Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate where the Member is coming from, and I think that that’s a really good observation that we need to be innovative and fresh and have a multi-pronged approach to attract as many people as we can to really continue that theme of diversity in our workforce. We’re looking for a lot of different kinds of talent, and we’re going to get that by looking at Northerners, looking at long-term Northerners, looking at people who are northern residents, looking at people from outside of the territory, and I think it’s a really good observation.
That was really a big part of the career fair when we went to Ottawa, was focusing primarily on devolution but also making the point to a southern audience that, frankly, in Ottawa, understands government, that we are a great employer, and we heard that from a lot of the people that showed up there and are very interested in coming north. So we were very heartened by the over 650 people that came to talk to us about it.
At the same time, though, the career fairs or the open houses, we are deliberately calling them open houses in the North to make them as welcoming as we possibly can, because we do hear from a lot of Northerners, we hear from people that come through yourselves, forwarded on to the Minister, that sometimes the world of HR can be very intimidating. It can be a scary process to think about applying for a job. It’s a little overwhelming. It’s part of the reason why we put some tips and tools onto our careers website about how to apply to the GNWT system, how to do your resume up, some tips and tools to prepare for an interview. Those are great tools on-line, but part of having these open houses is to be very comfortable and casual, encourage people to come and talk about, you know, I have thought about applying but I have just felt like it was a little bit overwhelming, a little bit much. So to be able to come in and talk about the opportunities we have, the processes we have, things that may open up, summer student employment opportunities as they arise, for parents right now or, when the time comes, for young people as well. They are very deliberately called open houses so as to make them as welcoming as possible and to remove any of the feelings that people can have when applying for a job that it can be quite intimidating and quite a daunting process. We are trying to make it as friendly as possible and give as much support to our Northerners as we possibly can.
The point about getting into high schools, I couldn’t agree more. We are very, very keen on that. We are starting that process now with our Student and Youth Strategy and really making sure that we are
able to support young people to be able to think about what choices they need to make now to be able to take advantage of good careers in the future.
The issue on the system navigator is very, very interesting. It’s a very interesting one for us that we try to be very precise around giving the terms of employment that we have negotiated with our partners, with the UNW and the NWT Teachers’ Association. We have some very clear rules for engagement that we have worked with them on. For example, if an applicant applies for a job and they are screened in and are interviewed and they end up getting a regret saying I’m really sorry, you did a good job but, unfortunately, we are not going to be offering the job to you. That can be an upsetting thing and we totally appreciate that that can be a difficult thing for many people. The process that is in place right now for people that have applied in a situation like that is to appeal the job. We really welcome appeals. It’s an independent process that’s outside of the Department of HR, it’s outside of government and it’s a process by which, when people feel that something didn’t go right, something was overlooked, something didn’t go right, there is an opportunity for this independent level of review.
At the same time, we’re really trying to make sure that we are as welcoming as possible to any other potential applicant out there to pick up the phone and call us and say, if I went through the interview process and I didn’t get the job, what happened, where was I, did I bomb the interview, did I get nervous, did something happen, did I not answer a question well. To be able to give that feedback, as well, we really welcome the opportunity to do that, to set someone up to be successful the next time around, because we feel that’s a really important part when we do have talented Northerners here that are looking for work with the GNWT. Thank you.