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The authors examine the time allocation and management of deputy ministers (DMs) in Canada.

The authors analyze the results from a 2020 survey of DMs.

The authors observe that, like private sector leaders, DMs work very long hours and tend to allocate their time fairly consistently across functions. Nevertheless, important differences exist particularly depending on the size of their department.

While a substantial percentage of answers were returned, these skew toward provincial rather than federal public servants and not all jurisdictions are equally represented.

The distribution of areas of focus for DMs and their time allocation differences speak to potentially important discussions to be had in time management practice.

This is the first and only analysis of time management for senior public service executives based on a survey instrument.