Evidence of meeting #56 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.
A video is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Compliance, Canada Post
They're really our ears on the ground. They're actively telling us about what's happening as well.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
How often does Canada Post have a training refresher as a reminder of the kinds of practices? We've heard from some departments that they do it on an annual basis. They have their management in and they go through harassment and sexual harassment as a reminder of how these things are to be handled.
I sense that at Canada Post, which certainly looks like an example employer, this is something you make sure you're focused on. Am I wrong to draw that from your discussions this morning?
Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post
I would reposition it a little bit and say that we focus a lot on training. We put a lot of effort and spend a lot of money on training in general. A lot of that training and a lot of the issues that are linked to sexual harassment are really about.... Again, I'm going to go back to that bigger piece. There will be elements in all of the training, including the training on sexual harassment, on leadership, but that's where you'd see more of a regular repetition of the expectations we're trying to set much more broadly.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
Thank you.
We will now go to a second round of questions.
Ms. Crockatt, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I want to congratulate you, first of all. It sounds as though you've done an amazing job tackling a very difficult problem, a problem especially for women.
I want to be clear on the statistics. It seems you're really doing great work. Am I right that there were one formal and 25 informal reports in the last report?
Conservative
January 31st, 2013 / 11:35 a.m.
Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post
We have about 65,000, and that's all in. We have a lot of term employees. We have about 56,000 permanent employees, and we have a number of temporary employees and part-time employees. That's the range.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
That's spectacular.
Like many of the former questioners, I'm looking to what we can learn from you. It sounds as though you've really undertaken a plan that empowers the women, or often the victims, in sexual harassment, and that prevention is a huge part of what you're doing. I just want to drill down on that a bit.
If I'm right, and please correct me if I've missed something here, one is understanding the risks. They understand that zero tolerance is a goal but that there is a probability, however small, they might come across this. Then there is training the women to handle it so that they are not victimized, that they're prepared for this situation. Is that correct?
General Manager, Compliance, Canada Post
Yes, certainly, I would say in the external environment for our delivery agents who are out on the streets on a day-to-day basis, I think a big thing about sexual harassment, unwanted advances, is understanding what it is in the first place. That's certainly what we do with our employees.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Okay, it is proactively how to handle it. You make them aware these situations may occur. Then you educate the public they are going to be involved with through the mailers, and then you take early action when the reporting is done. Are these basically most of the steps on the front end?
General Manager, Compliance, Canada Post
Yes. The mailer was actually to our employees.
Conservative
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
That's great. That's the front end of prevention.
You said most of the incidents involve one employee harassing another. Some of the people I have spoken to in various workplaces—not yours—have suggested to me that this is often the most difficult kind of harassment to deal with because there's an inherent conflict of interest in that you're representing both people involved, and especially when unions are representing both people involved.
I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what is actually the most effective resolution method.
General Manager, Compliance, Canada Post
One of the things we certainly attempt to do is to engage the employees with each other, but to your point about where it can be very difficult to do so, we do use mediation. Where we have willing participants and the situation suits mediation, we will use it.
I mentioned earlier that the impartiality of our human rights representatives is crucial: their credibility of being able to go in, speak to both parties, and be seen as an impartial but also a knowledgeable individual who has had experience as it relates not only to understanding the subject matter, which is harassment or sexual harassment, but also to understanding the policy framework in which we work, and also, certainly, to understanding the workplace and being able to really deal with those situations in a way that's credible to both sides.
Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post
If I could add to that, often we'll go into an environment—
Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post
—where it may be beyond just those two people. There may be something else that's more systemic. The human rights group has looked at creating workforce charters with the employees in that unit to try to again establish what kind of work environment we wish to create and get alignment among the parties. Again, I think that has been another good practice that we'd be happy to talk more about.
Conservative
Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I don't know that you have a cost to get to this point. I realize these are mostly front-end costs, but do you know how much this costs? Is there any way you could help us avoid having to repay those costs for every workplace so we can utilize what you've learned?
Vice-President, Human Resources, Canada Post
I don't have a cost. There are so many ways, I guess, in which you could calculate it, but I don't have a cost to the impact of sexual harassment in the workplace.
I'm going to sound a little bit like a broken record. Again, I think it's around the tone you set. It's around the expectations you set. It's how those things get reinforced.
One of the things we do—it's interesting, as we're in the middle of our performance management process as we speak—is make sure that those expectations are reinforced through the hiring process, through the performance management process, through the talent process, and through the training process. As a young parent, I remember hearing that we need to be consistent and persistent. I think this is no different.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
I have to stop you there. Thank you.
I now yield the floor to Mrs. Hassainia for five minutes.
NDP
Sana Hassainia NDP Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Thank you very much.
I want to begin by thanking you for your presentation and for being here today.
To follow up on your earlier statement that the proportion of women in management positions at Canada Post was about 28%, could you tell us what the percentage of women in the field is?