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Chapter Five: Employment EquityThe Business Case for Employment Equity Principal Goals of Employment Equity Your Responsibilities as a Manager Overcoming Barriers in Your Organization Staffing and Recruitment Programs and Tools Employment Equity Positive Measures Program and Embracing Change Fund IntroductionThe PSC encourages managers and their human resources advisors to use Chapter 5 as a basis to discuss how they can better incorporate representativeness into merit-based staffing. This chapter aims to give managers a comprehensive overview of the policies and tools at their disposal to help achieve the goal of a truly diverse federal workforce. However, there are no perfect solutions to redressing historical imbalances in the representation of certain groups. Only by our individual and collective efforts can we ensure that the federal Public Service becomes a more representative employer. The Business Case for Employment Equity
Predominant values and management principles in action: Competence, non-partisanship and representativeness. Other values and principles apply to differing degrees. Your goal is to ensure that the people you choose are qualified for the work; your staffing process is free of political or bureaucratic patronage and that your resulting work force is representative of the labour market. Principal Goals of Employment EquityEmployment equity has three principal goals:
The Four Designated GroupsEmployment equity targets four designated groups: See the Glossary for definitions. Your Responsibilities as a ManagerYour responsibilities for employment equity include:
For more information on employment equity roles and responsibilities, visit these Web sites: "Shared Responsibilities for Implementing the New Employment Equity Legislation" "Overview of the Employment Equity Act (1996) from a Public Service Perspective" "Employment Equity Act and Regulations" Policy on Duty to Accommodate Persons with Disabilities in the Federal Public Service Guideline for Assessing Persons with Disabilities. Overcoming Barriers in Your OrganizationNo one should face employment barriers simply by virtue of being a woman, a person with a disability, an Aboriginal person or a member of a visible minority group. Departments have the legal obligation to look for and eliminate barriers in their selection processes. Barriers present themselves in a variety of forms and situations; some are experienced by all the designated groups and others are group-specific. Please contact your HRA within your own department for further information or clarification regarding issues and barriers for designated group members. Your departmental employment equity coordinator or human resources advisor should have a profile of your departmental representation and your departmental employment equity objectives, as well as a plan on how representation shortfalls will be addressed. Did you know?By expanding the geographic area of selection beyond a metropolitan area, you will avoid excluding Aboriginal peoples living in First Nation communities just outside the metropolitan area. By learning more about persons with disabilities and workplace accommodations, you will ensure that you do not make false assumptions about what a candidate can or cannot do. By fully considering credentials obtained outside Canada, you ensure that you include excellent candidates who may have training equivalent to that of their Canadian counterparts. For assistance in verifying credentials, contact the Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials. If designated group members receive their fair share of acting appointments and developmental opportunities, their opportunity for advancement will be increased. Consider the fairness of each appointment process. Staffing and Recruitment Programs and ToolsDepartmental human resources advisors and recruitment consultants from the Public Service Commission (PSC) can help you determine which strategy is best suited to meet your recruitment requirements and expectations. PSC corporate development programs are continuously re-examined to determine how the PSC can increase the pool of designated group members in developmental programs, and to assess the possibility of expanding or introducing new programs. Did you know?Deputy Heads may ask the PSC to implement an Employment Equity Program in their department when under-representation is significant in one or more designated groups, in one or more occupational groups and/or in one or more locations. This type of program can be tailored to departmental needs and used either for external recruitment or internal staffing or both. Your human resources advisor can provide additional information to help you determine if a tailored Employment Equity Program would help you achieve your goals. Should an EE program be needed, your PSC departmental consultant can provide you with a template and is available to help you through the approval process. When departments do not have or do not need their own Employment Equity Program because the number of appointments anticipated to be made would be very limited, you may request exclusive EE referrals under the PSC's Employment Equity Program to make a limited number of employment equity appointments when recruiting from outside the Public Service. Using this program, you may advertise a job opportunity to one or more designated groups only