Each year the Treasury Board undertakes the Public Service Employee Survey (PSES). In 2019, a total of 182,306 employees in 86 federal departments and agencies responded to the survey. Sixty-two percent of public servants responded.
Year to year, we highlight for you the trends in workplace harassment, wellness, and Phoenix.
Workplace harassment
Harassment in the federal public service persists as a significant and largely unaddressed problem. We are extremely concerned with the high levels of harassment reported by gender diverse people. Twenty-nine percent of gender diverse survey respondents indicate that they had experienced harassment in their workplace.
Reports of harassment overall are declining, but very slowly.
|
Year |
Reported workplace harassment |
|
2014 |
19% |
|
2017 |
18% |
|
2018 |
15% |
|
2019 |
14% |
Only 51% of all respondents to the PSES are satisfied with how harassment is resolved in their department.
Psychological wellness
Sixty-one percents of respondents describe their workplace as promoting psychological wellness and actively working to prevent harm to employee psychological health. An increase of 3% from 2018.
This still means that a shocking 39% of public servants do not find that their workplaces are promoting psychological wellness.
Significantly, 45% of individuals identifying as gender diverse do not describe their workplaces as promoting psychological wellness.
Phoenix
The news with respect to the Phoenix Pay System continues to disappoint.
Four percent more public servants reported being impacted by Phoenix last year than in the previous year. That’s 74% of public servants impacted by Phoenix in 2019.
Over half of respondents to the PSES who experienced a Phoenix issue have not had their issues resolved. Only 44% of respondents report that all pay and compensation issues have been resolved. A 9% improvement from 2018.
Sixty percent of respondents are not satisfied with the support they receive related to pay issues.
Compare this year’s results with our analysis from 2018.