For the record my name is Robert Thomas Hicks. I have a degree, a diploma, a secret clearance.
I'm somewhat bilingual, but in any case, I can manage.
I am currently studying to obtain both my PMP and CMP.
I've served Canada twice. I hold the Queen's commission, and almost 20 years ago to this very day, I was serving overseas in Kosovo in the assault troop of Lord Strathcona's Horse, Royal Canadians. My father served in the seventies, and my grandfather, Thomas Hicks, was wounded in Ortona in 1943. Canadian military service runs in my family.
Please accept my sincerest appreciation for being allowed to speak.
By now, it should be apparent that the current mechanisms to bring veterans into the civil service could use new impetus. The majority of us are not injured or going into executive positions, and few of us have pensions.
Admittedly, I'm not a hiring expert, but I am an expert in not getting hired. I was removed from a competition because I used “emergency communications” as a skill instead of “crisis communications”. HR never bothered to explain the difference. Other veterans have told me similar stories.
Right now, with this forum, I'll do what I've always done—speak, a shock to those who know me, I'm sure.
Currently, Canada's history, statues, culture and civil service are being disrespected and destroyed by intersectionality, virtue signalling and regionalism. Canada was built through hard work, pragmatism and flexibility of thought. We should return to those values.
I was taught to be proud of Canada, to respect our traditions and our history, and to make a positive contribution. To that end, all good communications, change initiatives and projects have at least two things in common: They are driven from the top down, and there is accountability. The only way this situation will be improved is by a push from the top down to find ways to make it easier and relatively risk free for civil service managers to get to know veterans and, ultimately, to hire them. Once we're in place, our value will become apparent.
Let's look at classifications. Currently, the classifications and the structures governing them are very rigid. If a sub-department requires a writer, they have to ask departmental comms, which usually leads to an underpaid contractor. I was that underpaid contractor. One solution is a new classification. Think “special projects officer”, or in project management methodology, a “contingency reserve”.
Create a new, flexible, agile classification for veterans that can't be backfilled by civilians. Create a veterans pool and make it mandatory to look there when hiring. Solicit feedback whenever someone from that pool wasn't chosen.
Make things even easier for managers. Create temporary categories or positions where they hire a vet for three years, minimum of one, and if after two years everybody's happy, the process to make that veteran permanent begins. Think “consultancy with a pathway to indeterminate”.
The way forward is to loosen the hiring process for veterans. Give us a chance to win. Get to know us. Put the onus on veterans to make managers want to hire every last one of us. We're used to being thrown at problems to make them disappear.
Give us a chance to make managers brag about how many veterans they have on staff. My money is on our impressing the country with our flexibility, our integrity and our ingenuity, but it's still predicated on managers finding us, getting to know us and hiring us.
Remember, we're taxpayers, we're voters, we're citizens, and we deserve the same consideration for civil service jobs that everybody else enjoys.
Again, my sincerest thanks. Perseverance.