Employment Equity in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada — Annual Report 2002-03

• Introduction
• Our Employment Equity Environment
• Implementing Employment Equity
• Our Employment Equity Plan
• The Employment Equity Numbers
• Designated Groups Representation—Highlights
• Representation in Hirings, Promotions, and Separations
• Appendix—Statistics

Introduction

This Annual Report on Employment Equity in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada highlights employment equity activities during the period 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003.

It also presents information on the representation of designated groups as at 31 March 2003.

Our Employment Equity Environment

Enabling legislation

The Auditor General Act, the Financial Administration Act and a variety of other acts and orders-in-council set out the duties of the Auditor General as they relate to legislative auditing and monitoring of federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations and other national and internal organizations.

Independence from government

We differ from government departments and agencies through our independence from the government of the day and our reporting relationship to Parliament. Our independence is assured by a broad legislative mandate, freedom from certain controls over our budget and staff, and a ten-year term for the Auditor General.

Application of the Employment Equity Act to the Office of the Auditor General of Canada

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada falls under the Employment Equity Act, section 4(1)(c) as a portion of the Public Service of Canada—set out in Part II of Schedule I to the Public Service Staff Relations Act—employing 100 or more employees.

Our work

The principal activity of the Office is legislative auditing—providing reliable, relevant, and timely assurances and other information on financial and program performance to help legislators hold government accountable.

Our organization

The Office is organized into three branches—audit Practices, Audit Services and the Executive—along with the Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Most of the staff work from the head office in Ottawa. Regional offices are located in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Montréal, and Halifax.

We have a specialized workforce, with roughly two thirds of our 587 employees at the middle management and audit professional levels.

Our values

We have six values that define how we conduct our work and ourselves. These values are articulated in our Strategic Plan.

One of these values focusses on having a respectful workplace.

We are committed to providing a working environment in which all are treated with dignity and respect and encouraged to realize their full career potential. We encourage open and honest communication to create a climate of trust and teamwork. We value each other's talent and diversity and support learning and quality-of-life endeavours.

Employment equity is considered an integral part of a respectful workplace.

Our structure

Our first employment equity plan was introduced in 1998 to identify under-represented groups and take action to meet Office goals. This plan was incorporated into our Human Resources Corporate Plan. That year, we also created the Human Resources Committee—to monitor the implementation of both our Human Resources Corporate Plan and our Employment Equity Plan.

In addition, an Employment Equity Committee was formed through sub-committees that represent the four designated groups to promote awareness and understanding of employment equity and diversity issues in the workplace.

The Chair of the Employment Equity Committee is now a member of the Human Resources Committee. The Chair has an opportunity to provide input on all policies and issues that may have implications on employment equity.

We are also pleased to have two members of senior management serving as employment equity champions to increase the profile of diversity issues in the Office.

Implementing Employment Equity

Implementation of the legislation

Our first step in implementing the requirements of the legislation was to organize and complete a self-identification survey in April 1997. We then completed a workforce analysis to determine the degree of under-representation of members of designated groups in each occupational group.

This analysis is updated each year. The results at 31 March 2003 are presented in this report.

Employment equity records

We have implemented procedures for the maintenance of orderly and accurate employment equity records. We have also developed information vehicles and practices to keep our employees up-to-date on employment equity matters. For example, our intranet provides all employees with easy access to current employment equity information. Periodic notices are sent to remind all employees of their right to self-identify at any time. All new employees are requested to complete a self-identification questionnaire even before their first day at the Office.

Recruitment strategy

The Human Resources Group has developed a recruitment strategy to meet the immediate and future staffing needs of the Office.

Since the shortage of skills for our particular requirements is expected to continue unabated over the next several years, our turnover rate will likely remain high, and the supply of qualified candidates will most likely remain low. Our challenge, therefore, is to identify potential employees, attract them to the Office, develop their skills, and work to retain them.

Our recruitment strategy includes specific outreach programs directed at university campuses across Canada for our audit professional training programs. Over time, it is expected that the closer relationships established with associations representing designated groups on campuses will allow the Office to recruit and develop audit professionals from the groups currently under-represented.

