Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about the difficulty my constituents had, the long-term employees advancing as well as new employees that want to get in with the Government of the Northwest Territories. I want to ask my question to the Minister of Human Resources.
In our 20/20: A Brilliant North, NWT Public Service Strategy Action Plan 2012-2016, how is the Minister and this government planning to advance our Aboriginal employees in management and executive? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are starting to employ the Regional Recruitment Strategy as one of the strategies that we’re hoping will bring the Aboriginal numbers up across the GNWT. Also, as far as trying to advance more Aboriginal employees in the GNWT to senior management and management level, we are using the Aboriginal Development Program, which is we are placing associate superintendents and associate directors, Aboriginal employees, into the system for them to take those jobs on. Also, we are now developing associate managers so that people from lower than managerial positions, such as officers and clerks and so on, can be advanced into manager positions. Thank you.
One of the issues raised was when they created a new financial shared services division, a long-term employee with many years of experience and training applied for a management job and yet that person wasn’t qualified. Once again, I question the government’s ability to over-qualify jobs and not giving enough attention to many, many years of service. How is this plan addressing that? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Aboriginal employees are all employees that were affected by the financial shared services. Regionally there were 16, and 15 in headquarters, so 31 people were affected by the position, and the majority of them were placed into jobs with the government. I think there is a possibility that a couple of the specific cases where individuals may have been applying for the positions that would have been considered an advancement did not get the jobs, but my understanding is that there were some discussions held with these individuals. I don’t have the specifics on the individuals that may have been looking for advancement and didn’t get it, but my understanding is that most people who were affected were placed in other jobs within FS, financial shared services, or retained in their own departments. Thank you.
I continue to urge the HR Minister and all the Ministers that when we’re trying to advance our Aboriginal employees that we pay attention to them like we say we do in our plan.
I also spoke about the frustration that individuals are having trying to gain employment with the Government of the Northwest Territories. They apply on many jobs and every time they have to do a personal screening test for each and every job. I can see how complicated and how frustrating that can be.
Does the plan include anything to make it easier for potential new employees to gain employment in the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have a Workforce Planning Strategy and where we’re looking at including the strategy I referred to, Regional Recruitment Strategy. There are various strategies that we are employing as a department, working with other departments in the GNWT. Our intention is always to try…(inaudible)…our numbers set out by the Affirmative Action Policy. The Affirmative Action Policy calls for the government to be representative of the population and that’s our goal, so we do work, as a government, with other departments to try to achieve those goals.
We’re moving ahead with some of the committees, like the Aboriginal Employee Advisory Committee and get some advice on them. They’re from across the regions. Aboriginal employees from across the regions are giving us advice on how to move forward on hiring Aboriginal employees into the public service. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Once again, for new employees, entry-level jobs are often overqualified and they don’t get attention for the years of experience and training that the individuals we have.
Does the plan address this fact? Are they reviewing those entry-level jobs and lowering the qualifications because people cannot get in. When you want a new employee, it’s about just getting them in there. They’ll learn the system; they’ll learn the organization and become long-term and valuable employees. Can the Minister look into that?
We can discuss this with the departments. The departments do the job descriptions and through their knowledge, skills and abilities that are typically required for a position that they’re posting. So they need to do a certain job; there are tasks that have to be done; the department determines what type of qualifications that individual needs to carry in order to do that job. So, if we’re discussing with the department on looking at those qualifications that maybe a job with a different type of task in there may be sufficient, then we’ll have that discussion. I’m more than willing and prepared to do that through the deputy to have those discussions with the other deputies in the other departments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
