Thank you. Deputy Minister Desjardins.
Debates of Feb. 10th, 2015
This is page numbers 5409 – 5450 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was communities.
Topics
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Desjardins
Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now we’re currently working on a human resource management framework, accountability framework. That is a strategic tool to look at measures with our stats on these kinds of things that you’ve raised about the number of people that have applied that haven’t been receiving jobs. We’re going to be looking at the deeper issues to why they’re not receiving jobs. Is it their resume that requires working, or is there a job match for them? So we’re starting to look at those kinds of things to be more proactive into any issues that we have, regardless if its applicants that are applying on jobs, but as well as for the tools that we have in place such as the appeal process is going to be assessed, as well, for any of our recruitment measures as part of our Workforce Strategy as well.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thanks for the response from the Minister and his deputy. It is concerning. I mean, the Minister knows, and staff I’m sure, in several cases or many cases where this has been raised, we have worked with individuals. Staff have helped the individuals tune up their applications and so on, but in every case there’s still no resolution. So I hope, as you do that internal look, that you will contact people that have had this experience and they’re maybe on record as appealing, or perhaps ask MLAs to suggest constituents names that have been through this if there’s not a privacy of information concern there. I have many that have said yes, put my name forward, I’m happy to talk about this. So there are some opportunities there to speak directly and get that perspective, one perspective and the department will have a perspective, but it would be nice to capture those.
So I guess I would ask if the Minister will commit to making sure that those who feel like they have been frustrated can have some input into that review.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Madam Chair. I will commit to contacting the Members to obtain a list of individuals that may have been faced with being qualified and not being able to get into the public service.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the Minister for that commitment, and that was just one suggestion. I’m sure the Minister has others on how to find people, but I appreciate that.
Just looking at the budget, I just had a question. It seems like we took quite a jump up in ‘14-15 and we’re maintaining that. Compensation and benefits are actually down. I have to congratulate the Minister on that. I’m not sure how he has managed to do that, but that’s a rarity, but the rest is up. I’m wondering: is there an explanation and is this a temporary blip that’s expected to go back down? I imagine maybe we were working on 20/20: A Brilliant North, NWT Public Service Strategic Plan or something that bumped it up, but I’m just wondering why there’s a $2 million increase there. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you. I’d like to have the director explain that jump that occurred between ‘13-14 actuals and the mains from ‘14-15.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Beard
Thank you, Madam Chair. The overall decrease in strategic human resources, so for the employee development and workforce, planning is due to the passive restraint. So the department took $322,000 out of that program area for passive restraint. The compensation and benefits, the increase there is for each of them are for the collective bargaining increases. So that’s, for the year, four collective bargaining increases. So the only movement in this is the decrease of the $322,000 for the passive restraint and then the increase for the collective bargaining for year four.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Yes, somehow that’s not fitting with my perception of the numbers here. I appreciate that explanation. It looks like the Minister is on it. I’m talking about the jump from ‘13-14 about $5.5 million to about $8.5 million nowadays. I’m looking for an explanation of the increase. It hasn’t been through compensation and benefits and
renewed contract with employees and so on. Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Thank you, Madam Chair. In the ‘13-14 actuals it was a process where we didn’t spend the money that was in the budget. So if we go back to the mains from the previous year, the mains of ‘13-14 would be more in line with the mains from ‘14-15 and the mains from ‘15-16, but the actuals indicate that we didn’t spend all the money. There was an opportunity in that area where we had passive restraint, so we didn’t spend the money. That’s why it reflects the difference, the large difference there.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
I obviously don’t have that number in front of me so I’ll leave it at that. But if the Minister does come up with any further information on that, I would appreciate it.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to just follow up a bit from where I left off yesterday. I had asked about a retention strategy. The answer that I got from Ms. Desjardins talked a lot about recruitment but didn’t talk much about retention. So I’d like to ask again, what are we doing? Do we have a retention strategy, was my first question, and what are we doing to retain employees? What retention efforts are we putting in place? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Desjardins
Thank you, Madam Chair. I did focus a lot on recruitment yesterday. We are also looking at different initiatives on our retention strategy and into looking at engagement and supporting the capacity for learning and knowledge share. That’s all part of 20/20. So we’re looking at different initiatives that would support retention into the workforce that we currently have, and we’re doing a lot of research right now on best practices and we will be incorporating that into our tools to support clients.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
So, could I get a bit of an explanation as to what engagement means? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Desjardins
Engagement means basically that people are motivated to do their work, whether it’s through interesting work, it could be in the feedback they receive with their work to whether they’re engaged with the benefits that they receive. So it could be different things that would support their engagement. What we’re doing is looking at some research on all these kinds of engagement tools that we can utilize to support why and determine why people are leaving the GNWT and
the Northwest Territories. So right now we’re looking at all these different strategies to support our clients.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake
Thanks to the deputy minister for the answer. I wanted to lastly ask about succession planning. We know that we have a large number of our fairly senior staff who are going to be leaving the employ of the GNWT due to retirement over the next five to 10 years, and I believe that in the last year or so we’ve heard from the Department of HR that they are working on succession planning.
I would like to know how they assist various departments in this succession planning, and I think there are one or two initiatives that are out there. How are those initiatives working? Do you feel that there’s been some success? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Jane Groenewegen
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu. I`m sorry, did you want me to give it to the deputy? Okay, Ms. Desjardins. Sorry.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Desjardins
Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have some management training programs, leadership programs for the departments. Besides that, we are refocusing our services into succession planning, which includes the departments, our client departments, human resource plans. With that we are going to be looking at targeting our retirement workforce in working down from their retirement dates and looking at some tools that will support them with their succession planning and looking at initiatives that is best practices that will support them, whether they’re difficult to recruit positions or not, we need to help support and identify them. We’re looking at different initiatives that would support them with these plans, so that’s going to be our refocus is with those. Also, we’re going to provide some more tools about the aging workforce and our other generation that’s coming in, the millenniums, about doing some education for engagement because they have different values than the different generations so we’re also going to be providing some tools on that for engagement.