Activities and events

To promote a corporate environment that supports employment equity values and ideals, the Office participated in several activities throughout the year. These included

• Aboriginal Awareness Week
• Aboriginal Career Symposium
• Human Rights Day
• International Day for Persons With Disabilities
• International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
• International Women's Day
• Interdepartmental Forum for Persons With Disabilities
• National Aboriginal Day
• Women's History Month

In addition, the Office actively supported awareness and fundraising campaigns for causes that touch specific populations within the designated groups.

• Breast Cancer Research—Denim Day
• Canadian National Institute for the Blind—Crocus sale
• National Access Awareness Week
• National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
• Terry Fox Run

Succession planning

In anticipation of the number of retirements expected to occur between 2003 and 2008, a succession planning process was put in place in September 1999. The process will ensure that less experienced employees were being prepared to assume greater responsibilities when these retirements occurred.

The number of forecasted retirements has been modified and is somewhat lower than originally identified. However, the Office continues its commitment to this development initiative and ensures through its annual rotation and promotion processes that due consideration is given to all designated group members.

Over time, these sustained efforts should result in higher numbers of designated group members being promoted.

Our Employment Equity Plan

Historically, our Employment Equity Committee developed an employment equity plan that outlined activities and initiatives intended to increase awareness of equity and diversity issues and to improve opportunities in the workplace for all employees.

In 1997–98, a new Employment Equity Plan was prepared to meet the specific requirements of the Employment Equity Act, section 10. Our Plan covered an initial three-year period, 1998–99 to 2000–01. It included short-term numerical goals to reduce under-representation of the designated groups over that period. The Office's Executive Committee has endorsed these short-term numerical goals.

In the winter of 2000–01, we updated the Plan and prepared Version III, which was approved by our Human Resources Committee.

In the spring of 2003, the Canadian Human Rights Commission began an audit of our employment equity performance and practices. This work will continue into the fall of 2003. The results of this audit will serve to inform and guide us in the preparation of our next three-year plan scheduled for completion in the winter of 2003–04.

Communication and consultation

We identified communication as a critical factor for success in the implementation of the first Employment Equity Plan. As a result a communications plan will support the new three-year plan to ensure that employees, managers, and the unions are not only kept informed of progress but, more importantly, engaged in meaningful consultation in our efforts to meet the remaining challenges.

Challenges and special efforts

In setting the numerical goals for our next Employment Equity Plan, we will take into account the action plan proposed by the Task Force on the Participation of Visible Minorities in the Federal Public Service in its March 2000 report Embracing Change. In particular, we will consider the recommendation that visible minorities represent a one-in-five share of external recruitment hires.

Numerical goals

Our next Employment Equity Plan will establish short-term numerical goals for each occupational group in which under-representation has been identified. Goals will be expressed by our representation as a percentage of the workforce availability and number of additional employees required in each designated group.

The new short-term numerical goals will be approved by our Human Resources Committee.

We will make every effort to ensure that our consultation initiatives are meaningful and appropriate under the Employment Equity Act. The Office of the Auditor General of Canada is committed to employment equity ideals. Our challenge is to reflect these ideals in both our workforce and workplace.

The Employment Equity Numbers

Our employment equity numbers have been prepared on the basis of the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system, developed by Human Resources Development Canada. This system comprises 14 Employment Equity Occupational Groups (EEOGs)—as defined in Schedule II of the Employment Equity Regulations—and 522 NOC unit groups.

Classifying our employees under this system shows that we have a very specialized workforce:

The 587 employees in our Office fall into 7 of the 14 EEOGs. Within these groups, 562 employees (95.7 percent) fall into 4 of the 522 NOC unit groups (see exhibits 1 and 2).

Most of our employees (65.2 percent) are concentrated in 2 NOC unit groups—Middle Managers and Auditors.

Exhibit 1

Classification of Office employees under the National Occupational Classification

Exhibit 2

Distribution of employees by major NOC unit groups

Designated Groups Representation—Highlights

We have compared our representation in each designated group to the most recent workforce availability figures provided by Human Resources Development Canada—the 1996 Employment Equity Data Report. We have used national figures for this comparison.

Women

Women represented 54.2 percent of our workforce at 31 March 2003. We are representative in all occupational groups but two.

Under-representation for women continues in the large middle manager group where women represent 89 percent of the workforce availability. Women also are slightly under-represented in the Semi-professional and Technicians category (see Table 4 in the Appendix).

