Bob McLeod

Mr. Chair, I guess the biggest trend we’re noticing is that our workforce is aging, and within ten years I think about 40 per cent of our workforce will be retiring. What we’re noticing in the demographics is that the younger workforce is much different from the workforce we’ve been dealing with. They’re younger, they’re more focused on a work-balanced approach, and they also are looking for challenging work. They’re more focused on jobs that are best for them as individuals. It’s a trend that we think is going to impact our whole approach to staffing.

With regard to Employer of Choice, we’ve...

The Department of Human Resources works very closely with all of the departments within the government. In developing the Main Estimates, we worked closely with the departments to ensure the process was followed so that all employees were dealt with fairly, and also, that the merit principle was followed in cases where there was a number of employees who were affected. For example, if there were five people who were eligible for four positions, we would want to make sure all of the employees who were affected were dealt with fairly.

If there are any cases where an employee feels they haven’t...

I guess in Human Resources it’s understood that employee recognition is one of the biggest motivators in a workforce. Most employees would prefer that their work is recognized rather than get an increase in wages or monetary rewards. So on that basis, I think the Employee Recognition Program we have is relatively cheap for the amount we gain by it. The employee recognition programs are reviewed on a regular basis, and certainly we’ll take the Member’s recommendations into consideration.

We do know that whenever employee recognition comes up, there’s always the discussion that some employees are...

The previous government had directed that the Department of Human Resources consult other employees and employee representatives on the feasibility of whistleblower protection. We received 69 responses. Of the 69, 59 were generally in favour and 8 did not indicate support. We are still reviewing the information we have and trying to determine whether it’s an area we want to proceed with. We haven’t included it in any deliberations, but with business planning coming up for 2009– 2010, this is something we could look at.

As the Member may know, there are a number of issues we would have to...

Mr. Chair, certainly that was something that was looked at, not something that Human Resources would be responsible for. But we did provide some input to the Financial Management Board Secretariat.

I think there’s a number of considerations. One is we would have to negotiate something with the unions for it to occur. With Donnie Days, there was a rollback in wages.

I think the biggest consideration is the fact that we do have a significant number of facilities and operations that operate 24-7, 365 days a year. And those facilities, by giving more days off, would result in additional costs to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We administer a staff retention policy, which is a policy whereby we try to keep all of our staff who are in an affected position.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, the process that was followed is that departments made proposals that were reviewed by the Financial Management Board. Those decisions that were made were communicated back to the departments, and the departments wrote up the proposals in final form. The positions that were directed…. It’s my understanding that due diligence was followed and an orderly process was followed in identifying potentially affected employees.

At one time we were set up where we had a human resource planner for every department. What happened was that we expected the departments to take the lead on developing human resource plans, because unless management develops their plans, there is no ownership.

So as such, we work with departments — generally, departments that have staffing problems that need to address specific issues. We work with them on planning with regard to comprehensive human resource planning where we would have a specific plan to deal with employees from recruitment to retirement. This is something we provide advice...

Those are four relief employees who had been notified they were potentially affected or impacted but had not been included on the list or had been missed on being included on the list. So that’s why they’ve been added.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to present the Main Estimates for the Department of Human Resources for the fiscal year 2008–2009. The department’s 2008–2009 Main Estimates propose O&M expenditures of $32.253 million. This represents an increase of $662,000, or 2.1 per cent, over the 2007–2008 Main Estimates.

The department has reduced expenditures in areas such as travel, salaries, contracted services, and fees and payments, but the overall budget has grown due to collective agreement adjustments and increases to the cost of medical travel assistance.

The Department of Human Resources Main...