented employees to face these challenges, and advance as future
leaders. This paper will propose an innovative and cost effective program to achieve this goal,
titled FSWEP 2.0. Rooted in the concept of Public Service Motivation (PSM), the program will
consist of a second tier added to the current Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP)
designed to capitalize on the intrinsic motivations that are correlated with attracting and
engaging effective public servants. This proposal will briefly introduce the concept of PSM,
then discuss FSWEP and its shortcomings, and finally describe the structure and benefits of
FSWEP 2.0. Ultimately, it will contribute a cost effective and innovative means of attracting
young quality professionals and future leaders into the civil service.
In order to develop a strategy to attract quality personnel, it is necessary to explore which factors
motivate individuals to join the civil service and contribute to their retention. Motivation,
generally defined, is "the forces that energize, direct, and sustain behavior" (Perry and Porter,
1982: 29). However, the concept becomes more complex when applied to the civil service, as

civil servants experience a disproportionate amount of intrinsic motivators, such as a desire to

make the world a better place, alongside traditional extrinsic drivers such as salary (Crewson,
1997: 516). As a result, traditional models of motivation that focus exclusively on extrinsic
motivators remain incomplete. Further, because they are not directly correlated to pay, the direct
cost of capitalizing on intrinsic motivators can be low, and as we will establish, simply be a
means of reorganization.
The most widely used construct that recognizes both types of motivation is "Public Service
Motivation" (PSM). Developed by Perry and Wise, PSM was created as a public service
response to traditional rational motivation theories (Perry and Wise, 1990). They theorized that
intrinsic motivations are an essential component to understanding why individuals join the
bureaucracy and how they stay engaged. PSM refers strictly to the intrinsic motivators that are
unique to the public service. Under this construct, the total motivation of a public servant can be
seen as traditional motivators plus PSM.Individuals can be attracted to government because of
PSM, and their levels of it can shift based on workplace culture and practices (Moynihand and
Pandey, 2007). Since the 1990 publication of Perry and Wise's seminal work, over 125 studies
have been conducted on PSM. However, little has been done on this concept in Canada, with
governments instead using the related concept of engagement (Kernaghan, 2011: 10). Because
our goal is to capitalize on intrinsic motivation in the recruitment of civil servants, PSM is a
more useful construct as intrinsic motivations are more explicitly conceptualized.
Intrinsic motivators are identified by Perry as: attraction to public policy making, commitment to
the public interest, civic duty, social justice, self-sacrifice, and compassion, which will be
important elements of the proposed model (Perry, 1996: 1). Levels of PSM have been correlated
with efficacy in job performance, and if aligned with the proper job positions, high retention and
job satisfaction levels (Bright, 2008: 163). As such, it follows that the federal government should
develop a student job program that is tailored to align interested employees with jobs that satisfy
those with high levels of PSM. If this can be attainted, there will be an increased likelihood that
students in the program will continue to work within the government, and a greater chance they
will become effective civil servants. This is the purpose of FSWEP 2.0.
As an initial step, it is necessary to explore what kinds of jobs features satisfy those with high
levels of PSM. First, jobs must demonstrate that the government has the capacity to affect
positive change and that the work done by the individual is perceived as meaningful. A primary
frustration that workers with high levels of PSM experience is the notion that their work is being
lost in the regulations and vastness of the bureaucracy (Moynihan and Pandey, 2007: 43). Jobs
should be selected to illustrate that civil servant employment can directly contribute to the
greater good.
Second, positions should exist within a positive and supportive working environment. Research
has indicated that levels of PSM can shift based on the culture of a workplace (Pandey and
Stazyk, 2008: 106). If levels can be satisfied and sustained, there is a stronger chance that quality
individuals will choose to work in the civil service going forward.
Last, the students working in the program must be interested in the work they are tasked with. As
the purpose of the program is to place individuals with high levels of PSM on a trajectory toward

a career in the civil service, it is important that they are passionate about the work they do.
Ultimately, if the federal government can design a student work program that can capitalize on
intrinsic motivations by more efficiently aligning employees with jobs that will satisfy levels of
PSM, it will be in a better position to attract and retain quality career civil servants.

The Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP)

The Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) is the primary means by which
students in Canada are hired to federal organizations. The initiative recruits students at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels, providing them with valuable work experience, an
opportunity to fund their education, and exposing them to a wide variety of jobs in the public
service. Though FSWEP provides an important base for a student job program, it does not
efficiently assign its employment opportunities to qualified and interested employees so as to
capitalize on internal motivations.
The first primary flaw with FSWEP is its application process. Recruitment for the existing
program takes place from October of one year until the following October. Students create their
applications to the program through the Public Service Commission (PSC) website, where
applications are randomly selected onces education, language, work location, experience and
skills have been accounted for (Canada, Public Service Commission). When completing the
employment application, students are met with an expansive checklist that solicits listing of their
skills and educational background. Due to the fact that many students are simply looking for any
short term employment, a common strategy is to claim as many interests and skills possible as a
means of increasing their chances of being drawn for an interview. Such an approach is
encouraged on informal websites and blogs that provide tips to FSWEP applicants (Teacher Man,
2014).
The primary issue with this "shotgun approach" is that it decreases the chance that the PSC will
be able to align qualified and interested students with their best-suited jobs, and as a result,
capitalize on PSM levels. Fundamentally, the current system creates perverse incentives for those
who apply. On one hand, they are asked to genuinely indicate their skills and interests, and on the
other students are advised that the more boxes they check, the greater chance they have of
attaining a job. Because job candidates are randomly drawn from the pool of qualified and
interested students, those who indicate only the areas and skills they actually have are relatively
unlikely to be chosen.
Second, the managers of the students selected to work in the programs are not asked to assess the
employee's performance upon the completion of the work term. Therefore, if the student
reapplies to the program, there is no additional information on if the individual was an effective
and enthusiastic employee. As a result, the federal program does not have the capacity to assign
jobs that are most likely to satisfy high levels of PSM to those who have demonstrated high
levels of PSM in the past.
Last, the PSC does little to determine which positions within FSWEP could be identified as the
most fulfilling, and which are less engaging or dull. FSWEP employees do little with respect to
accessing workplace culture and experiences aside from a brief, mostly voluntary survey. In

