1.
© OECD
Are HRM practices in your organisation
resilient and agile enough to address
the next COVID-like crisis?
Mobility and Temporary Assignments
David Cagney
Chief Human Resources Officer for the Civil Service, Ireland
Virtual event – 15 December 2020

2.
Mobility
Aims
• Increased organisational capability and diversity
• Structured means of skills transfer/matching
• Meet staff demand (No 1 issue in Employee Engagement Survey)
• Strengthens concept of One Civil Service
• Supports personal development and sharing of experience
Scheme replaces 5 legacy arrangements
1
MOBILITY
SCHEME
Central
Transfer
list
Central
Application
Facility
Head to
Head
transfers
Expressions
of Interest
Ad hoc
Secondments

3.
Mobility - How
• Phased introduction of schemes by grade 2017-2020
• Collaboration with Civil Service HR community
• On-line Portal
• Integrated Mobility Map
2
https://hr.per.gov.ie/career/civil-service-
mobility/#co%20and%20eo%20mobility%20scheme

4.
Scheme Overview
3
Clerical/Executive
Officer Scheme
Principal Officer
Scheme
AO/HEO/AP Schemes
• Advertisement/Skills-
based (AP)
• Went live Nov 2020
• AO/HEO to go live Jan
2021
• Mix of Advertisement
& list-based
• 1 in 6 vacancies to be
filled
• Generalist list-based
• Went live 2017
• 5,000 (25%) staff
registered
• 1 in 2 CO posts & 3 in 20
EO vacancies to be filled
• 550 moves to date
• Advertisement/Skills-
based
• Went live 2015
• 1 in 6 vacancies filled
• 60 roles filled to date
Criteria for application of Mobility:
 2 years’ service, or more, in the current grade;
 2 years’ service, or more, in the current organisation;
 2 years’ service, or more, in the current geographical location;
 Performance Review rating of ‘Satisfactory’ for the previous working year;
and
 Successful completion of probation

5.
Senior Public Service Mobility
• Breaks down cultural silos at Management Board level
• Opportunity for deployment of talent in pursuit of common
Governmental and civil service goals and priorities
• SPS Mobility Protocol - 2012. Streamlined, time-bound
process
• Does not replace open competition for senior posts
• 27 posts filled to date
Governance
4
SPS Mobility
Subgroup
SPS
Management
Committee
Civil Service
Management
Board

6.
SPS Mobility Process
5
Mobility or Open
Competition
Filling of vacancy sanctioned. SPS Mobility Subgroup decides
whether post should be advertised for mobility first (some
tech posts filled directly through open competition)
Advertise post
to SPS
Job description is advertised to SPS members via e-mail.
2 week deadline. Administered centrally, by CS HR
Division
Applications
sent to SG and
Subgroup
CV and letter of application submitted by applicants.
Applications sent to SG and SPS Mobility Subgroup. SG
meets applicants to discuss role. If no applications, post
filled through open competition
Decision on
filling of post
SG makes recommendation to SPS Mobility Subgroup for
approval. Timelines for move agreed between giving and
receiving Dept.

7.
© OECD
Temporary Assignments
The Temporary Assignment policy and scheme was developed to manage immediate and
significant demands in terms of assignments to the Health Services and other Departments/
Offices that were responding on the frontline of COVID-19 in March 2020.
The policy set out the following key principles to allow expedient transfer of staff across the
public service for the first time in the history of the State:
• All organisations included in scheme
• Staff remained on parent-payroll with open line-management contact
• All assignments to be temporary in nature with staff returning to their parent organisation
• Training and up-skilling to be provided as necessary
Prior to the launch of the policy and scheme, significant redeployment occurred within sectors
and departments. Within our Health Services 5,000 staff were moved into critical/frontline
roles
The policy firstly provided the framework for bi lateral movements. Key achievements included:
• 1,800 trained for contact tracing from all public sectors
• 300 staff assigned to Social Protection from within the Civil Service
• Development of a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document to assist departments and
manage industrial relations

8.
© OECD
Temporary Assignments Scheme
However beyond a policy and principles, we agreed that a central scheme would also be
required – both for the immediate and future threat which could not be quantified.
Scheme Design & Outcomes
• Staff on non-essential/non-critical work identified by all organisations
• Identified staff required to register on-line through ‘Public Appointments Service (PAS)’
• PAS conducted a skills and location match where required
• By end of March 6,000 registered with scheme with 11,000 Special Needs assistant also
registered for a specific purpose in Health Services
• However less than 100 assigned due to the diligence of the Irish people resulting in the
flattening of the anticipated surge
• As organisations returned to ‘normal’ there was less staff available
• Health Sector then scaled up recruitment in recognition of COVID-19 longer term impact
Key Learnings
• A crisis can focus the mind – policy and processes needs to be agile
• Scheme provided a key assurance to public of essential service continuity and
can be re-activated as required

9.
Conclusion…
• Mobility process in place for all levels supports
skills match and resilience of the civil service
• Impact of new ways of working (Hybrid Working)
may impact on mobility – time will tell…..
• Temporary Assignment Scheme has the potential
to strengthen the agility of the service to meet
critical changing needs.
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