Human Resources
The Human Resources Team provides advice, guidance, and in some instances, direction to managers and supervisors in the day to day management of their Human Resource. These services include organization and job design, classification, recruitment, staff relations, staff development, pay and benefits administration and long term planning.
The Department of Health and Social Services has the second largest complement of employees within the Government of Yukon (YTG). The department has 853 employees, 284 of whom are on-call. The need for on-call employees is generated by the seven 24-hour facilities that we administer. These include: Continuing Care facilities (Thomson Centre, Macaulay Lodge, MacDonald Lodge), Young Offenders Facility, Detoxification Centre, Transient Shelter, Emergency Medical Services, Watson Lake Hospital and the Residential Youth Treatment Centre.
For the most part, the Department is composed of professional and para-professional staff, nurses and social workers being among the largest occupational groups. Of our employees, 83.1% are women and are consistently represented throughout the Department at or near this percentage. As a result of this make-up, two important priorities for staff are professional development and flexible work arrangements. First Nation employees make up 10.1% of the staff.
Health and Social Services continues to generate the highest level of recruitment and classification activity of any YTG Department. This reflects our on-going needs for auxiliary on-call employees as well as the dynamic nature of many of our programs. Labour market shortages for Registered Nurses and Social Workers have made recruitment and retention a department priority.
Within the Department, staff is split more or less equally between Health (44%) and Social Services (46%). Corporate Services represents 8% of staff. The Management Group (MG) makes up 2% of the staff complement.
The growth of our Department has mainly taken place over the last three years with the addition of Federal Health Transfer employees. On April 1, 1997, the Heath Transfer Phase II occurred, transferring 201 employees from the Federal Government to YTG. Also in this time, our human resources budget has grown from $20 million in 1996 to $36 million.