Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement today in terms of the Regional Recruitment Program. There was a press release that went out on October 23, 2013. I just want to get an update. In the statement it said training is anticipated to start to be on the job in early 2014.
I would like to ask the Minister of Human Resources, what is the update on that program and do we have actual full-time government employees who went through this program? If so, how many?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, we do not have people on the ground yet as part of the Regional Recruitment Strategy that the Member speaks of. We have done the program design. We have finalized all of the documentation necessary. We have completed the approach that the trainer is going to use in training individuals. We have talked about the training allowance specific to that. We have met with the UNW. We have negotiated a memorandum of understanding, so we’re ready to roll. We have all of the regional meetings in place. Individuals have come forward and we are now seeing the targeted positions that we’re hoping to fill with this strategy. Thank you.
I want to ask the Minister, has he changed any policies or do any policies need to be changed in order to get individuals into the job? Like I said yesterday, there were some challenges for some individuals in Inuvik who were just trying to get casual employment and had to go through all the hoops to get their application on the desk.
So, have any policies changed within the government system that allows residents of the Northwest Territories to actually get into these jobs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Any policy change that would occur would have been to try to accommodate the Regional Recruitment Strategy. As I indicated, we have discussed this and signed an MOU with the Union of Northern Workers. So, there hasn’t been anything put in place to make it difficult for individuals to apply. In fact, it’s been the other way around. We are trying to accommodate this. Now that interest is starting, we are hoping we will have our first employee underneath the Regional Recruitment Strategy this month and more in April. We’re going to get some employees in March and April through the strategy and hopefully expanding that beyond the communities that have shown interest now, which are at this time coming from Inuvik, Fort Simpson and Fort Providence.
In the news release that was sent out on October 23, 2013, it mentioned that the program would help reduce barriers in entering the workforce. Yesterday I got a call from a constituent having some issues with them getting into the job system and this was just for a casual position.
Would the Minister consider, or is his department looking at some of the lower level job positions or entry level job positions such as administrative assistants or jobs on the front line, working with individuals who have been in the job for five, 10 or 20 years? We have those statistics. Would he look at trying to get individuals who have been in an entry level job for 10 years-plus and give them the support to become a supervisor, a manger or take another position within the government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, we do plan to look at that. Right now we do have two strategies developing our employees. One is a strategy of the positions of associate superintendent positions that we’ve created. Now we’re looking at creating some associate manager positions, moving officers up to that level. The recommendation from the Member, taking people who have been long term in administrative positions and moving them up a level to officer level, is something that we would certainly take a look at seriously, and I will talk to the Department of Human Resources who go on to talk to the other hiring departments to see what is possible here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that we’ve looked at the 20/20 strategy and we do understand that a lot of our employees are going to be retiring. They are coming to that age where they’re going to retire and we will need people to fill those positions. A lot of them will be in senior management, so I think it’s a great opportunity to look at our long-term service employees and give them the tools.
The Minister did mention that this month we’re going to have one of our recruitments in place, so I wonder what his targets are for this year in terms of getting individuals into this program.
Does he have a target set for getting our NWT residents into these jobs, these vacant positions and these higher level positions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have not set targets as a department. We are asking all of the departments to come forward with the positions that we are hoping to fill with the Regional Recruitment Strategy. Once we have all the departments who have identified their positions, then we, as the Department of Human Resources, will go back and engage those departments to make sure that there aren’t more positions that can go under this strategy. At that point, we will set targets of how many positions we hope to fill using the Regional Recruitment Strategy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
