Human Resources Committee on June 6th, 2019

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

There have been eight call centres that have been upgraded. Have any of yours been upgraded?

[Leslie MacLean]

I will speak to our plans, absolutely.

I would note that, of the eight call centres that are part of the first wave of the hosted contact centre, we're responsible for half of them, and CRA is the other big chunk.

In testimony at the public accounts committee last week, my colleague from Shared Services noted that the focus for the first wave of technology was to migrate the biggest centres that would reach the most Canadians to have the highest impact. For us, we have now migrated an internal-facing centre that I spoke about earlier. That's one where we take calls for help with our technology inside.

The second centre was migrated in October 2018. That's the employment call contact centre. Employers can phone in there for help with records of employment.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I have one quick question before I get cut off.

Is there a marked difference between the upgraded call centres and a regular call centre? Do you see a big difference, a notable difference?

[Leslie MacLean]

There is a remarkable difference for us between the old technology and the new updated technology. Probably the best example is the pensions call centre that we've just had in place for three weeks where we not only have a number of tools that will consider the best use, like callback and leave a message, but we now have 100% accessibility to people who want to wait to speak to an agent.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Falk, please.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you both for being here.

Ms. MacLean, I just want to follow up. I know you've been here a couple of times before today, and I know I had brought up Canada summer jobs. There were constituents in my riding who were having the problem of calling and getting a voice mail saying the voice mail was full.

I reached out to you personally. Our first interaction was May 7; my office reached out on May 7. I got an acknowledgement email May 10. I did a follow-up email on May 22, and it's June 6, and we still don't know. They also cannot get any answers.

I'm just wondering if this seems to be a common thing. We just need answers. My constituents need answers on the application process, so if you can connect with me offline or return my email, I'd really really appreciate that so that we can get answers for my constituents.

Also, I'm sure you're aware that this committee completed a study on supporting families after the loss of a child. We heard witness testimony from parents who had suddenly lost an infant while collecting maternity or paternity benefits. We heard that the way Service Canada employees had interacted and responded with these grieving parents was completely unacceptable and uncompassionate.

What I'm interested in knowing is how ESDC plans to address these issues by providing adequate training for families who are grieving.

[Leslie MacLean]

I'll respond quickly to both questions.

I apologize unreservedly that we have not yet closed the loop with you on your question on Canada summer jobs. We will do so promptly.

In regard to your second concern, it is a very important issue. All of our staff who interact directly with the public, whether it's in person or by telephone, receive training and refresher training on dealing professionally, appropriately, and certainly in the circumstances that you would note, compassionately with people.

If there are specific issues, any time there's a concern in person, the citizen can ask to speak to a manager. If there's a concern raised in terms of dealing on the phone, our staff will gladly provide not their first and last name, but their contact number, and we will always follow up on those concerns.

I apologize if there were any instances of inappropriate or unhelpful service.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Since we finished that report a few months ago, I just wonder if the department has received it and if they're taking it seriously, about additional training or having conversations with employees in general.

I know when the department was here before, they had said there was training provided, but there seems to be a gap there. Having lost a child and then being told, because your child ceases to exist, your benefits cease to exist, is absolutely inappropriate.

Therefore, I hope it is a report that's taken seriously and that we don't have that situation occurring. As Mr. Morrissey said, that's the face of the government. It's absolutely unacceptable to have people talk to people who are grieving and not empathize or be compassionate.

That's all. I just want to make sure that it's taken seriously.

My next question is in regard to the Auditor General's report, where it indicates that ESDC has not set call centre service standards that are relevant to clients. That is what the report had said, that the department's standards do not meet Treasury Board service standards. The department's response in the report rejects this assessment by stating that established standards are already relevant and consistent with client expectations.

Where is the disconnect between the AG's report and the department?

[Leslie MacLean]

I believe the earlier testimony noted that some of our colleague organizations have different levels of detail, or indeed, service standards.

I would go back to my earlier comments. We work very closely with our colleagues at the Treasury Board Secretariat to ensure that not only are we measuring the right things internally, but that we're reporting properly externally.

I did also note the change in methodology that we made, further to the Auditor General's recommendation. Given the size of the large programs we are delivering, such as the old age security program, which will be $50 billion this year, or the pensions program, which will be about another $50 billion, we take extremely seriously not just the accounting for public funds, but the reporting on results to the public.

