Our Change Objectives

Change Objective 2: To foster human resources reform and renewal across the organization by making the CCRA's new HR regime fully operational.

Almost one quarter of the CCRA's current workforce will be eligible for retirement between 2003 and 2008.

This objective reflects the reality that the CCRA's workforce, of some 44,000 employees, is key to the successful delivery of our change agenda. To make business transformation happen, and to achieve management excellence, we must create and maintain a healthy workplace where employees know that they are valued. We must also have the HR systems and processes that result in the right people being in the right place at the right time.

In the first year as an agency, we realized considerable progress in managing our workforce and adopting approaches best suited to meet our needs. We have established a robust policy framework and program foundation for our new HR regime. The CCRA's staffing principles are an important part of the foundation that we have already put into place.

Our new HR regime, with its competency-based approach, will contribute to increased productivity and a workforce capable of meeting changing client expectations and business practices. Managers will be trained to use dispute management options and other innovative tools to make the work environment a more productive place. They will be provided with increasing levels of authority and responsibility, and will be held accountable for human resources management through annual performance agreements.

The CCRA's newly-developed Compensation Policy is just one of the concrete steps that we have already taken in support of staff recruitment and retention.

Innovative recruitment strategies will help us attract the staff needed to meet effectively our program and workforce demographic challenges. At the same time, we will build a stronger capacity to retain our highly skilled staff. The CCRA's newly developed Compensation Policy is just one of the concrete steps that we have already taken in support of staff recruitment and retention.

The CCRA's Compensation Policy

The CCRA's Board of Management and management team are committed to a compensation policy that recognizes and addresses the realities of competitive labour market forces. If studies demonstrate that a significant gap exists between the CCRA's compensation and competitive labour market's compensation, and it can be demonstrated that this gap affects our ability to attract and retain employees, the CCRA is committed to addressing the gap.

CCRA staffing principles

The CCRA is a leader in employment equity for the federal government.

Combined with the efforts described above, we will develop new learning programs to cultivate the skills we need within our current workforce. We will continue to advance employment equity, particularly in leadership positions. We anticipate reducing the length of time required for hiring by half. With a simpler approach to job classification and competency-based career management, managers will be better able to put in place the talent they need when they need it.

We will achieve the human resources change and renewal objective by:

• phasing in the new HR system;
• giving early priority to key elements of staffing, recourse, labour relations, and classification initiatives;
• focusing on performance management and compensation;
• transforming the manager role to include new responsibilities such as annual performance agreements, determination of performance pay, training and learning plans, human resources planning in support of business transformation, and alternate dispute resolution; and
• prioritizing initiatives for impact and sustainability.

As part of these initiatives, we will deliver the following in the first year of our three-year plan.

Key human resources deliverables for 2001-2002

Staffing - Resourcing, to provide job competency profiles and assessment tools for high-demand areas, an automated applicant processing system, a new Student Program and a pilot of the pre-qualified pools concept.

Recourse - Dispute Management, to train managers in new alternate dispute resolution techniques.

Labour Relations and Compensation, to negotiate the first collective agreements following the rendering of the Public Service Staff Relations Board decision.

Management Group, to implement this group in order to provide a more coherent management presence and drive the Agency's program of change.

Date modified:

2002-01-04