Thank you very much for inviting me here today to provide members of the committee with an update on recruitment initiatives.
As stated in the clerk's most recent report, “When done right, recruitment can act as an accelerant to bring about change.” This is why excelling at recruitment is such an important focus as we continue to improve our recruitment, development and retention practices.
As touched upon by my colleague, recruitment is a shared responsibility among deputy ministers, the Public Service Commission, and the office of the chief human resources officer.
The efforts mentioned by Mr. Borbey, as well as those undertaken by the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, are key to addressing demographic changes, planning for the future of work, changes to the nature of work and the workplace, and building and maintaining the capacity to meet the expectations of Canadian citizens.
The Public Service of Canada is strongly committed to recruiting, developing and retaining a high performing workforce that can deliver on the government's current and future priorities.
The approach we have taken to people management and recruitment includes reviewing and testing new and innovative ways to attract top talent for a high-performing public service that supports and strengthens diversity and inclusion and explores new ways to serve all Canadians. Greater diversity and inclusion have been linked to better results for organizations, including higher productivity, lower turnover, better decision-making informed by diverse perspectives, and enhanced overall performance and results.
Canada's demographic landscape is changing. There are currently nine million youth across the country, representing approximately one quarter of the population. The indigenous population is projected to grow at twice the rate of the general population.
Immigration accounts for two-thirds of Canada's current population. According to the 2016 census, if current population trends continue, the representation of visible minorities in Canadian society is projected to grow from 31.2% to 35.9% in the next two decades.
The public service must keep pace with these changes.
Budget 2018 proposed the creation of the Public Service Centre on Diversity, Inclusion and Wellness to support departments and agencies in creating safe, healthy, diverse and inclusive workplaces.
The Treasury Board Secretariat has been collaborating with key partners, and is developing a diversity and inclusion strategy as well as a multi-year action plan, including targeted recruitment efforts, that will serve the public service to increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Overall, the public service is representative in each of the four employment equity designated groups as of March 31, 2016. We are proud that this overall representation has been sustained for the past four years, but we observe that gaps persist in certain occupational groups and levels in some departments and agencies, and efforts continue to address these.
An important part of improving diversity and inclusion in the public service includes exploring efforts and ideas that target recruitment and eliminate barriers in areas where we know that representation gaps continue to exist, such as women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields; visible minorities in scientific and professional groups; as well as indigenous persons in executive ranks.
Through targeted recruitment, we will also be able to attract other segments of the Canadian population, including youth and LGBTQ2+, among others.
I am very proud of the success of the federal student employment programs.
These programs provide students with meaningful work experience, exposure to a wide range of jobs and future opportunities in the federal government.
They also allow managers to identify potential recruits with diverse backgrounds and skill sets, who can be later hired as full-time public servants.
I want to highlight two targeted recruitment initiatives that are already under way.
First, the indigenous summer employment opportunity, now in its third year, is designed to create a positive working experience for indigenous students across Canada. It was first launched as a pilot, and allowed 33 students to come to the national capital region for a summer work term. More recently, the Public Service Commission expanded this program nationally, and 180 students were hired this year across Canada.
Second, the youth accessibility summer employment opportunity is a recruitment, onboarding, and engagement initiative originally piloted in 2017. This initiative was designed to create a positive and inclusive work experience for post-secondary students with disabilities, and created greater awareness in participating organizations about the opportunities and supports available to employees with disabilities.
The initiative used various approaches to recruitment, with an enhanced onboarding process with the goal of providing support to the hiring manager to better integrate young employees with disabilities within the public service.
In the first year, departments hired 19 students. This was expanded to 61 this year.
We will build on our efforts to expand our learning from these experiences, and apply the best practices to other targeted recruitment efforts and segments, including youth and mid-career professionals.
Our focus remains on ensuring that we have the right people in the right jobs at the right time, and that we are innovative in our approaches to attract talent of all ages.
There will also be times when we will need to target specific technical experience that is best suited to mid-career-level candidates. We have mechanisms in place to bring in this talent through the interchange Canada program, Canada's free agents program, and the PCO fellowship program.
These and other innovative recruitment initiatives help fast-track the ability to bring in or mobilize new talent as we work in partnership with departments and the Public Service Commission to increase talent access.
Once new employees are recruited, it is also imperative to ensure that effective support tools and practices are in place to support onboarding and capacity for new recruits, including talent management, learning plans and the development of career management tools.
I want to close by saying that we are constantly working to improve and find new ways to engage and recruit talent. Further work is needed with respect to engagement of stakeholders outside the government, such as community organizations, professional associations, universities, colleges, technical schools and private sector leaders in talent acquisition.
Thank you for your time.