‘Anyone who says the public sector moves slow hasn’t worked in it’

When Jennifer Guitard stepped into her role as Executive Lead, People and Payroll at the Government of Nova Scotia in Halifax in May 2026, she inherited the pressure of public sector human resources (HR) in transformation – managing about 12,000 employees, a major payroll modernization project, and a hiring freeze tied to the province's fiscal restraint measures. Her response has been practical, and her key lesson is simple: adapt without losing what makes the work human. 

One of Guitard's most significant achievements came not from a flagship platform rollout, but from a project she describes with characteristic directness as "a necessary evil." While serving as Director of Workforce Intelligence and Systems for the Nova Scotia government from 2019 to 2025, she led a records digitization initiative that converted 2.4 million pages of employee files – stored across seven separate rooms – into a fully searchable digital system. 

"We facilitated a records digitization project where we digitized all of our employee records," Guitard says. " We've got roughly 12,000 employees and those records spanned past employees as well." 

Increasing ROI from digitization project 

The project ran through the pandemic and is now approximately 75 per cent complete, with two file rooms remaining, she says, adding that the operational shift has been immediate. HR staff who once physically retrieved and signed out files can now access them in a couple of clicks, according to Guitard. 

“That's not just about keeping records, it's about having the records at the fingertips of our HR service delivery staff,” she says. "When you repeat that scenario over and over again, the return on investment just keeps increasing – everything's at their fingertips now, so this project will pay dividends over time because it's here to stay and we're not going back to paper, and all of the new files coming in are native digital so it's a quick drag and drop." 

Guitard is matter-of-fact about the project's origins. "I know it's not like a super attractive project – other people would have chosen other projects to go forward with,” she says. “It wasn't easy getting buy-in on that project, but the outcome has been very well accepted." 

Building the right foundation for AI 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is firmly on the agenda at the Nova Scotia government, and Ontario’s recent audit exposing dangerous gaps in how provinces govern AI in public sector workforces underscores just how critical groundwork is. The conversation begins not with tools, but with data quality and digital literacy, says Guitard. 

"The foundation that’s required for AI is good data," she says. "And everyone is really identifying that, but there's also a foundation for digital literacy that's being put in place here as well." 

The provincial government's cybersecurity and digital solutions department has established guardrails around AI adoption, according to Guitard. The approach is use-case driven – asking where processes are too slow, too manual, or too inconsistent – rather than technology-first. AI anxiety is real across the public sector: a 2025 KPMG survey of 349 Canadian public servants found that nearly seven in ten said AI anxiety was present in their organizations, and 85 per cent believed Canadians didn’t truly understand how the public service would use AI, according to the survey. 

Governance for using sensitive data 

Guitard's concern centres specifically on the governance of HR-sensitive systems. "Right now, just knowing that we have sensitive employee data, hiring decisions, workforce analytics, and people at the centre, governance is a completely different thing when it comes to human resources," she says. 

Her team operates from a principle of data stewardship rather than data ownership. "The data about an employee belongs to the employee. We are stewards of that data, we don't own it," she says. "That comes into play when we talk about governance of the AI that we put in place." 

Understanding why HR must be embedded in AI strategy from the very start, not brought in after decisions are made is a principle Guitard follows carefully ensuring trust is fundamental. 

“AI is many things – it's not robots walking around the workplace and taking our work over,” she says. “But certainly the focus is on looking at, where is the work too slow? Where are there gaps? Where is it too manual? Where is it so inconsistent? Where is it really hard for employees to navigate? And then how can we simplify that work, will automation help with that,and where does HR need to come into place?” 

In addition, Guitard stresses that when assessing the benefits of implementing AI, governance of the decisions around who gets to create it is essential. 

Lessons from a payroll modernization journey 

Guitard's current work centres on a payroll system modernization still approximately two years from delivery. She says she’s examined the track record of similar implementations across jurisdictions and is candid about the complexity, and she shifted departments specifically to engage people earlier and to bring a data-informed perspective to implementation planning. 

"It's a lot bigger than just a payroll system. We're also going to have a system that supports us with workforce decision-making,” she says. “These journeys are about asking really good questions about understanding what the context is for the implementation but also looking at the necessary changes that are required. What do we need to do to change our practice to support a successful implementation?" 

Her message to any HR leader approaching a similar journey: don't wait for the system to change the organization. Start changing practice before implementation begins. 

HR must lead transformation, not follow it 

Guitard's view of where the HR function belongs in the public sector is expansive – and she has little patience for the idea that HR exists to support change from a distance. 

"HR is expected to lead transformation, not just support it," she says. "It's not just the everyday, ‘We'll write a new job description or get this job classified’ – HR is expected to be a leader in transformation." 

She frames public sector HR as standing at a specific and demanding intersection – citizen expectations, fiscal pressures, digital modernization, and workforce demographics all converging at once. Those four forces, she believes, are precisely what make HR a core strategic function in government, not a supporting one. 

The pace of that environment also challenges common assumptions about public sector work. "Anyone who says the public sector moves slow hasn’t worked in it," she says. "We work fast, we scramble a lot, and we work collaboratively a lot – we're working on a million projects at once, and sometimes things are just announced and we just have no choice but to run with it.” 

Research shows that HR leaders are increasingly visible at the executive table, but the question of whether that presence translates into genuine strategic influence remains unanswered in many organizations. Guitard believes that influence is earned through trust built deliberately over time. 

"When you work as a partner and you build the trust, that can very often take a short period of time – but then you're able to reap the benefits of it," she says. 

And while the pressures are real, her focus remains anchored in something foundational. 

"Our biggest interest and the biggest driver for all of us is delivering value to the citizen," she says. "A lot of our questions of ourselves are steeped in what would be the best thing for the public trust here."