short, even if the current program was able to determine which students had the highest PSM
levels, it does not currently have the capacity to determine which of its thousands of federal
positions would satisfy such internal motivators.
Though the program has fundamental flaws, FSWEP has proven incredibly useful. For over two
decades, the program has supported post-secondary students with employment opportunities that
are important to the public service and provide valuable work experience. However, given that
the program attracts 50 000 student applications annually, it also provides a unique opportunity
for the public service to attract quality young individuals that the current program simply does
not capitalize on (Canada. Public Service Commission).

FSWEP 2.0
In response to the shortcomings of FSWEP, we propose the addition of a second tier to the
program titled FSWEP 2.0. The aim of FSWEP 2.0 is to contribute to public service
modernization through an efficient alignment of quality students with satisfying positions that
capitalize on intrinsic motivations. The design and implementation of this program will be
described in a three-step process. Ultimately, this program will serve as an innovative and cost
effective recruitment tool for the civil service.
First, the PSC must gather information on FSWEP positions and employees that can be used in
the job alignment process for future years. This will be collected through compulsory surveys
given to managers and students upon the completion of an employment term. Specifically, the
surveys will inquire about the experiences of students in their jobs by assessing characteristics
relevant to PSM, such as the quality of the working environment and the sense of fulfillment
students acquired from their work. In addition, they will be asked to share their own interests by
naming three subject areas or departments within the civil service that they would be most
interested to work in. This approach will be more accurate than FSWEP's initial online
assessment in determining interests, as it does not allow or incentivize the commonly used
"shotgun approach" which delegitimizes results.
Second, departmental managers will be required to complete a performance assessment of the
FSWEP employees, which evaluates students based on their capabilities, productivity, and
passion for the job. The performance assessment plan measures varying types of qualities that are
indicators of successful civil servants according to the PSM construct. Students will be given a
job assessment score that will also be used in the job alignment by the PSC.
Last, after completion of the two initial steps, the PSC will be tasked with organizing the job
opportunities it receives from the civil service into either FSWEP, or FSWEP 2.0. The
commission will use general job descriptions alongside prior student-worker evaluations to
evaluate which jobs are most likely to satisfy those with high levels of PSM. The civil service
jobs that have the most PSM satisfying characteristics will be assigned to FSWEP 2.0, and all
others will remain in the current FSWEP program.
Students that have completed a term in FSWEP and are reapplying with high managerial
assessments scores, or are enrolled in graduate school, will be eligible for the positions in

FSWEP 2.0. When a job opportunity becomes available, applicants with the necessary
qualifications and experience are drawn from the FSWEP 2.0 pool. However, instead of
randomly picking names from those that are qualified, the group is further narrowed by matching
the nature of the position to the specific interests that FSWEP 2.0 students indicated on their
surveys. This process drastically increases the chances that the best potential civil servants will
find satisfaction and interest in their jobs. This, in turn, increases the chances that they will
continue with the civil service during their higher education, and into their careers.
It is worth noting that students who are eligible for FSWEP 2.0 will also be eligible for jobs in
the first tier. This allows qualified students to have an increased chance of attaining positions that
interest them, but does not decrease their general chance of attaining a job in the program. In
addition, graduate students who have not had past FSWEP experience but are still eligible for
FSWEP 2.0 will be asked to rank their top interests during their application. The model we have
described only contains civil service jobs in the FSWEP 2.0 tier, as it is developed specifically to
modernize and improve civil service recruitment. The additional tier could be expanded using the
same method to include the greater breadth of federal government jobs included in the original
FSWEP program.

Conclusion
In a period of increased scrutiny and pressure, the Canadian civil service must develop
innovative and efficient strategies as a means of recruiting quality personnel. FSWEP 2.0
recognizes the enormous recruitment potential in the current Federal Student Work Experience
Program, which draws from a pool of 50,000 students every year. Through an alteration of
assessment practices and the addition of the second tier, FSWEP 2.0 capitalizes on the internal
motivations of the most qualified students by aligning them with jobs that are most likely to
satisfy their levels of PSM. In so doing, the program offers a cost effective approach toward
Blueprint 2020's guiding principle of "mobilizing the diversity of talent to serve the country's
evolving needs" (Canada, Clerk of the Privy Council).

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