Aboriginal peoples

The overall number of Aboriginal employees remained constant but their percentage of the overall employee population declined by 0.1 percent over last year.

Under-representation for this group persists in all occupational groups, except the administrative clerical ones (see Table 5 in the Appendix).

Persons with disabilities

In 2002–03, we increased the number of recruits in this group. However, under-representation of persons with disabilities persists in all of our occupational groups, except for semi-professionals and technicians (see Table 6 in the Appendix).

Persons in a visible minority group

We have increased our representation of persons in a visible minority group at the professional level quite significantly over last year (see Table 7 in the Appendix).

Our challenge remains in improving our representation in the clerical groups.

Representation in Hirings, Promotions, and Separations

This annual report includes an analysis of the numbers of employees hired, promoted, and terminated and the degree of representation in those numbers, of persons who are members of each designated group.

Hirings

Ninety-seven (97) people were hired during the year.

The percentage of women hired significantly exceeded the workforce availability. The percentage of persons in a visible minority slightly exceeded the workforce availability. For the other two designated groups, the percentage hired fell below workforce availability (see Table 8 in the Appendix).

Promotions

In 2002–03, 36 people (6.1 percent of all employees) were promoted.

The rate of promotion for members of three of the four designated groups slightly exceeded the Office-wide figure. There were no Aboriginal employees promoted during the year (see Table 9 in the Appendix).

Separations

Office-wide attrition increased by 2.2 percent over last year. The attrition rate increase was evident in all but one of the designated groups. The attrition rate for aboriginal people remained constant. The highest rate of attrition was found in persons in a visible minority where the rate had more than tripled over the previous year. However, the rate of attrition for persons with disabilities had been reduced by more than 50 percent (see Table 10 in the Appendix).

Appendix—Statistics

Report coverage

This report contains information on our indeterminate employees and term employees of three months or more as at 31 March 2003. Employees who were on secondment to other organizations are also included in our numbers.

Employees who were on leave without pay from our Office at 31 March 2003 are not included in the population. Because of the rapid turnover of students and casual employees, no information is reported on them.

Data on people in the designated groups

All data, other than those for women, were obtained through self-identification, the process by which people identify themselves as being from one of the other three designated groups. The data on women were obtained from other human resources information.

The completeness and accuracy of employment equity data depend on employees being willing to self-identify and on being given the opportunity to do so.

Our self-identification process, began in April 1997. Employees who joined the Office since then have been provided with a questionnaire.

At any time during the year, any employee may complete or revise a self-identification questionnaire, available from our Human Resources Group.

In tables 4 to 7, we show our representation as a percentage of the workforce availability, with comparative figures for the prior year. We believe this is the best measure of how well we are progressing towards our goal of achieving a representative workforce.

We provide information by Employment Equity Occupational Group (EEOG). In tables 4 through 7, we also provide information for the two National Occupational Classification (NOC) unit groups that comprise the majority of our employees — Middle Managers (NOC Unit 0414), which is part of EEOG 2 (Middle and Other Managers) and Auditors (NOC Unit 1111), included in EEOG 3 (Professionals).

List of Tables

Table 1

Representation of designated groups in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada

As at 31 March 2003

Table 2

Distribution of employees by designated group and region of work

As at 31 March 2003

Table 3

Representation of designated groups by Employment Equity Occupational Group

As at 31 March 2003

Table 4

Representation of women by Employment Equity Occupational Group and two largest National Occupational Classification unit groups

As at 31 March 2003

Table 5

Representation of Aboriginal peoples by Employment Equity Occupational Group and two largest National Occupational Classification unit groups

As at 31 March 2003

Table 6

Representation of persons with disabilities by Employment Equity Occupational Group and two largest National Occupational Classification unit groups

As at 31 March 2003

Table 7

Representation of persons in a visible minority by Employment Equity Occupational Group and two largest National Occupational Classification unit groups

As at 31 March 2003

Table 8

Hirings by designated group and Employment Equity Occupational Group*

1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003

*Includes employees hired into term positions (three months or more) and indeterminate positions.

Table 9

Promotions by designated group and Employment Equity Occupational Category*

1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003

*Includes promotions and reclassifications.

Table 10

Separations by designated group and Employment Equity Occupational Group

1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003