Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was offices.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Refresh my memory. What percentage of income tax forms are filed electronically? Do you know offhand?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I'm sorry. I don't know the number offhand. I think it's around 50%, but I wouldn't want to swear on the Bible that I have that number.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
I'm just looking for an approximation.
You said there are certain overcapacity issues that have resulted from technological change to this point. One would imagine that trend would accelerate, that more and more people would move to that medium.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
But it does allow us to move into different workloads, to do activities such as what we call post-matching, where we take the information we've received and match it up with other slips that we might receive from other information sources.
Over the years CRA has become a provider of services to other levels of government, more specifically the provinces and the territories. For example, for activities for programs related to child tax benefits, we're often the supplier. The provinces come to us.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
If I could summarize--this being the last question--the strategy, as you get this overcapacity, is not to reduce the workforce of CRA but to deploy in other areas and offer other services.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That's definitely our first option, absolutely. We invest a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of money into the development of our staff. We would really consider it to be quite a loss if we got to the point of losing employees as a result of overcapacity. We're talking about our full-time employees.
Regarding our term population, if there are issues about overcapacity, if we can't manage to maintain the levels, our term population is the first population we look at.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam, sir, good morning. According to the report you've tabled this morning, you have performed exceptionally well with respect to turnover rates. Could this be explained by the fact that your agency is located throughout Canada? You have more than one or two points of service; your services are delivered throughout the entire country.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That is a factor that can have an influence. Turnover rates at headquarters are higher than in other parts of the country. It is true that in certain regions, turnover rates are lower.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Would does concentrating your activities in one or two points of service throughout Canada deprive you of qualified candidates?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That is a good question, to which I don't really have an answer. Recruitment processes are targeted to external candidates. All of the offices receive many employment applications. In fact, we receive thousands of applications that we are unable to process.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
In your opening statement, you stated that many students have been hired. I imagine that this hiring occurs during tax-filing season.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
No, we recruit throughout the whole year. We collaborate with certain colleges and universities to hire students under coop programs for three or four months before they return to their studies. Often, they come back to finish their internship with the CRA.
In addition, we hire many students during the summer. Personal tax-filing season is at its peak beginning in March until the end of May or mid-June. This is not a particularly good time for students, because they are still in school. Students are hired throughout the year and throughout the country. Of the students hired last year, 60 were offered indeterminate positions throughout all regions of Canada.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I was pleasantly surprised by your presentation because it is rare to hear of a department with such a high staff retention rate. What is the reason why you do not experience as much difficulty as other departments in this area? You even seem to have surplus staff members.
I do not want to put you in hot water, but I'm just wondering if we can draw up on your management model for inspiration.
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
That is a very good question that the agency has also asked. There are a few significant factors that can be identified.
It is certain that the annual investment of approximately $300 million in staff training and development is an important element. We are talking about significant sums of money. Usually, the annual turnover rate is approximately 6% of our salary base. People also have many career possibilities. They can choose to work in different areas that interest them.
As well, we provide our employees with a lot of flexibility in terms of managing their own work schedule. For example, 44% of our permanent employees work regular hours, five days per week, 7.5 hours per day; and 48% of our employees operate on a compressed schedule that allows them to balance their professional and personal lives.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
However, in your document, you state that there is some difficulty at the executive level. You write: “[...] some challenges, however, in finding and retaining human resources staff [...]”
Could this be because the flexibility you provide to your employees makes things hard to manage?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
It is practically only in the National Capital Region that we are experiencing difficulty in finding and retaining qualified human resources staff and financial services staff. The mobility of highly qualified staff in these areas between various federal departments is high. So if someone wishes to work at Transport Canada, it is very easy to find employment in either one of these areas in the National Capital Region.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to affirm the positive tone of your report in terms of the geographic distribution and also the very low turnover rate. I think that's very positive and, as has been said already, very encouraging for our committee.
I'm looking at the deck you provided with the percentages across Canada in the different provinces. I could probably do some research on this myself, but do the percentages reflected here province by province, or area by area, generally reflect population densities across Canada?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Are you talking about the chart on page 2?
Assistant Commissioner, Human Resources Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
To be honest with you, I have never done an analysis of that, so I would be guessing if I tried to answer the question.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
The other thing I note there is that there are no employees in the territories, and I'm sure there is good reason for that. I'm just wondering if there is a point at which you would consider having employees in the territories. Or am I misreading the map, and maybe you do?
