Making the Transition: Full-time to Contract Position in the Public Service

Canada’s federal government is in the midst of a major human resources transition brought about by the retirement of growing numbers of baby boomers, a shift from full-time to contracting in many sectors, and a planned series of job cuts from the current government.

Perhaps the most significant of these factors is the effect of baby boomer retirement. As of 2007, baby boomers accounted for approximately two-thirds of the full-time public service workforce. While the leading edge of the generation will turn 65 in 2011—providing a sort of official start to this employment sea change—a sharp increase in retirement began as early as 10 years ago when boomers with 30 years of employment began to take early retirement without penalty (58 being the average age of retirement). Between 2000 and 2007, the number of baby boomers retiring from the public service tripled. This trend will continue for the next decade as the rest of the baby boomers (born 1946-1964) become eligible for retirement. 

Combined with current and future job cuts, the retirement of baby boomers signals a major outflow of long-term, full-time employees in the federal government. This outflow poses significant risks for the government in the form of institutional knowledge loss. It also offers opportunities to employees taking early retirement who may want to continue to work in a less than full-time capacity. There will also be opportunities for those who have had their full-time positions terminated. In many cases, the same work must be done and will be transferred to those working as contractors/consultants.

Risks
For full-time employees not nearing retirement age, job cuts combined with the move to contracting services could mean less certainty about their long-term job security. There may also be new demands for those employees to fill gaps created by leaving baby boomers. For full-time government employees, there may be a risk, on the one hand, of growing workloads and, on the other, of less job security.

For the government, the outflow of long-term employees through cuts and retirement could mean the loss of important stores of institutional knowledge. Long-term, full-time employees bring an understanding to their work that is often not fully documented. Knowing how to get the job done often depends on practices learned over decades, which cannot, therefore, be easily transferred to new employees. So, the mass retirement of baby boomers poses a significant risk to service delivery without some form of employment intervention.

Opportunities
For full-time employees nearing retirement age, taking early retirement, or facing job cuts, the current environment in the government means there are new opportunities to transition from full-time employment to contract engagements. Reasons for transitioning to contract engagements include:

• Interested in continuing to work after retirement
• Find rewarding work following termination of position
• Earn a higher pay rate per hour/day
• More flexible terms of contract—short contract terms or reduced hours

For the government, hiring former full-time employees as contractors offers the following advantages:

• Maintain important institutional knowledge within organization
• Leverage experience where it is most important
• Hire where and when the work is
• Reduce financial obligations associated with benefit packages

How to make the transition from full-time to contract engagements
For employees that have worked for the government for a long period of time, or in the case of many baby boomers, often their entire career, transitioning from full-time to contract engagements will likely pose several challenges. Unless the employee worked as a hiring manager, he or she may not have much familiarity with the current hiring processes of government, which have very specific requirements. Challenges faced by first-time contractors include:

• Learning where to look for job opportunities and how to apply
• Understanding the public sector contracting process and specifically the structure of the résumé. See this article for more detail.
• Knowing what the appropriate rate is for the position and how much to ask for
• Adopting specific practices to stay top of mind with employers while pursuing a contract
• Learning how to incorporate oneself as a business, how to bill for services, etc.
• How to select the right company to work with
• What questions to ask your company representative to make sure you are making the right decision

How Veritaaq can help
At Veritaaq, we have almost 3 decades of experience providing IT consulting services to the public sector. We are one of the top three suppliers of IT consultants to the Canadian federal government.

We view our role as not only a firm that finds opportunities for our IT consultants, but also as a coach. We work with each of our consultants to learn who they are as professionals and people, and then find opportunities that match those skills. We work to empower our consultants with the knowledge to take advantage of the best opportunities for them.

In summary, if you are looking to transition from a long-term, full-time position in the federal government to contract engagements as a consultant, we are here to help. Please contact us at any of our offices below: