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Symposium 2002 Panel Presentation - Key Issues Affecting Visible Minorities
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- Term Employment and Management Development Programs
- The Career Assignment Program (Cap) And The Visible Minority Cap
Top of PageTerm Employment and Management Development Programs
Moderated by Dominique Dennery of Dennery Resources. The panel consisted of: André Carrière from Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) who has co-chaired the Joint Term Employment Study with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC)'s Mark Pecek; John Baglow, Regional Executive Vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada for the National Capital Region was the panel member representing the PSAC. He talked about the union's perspective with respect to the Joint Term Employment Stud. Michael Kavanah, who led the project to redesign the Career Assignment Program (CAP) and is now the manager for Learning and Assignment for CAP, spoke about the Visible Minority CAP.
THE JOINT TERM EMPLOYMENT STUDY
André Carrière (HRDC) and John Baglow from PSAC
Mr. Carrière started the panel discussion by praising the collaborative efforts of the two parties as they pooled together their resources to make a detailed study on term employment in the Public Service. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) represents 73% of the term employee population in the Public Service. The origin of this study came from a collective bargaining negotiation effort, in November 2001.
Context
Because very little information of a qualitative nature existed at that time, the joint committee took the mandate to study four elements on term employment: the use of term employment; recruitment; retention and the treatment of term employees in the workplace.
Mr. Carrière mentioned that the concentration of term employees was the greatest in Halifax, Montreal, the National Capital Region, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Focus groups, both with term employees and managers, took place, with on-site visits primarily with term employees and their managers. There were also townhall meetings held in each of these major centres.
Major findings
The major findings of the study were: in terms of the use of term employment, it became clear that both term employees and employers saw the merits of this form of employment; both managers and employees were of the view that the term employment option was a good option to meet workload issues. But it was also found that people were being hired in term status for what really amounted to continuous work. People were in term status for extensive periods of time, which was unacceptable.
Regarding recruitment, there was rigour in the selection of term employees. On the issue of retention, it was clear that the term population felt like second-class citizens because they were being treated very differently from their colleagues, particularly with regard to access to developmental and training opportunities where access was limited.
On the issue of treatment, for the most part, term employees felt that they were treated equally to their indeterminate colleagues except for development and training and inclusion in some of the workplace activities.
Recommendations
Mr. Carrière also presented the major recommendations of the study. The joint committee proposed:
- A transition period to convert term employees to an indeterminate status, starting with the 3-year point and moving down to a 2-year point sometimes in the future. This is something that is statistically feasible.
- A need for better Human Resource management practices because no orientation was given to term employees as they entered the Public Service; very few term employees received performance feedback while working for many years, and the probationary period was not being managed as it was intended.
For John Baglow of the PSAC, this was an excellent model of co-development. He said that term employees make up about 15% of the population in the Public Service, they live with a continuing sense of insecurity and they feel like second-class citizens. There is no training opportunity, they are more susceptible to workplace harassment, they are on continual probation and there is a perceived lack of union support.
He pointed out that "terms" are often used as a quick- fix solution even when the job is clearly indeterminate but the person is a term. This cannot go on for long. He recognized that sometimes the lack of stable funding in the system and difficulties in the staffing process tend to lead managers to use these means for flexibility. Sometimes, managers just want to fulfill Employment Equity targets by hiring large numbers of terms from Visible Minorities and Aboriginal populations, but he said that is not a good use of term employment and the numbers are disproportionate.
Shedding of long term employees
Also discussed, was the issue of "shedding of long-term employees" - it occurs when people who have been working for quite some time and who are close to reaching their conversion period for indeterminate status have been let go. André Carrière of the HDRC noted that there is a review mechanism recommended in the study, which would allow all parties to analyze the cases to see whether a decision to terminate employment was done on legitimate grounds. Actions will be taken if evidence of shedding is clear.
John Baglow stated that the PSAC is on its guard about this issue and there is clear evidence that some of the shedding was actually going on. However, some departments were already implementing major aspects of the term study without being forced to. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was one of them. The PSAC has been asking for clear guidelines and measures for appropriate reasons for non-renewal of long-term contracts and to set out some type of recourse mechanism. This requires consistent information but PSAC is gathering data and it is monitoring the situation on a day- to-day basis.
Timeline for implementation
For the implementation of the study's recommendations, policy consultations were being completed and a new policy was to be issued to departments. The approval date was expected by the end of December 2002 and the implementation would follow during the first days of April 2003 .
The Career Assignment Program (Cap) And The Visible Minority Cap
Michael Kavanah (PSC)
The CAP program is corporately managed and departmentally driven. Departments determine the level of participation to meet their human resource planning needs. They first identify high potential people, have them assessed, have them selected, give them the opportunities to broaden their experience, develop their competencies within the areas of the 14 leadership competencies, and, eventually, have them pre-qualified and appointed to the next executive cadre.
CAP started in 1968 and it is one the longest running development programs in any level of government in Canada. It was revamped in 1998 from a nomination process to a merit-based selection process. The PSC visible minority campaign had targeted 20 positions across government but ended up placing 49 individuals.
Selection process and results
The 49 selected represented 61% of the CAP intake for that year. It was a great success and not the only one. It appears that because of other campaigns that were departmentally run that ye a r, 5 out the 30 participants also came from the visible minority community. The results of the 2001-2002 campaign showed that 69% of the participants came from Visible Minorities. This level of success for the PSC has exceeded all expectations.
For the future, Mr. Kavanah was contemplating another targeted campaign directed towards persons with disabilities. He will also monitor the numbers. Already, early reports indicated that applications from visible minority employees were increasing dramatically. They have become more aware of the CAP program and were taking an active interest in it.
Issues raised
The question period raised the following issues:
- Training is required for staffing and Human Resources personnel to deal with foreign credentials and references ;
- A new situation called "indeterminate full-time seasonal" was being monitored to avoid adverse effects following the implementation of the term study recommendations. Managers may also use other options at their disposal such as: casual employment, contracting for services instead of the use of term employment and those would be considered as adverse impact.
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