and you will only need to review applications from the designated group(s) advertised. For further information on the PSC's Employment Equity program, consult your human resources advisor or visit the Employment Equity and Diversity Framework and Programs page. You may expand the minimum geographic area of selection in external and internal selection processes to include one or more employment equity groups from a larger area of selection. You may use the Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) to increase hiring of designated group members by requesting the PSC to restrict the search to one or more of the designated groups. Students participating in FSWEP or an approved Co-op Program may be "bridged" into Public Service employment. For further information on bridging, refer to chapter 3 option 11 of this handbook or consult your human resources advisor. The Post Secondary recruitment campaign attracts on average 30-35% of its applicants from members of visible minority groups. Tips
Duty to AccommodateThe phrase "duty to accommodate" refers to your obligation to take appropriate steps to eliminate discrimination against candidates in the selection process and after an individual is appointed. A rule, practice or some other barrier may inadvertently discriminate against individuals, for example, because of their disability, family status or religion. Appropriate steps would remove such barriers if to do so does not cause "undue hardship" such as compromising safety or health, or creating undue financial cost. You need to ensure that you give equal and fair access to all candidates. That means you must give each candidate the opportunity to effectively represent him/herself in the selection process. To be fair to the broad spectrum of candidates who apply, does not necessarily mean treating all candidates in exactly the same manner. For example, a candidate with a visual impairment may need to receive their information in a larger print format. You need to be careful not to create barriers inadvertently in attempting to provide equal access. In the recruitment process, there are some questions that you should ask when staffing a position, to ensure equal access to the opportunity and respect for the merit principle. Chapter 1 describes the relationship between employment equity and merit.
During the selection process, you will want to consider the following questions:
For more information on selection and assessment, contact your human resources advisor. Did you know?Employment Equity Program appointments only require that you consider persons with priority entitlement (Chapter 6 discusses Priority Administration) who are members of a target designated group for the program. For example, if your competition is restricted to members of visible minority groups then only priority persons who are qualified and members of visible minority groups will be referred. More help, support and guidance regarding accommodation for persons with disabilities is provided at the following Web sites:
Predominant values and management principles in action: Fairness, transparency and competency. Other values and principles apply to differing degrees. Keep in mind when staffing positions that though we value what we all share, we must also value the ways in which we contribute differently. Employment Equity Positive Measures Program and Embracing Change FundThe Employment Equity Positive Measures Program (EEPMP) was established by the Treasury Board from October 1998 to March 31, 2002 as a temporary program to help build employment equity capacity in the federal government. Its goals were to assist in integrating employment equity practices in the workplace by providing information, tools and skill development for achieving a representative Public Service. Best practices and lessons learned have been documented with a view to sharing knowledge. The Embracing Change Support Fund set up between Fall 2000 and March 2003, was designed to help departments and agencies intervene and kick-start initiatives and projects directly related to the implementation of the Embracing Change Action Plan. The fund may also help departments and agencies fulfil their legislative obligations under the Employment Equity Act to improve the representation of persons in visible minority groups. Best Employment Equity PracticesMany departments have implemented effective and varied initiatives to move employment equity goals forward. You can visit a collection of best practices in employment equity. StatisticsThe reality in the federal Public Service is that qualified individuals from designated groups have traditionally been hired, employed and promoted at rates well below their availability in the external and internal labour markets, andthe externallabour market for designated group members is increasing. Consider these statistics of a changing Canadian society:
Did you know?Your nearest PSC District Offices has access to a database of 2300 EE organizations to which it can send job opportunities. Several PSC offices maintain EE applicant inventories and/or inventories with EE applicants. To ascertain which applicant inventories exist in your area, visit the PSC website. The latest annual report on employment equity in the federal Public Service may be found at: http://www.hrma-agrh.gc.ca/ee/ar-ra/ar-ra_e.asp |
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Updated: 2006-06-29 | Important Notices |