I would again thank the committee for its work on the important report around that extraordinarily and unimaginably difficult time when someone loses a child. I will follow up and confirm my understanding that additional training is available.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I have just one quick question. I know you let everybody else go over time, so I am going to go over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Please be brief. You're already over time.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I don't know if you can speak to this or not. Do departments not have the same service standards amongst themselves? Are they each set individually? Is that what I'm understanding?

[Leslie MacLean]

That is exactly what you should understand. I would even note that, for Service Canada, we have different service standards, depending on the nature of the service being offered.

For example, 1-800-0-Canada is a general information line, so the agents require much less training and our service standard is much faster than it is for pensions or EI where the staff have a great deal of required training in order to support Canadians.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Dan, I understand you want a couple of minutes?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Yes, I would like a couple of minutes.

I want to quickly come back to the call centres that have been upgraded. From what you have said, they seem to be doing extremely well. The previous testimony from the Auditor General said that there were no plans to upgrade the remaining 213 call centres.

Can you speak to that?

[Leslie MacLean]

Mr. Chair, with deference to the committee, the planning for that work is with our colleagues at the Treasury Board Secretariat and Shared Services Canada. However, I could repeat what they said in this regard at public accounts last week, with the Chair's indulgence.

Very simply, the commitment by the president of Shared Services was to have a plan for the next wave of call centres, with this new technology.

If I could speak to our experience as an organization, we have other call centres that we'll be looking to include in this next wave of updates. For example, we have only one centre in the country, in Bathurst, that takes calls from people about their social insurance number. We know we'll want to be upgrading that—that's an important service to Canadians. Their commitment at public accounts, according to my memory, was to have that plan in place for the fall.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you. I have one last question.

We keep hearing about calls that are dropped. What can you tell me about dropped calls?

[Leslie MacLean]

This is where I will look for help from the experts. In those peak periods, I would note that we have 100% accessibility for people who want to, or are able to, serve themselves through the automated system. For EI, for example, 65% of people self-serve, and never seek to speak to an agent.

In those very busy periods, in our current system, we have a finite number of lines. It's not just that we have a finite number of agents; we have a finite number of lines. That's what the improvement in technology has given us—the ability to have a national queue, not just a site-by-site queue.

Cliff, could you pick up and complete my thought, please?

[Cliff C. Groen]

Certainly.

There has been a lot of use of the term “dropped calls”. There are a couple of things we'd like to make very clear. We do not hang up on clients. Clients may choose to hang up. As Leslie described, there are times when a client might hang up after 10 seconds, or five minutes, etc.

During our peak periods, when the call volume dramatically increases, it will happen that clients have to wait quite some time, and we'll see the number of people who choose to hang up increase.

The other piece related to this issue is that under our old technology, when all of our lines were full, if clients would press 0 to speak to an agent, at times, if all those lines were full, they would get a message saying, “Unfortunately, all our lines are full. You can choose to go back to the automated response system, or you can call back later.” Then the client had that choice. Under our new telephony system, that limitation of having people not be able to get into the queue has been addressed.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

With the AG's comments, it's actually a technology problem, not a manpower problem. Is that correct, to an extent?

[Cliff C. Groen]

They are interrelated pieces. Certainly, clients not being able to get through, and waiting, is a technology problem. How long they have to wait ties to the technology, but also the availability of staff.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'd like to thank you both for being here once again. I've lost count of how many times you've been here, but every time, we learn something, and are better off for it.

I hope the committee will indulge me for about 30 seconds here. As we have no other scheduled meetings, today may be the last opportunity that I have to chair this committee.

I'd like to thank all of my colleagues, especially the vice-chair, MP Barlow, for the work that we've been able to accomplish together. On behalf of all the committee, I'd like to, as I often do, but especially today, thank the analysts and the clerk, both current and past, for the unbelievable amount of effort and dedication to this committee.

Of course, I thank the translation and technical staff, so that we can be heard, not just in this room, but all over Canada and the world.

I'll say a personal thank you to my staff, Andrew Cowie, who I'm going to embarrass a bit. His work and dedication to this committee has been amazing. Without him, we would not be where we are today. Thank you very much, everybody.

We are adjourned.