Innovation and Risk Management

By Cathy Mercer
Senior Policy Officer, NMC Secretariat

In this edition, NMC focuses on Innovation and Risk Management, a topic of interest and concern to managers. In focus groups and polling that we have conducted over the past few years managers repeatedly told us that workloads and increasing demands limit their capacity to be creative and inventive, and indicate that their organization’s low tolerance for risk does not facilitate an environment for innovation and risk taking.

A priority of the current government is tackling the accumulation of unclear and overlapping rules, reporting requirements and inefficient business processes, commonly referred to as the “web of rules”. This topic is prominently highlighted, with specific mention given to the importance of encouraging and facilitating innovation in the workplace in the latest Report of the Prime Minister Advisory Committee on the Public Service as well as The Clerk’s Seventeenth Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada.

Several initiatives are underway to address the issues related to the web of rules and to encourage innovative risk taking in government. In this issue, the NMC attempts to provide an update on some of the work currently taking place. We are also working to ensure that the voice of managers is considered and that managers are active participants in the development of solutions to address these issues