New public-sector payment system years from implementation [Video]

After half a decade of testing and an investment of nearly $300 million, the federal government is still years away from fully implementing its next-generation pay and human resource cloud platform to replace the problem-plagued Phoenix payroll system.

Moving more than 360,000 federal workers onto a cloud-based system will require hiring more contractors and re-opening union agreements to streamline pay categories. The government is also considering building a new data hub to clean and standardize employment information from departments before it’s transferred to the new Dayforce platform.

Alex Benay, the associate deputy minister at Public Service and Procurement Canada (PSPC) acknowledged to CTV News that the government may have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on building its NextGen-PayHR platform before it even starts operating.

PSPC says it will outline its implementation strategy and provide a final cost estimate by 2026.

The Government of Canada’s commitment to increasing …