ARCHIVE: HR — PolyWogg’s HR Guide – Annex 28 – HRSDC
As always, views are always welcome.
Annex 28 – HRSDC Profile
HUMAN RESOURCES AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CANADA
Legislation:
- Department of Human Resources Development Act, Department of Human Resources and Skills Development Act, Department of Social Development Act, Employment Insurance Act, Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act, Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security Act, Canada Disability Savings Regulations, An Act to assist families by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support, Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, Canada Student Loans Act, Canada Education Savings Act, Canada Labour Code, Labour Adjustment Benefits Act, Wage Earner Protection Act
Mission/Mandate:
- “Build a stronger and more competitive Canada, to support Canadians in making choices that help them live productive and rewarding lives, and to improve Canadians’ quality of life.”
Major Programs:
- Old Age Security, Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, Canada Student Loans and Grants, National Child Benefit, Universal Child Care Benefit
HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2012/13
Minister: Diane Finley
Deputy Minister: Ian Shugart
Budget: $105B
Number of FTEs: 22,719
Strategic Outcomes:
- Skilled, adaptable, and inclusive labour force and an efficient labour market
- Safe, fair, and productive workplaces and cooperative workplace relations
- Income security, access to opportunities, and well-being for individuals, families and communities
- Service excellence for Canadians
Priorities:
- Service Delivery Business Transformation – One-stop service to citizens, changes to CPP and OAS, online technologies, Gs&Cs, services for other departments
- Enabling Services Renewal Program – Improved efficiencies for HR, financial management, IT, learning, and security through new planning systems (i.e., PeopleSoft and SAP ) + client-centred Click-Call-Consult model
- Modernizing and improving our policies and programs – Making EI more responsive and efficient, updating learning and employment-related programs for changing socioeconomic conditions, modernizing labour programs and operations, expanding the Preventive Mediation Program, advancing the social partnerships agenda and continuing policy work on CPP, OAS and CPP Disability
- Supporting employees, maintaining effective management practices and continuing to support public service renewal – Supporting employees, building competencies, seeking employee input on change initiatives, national learning strategy, Departmental Workforce Management Strategy, and improving info management
Risks:
- Transformation Agenda – Significant, large scale change yet resource capacity risk
- Privacy – Maintain trust yet extensive Privacy regulations and extensive records
- Information Technology – Maintenance of legacy systems during upgrade process
- Human Resource Management – Ambitious change agenda and aging workforce
(Full table of contents: PolyWogg’s HR Guide)
Hi,
Interesting, but unclear how this annex relates to your guide to HR. This is very much about HRSDC as a dept and not as a ministry. The only time it gets involved in HR matters in the public service is in relation to limited aspects of the Canada Labour Code and the Government Employees Compensation Act (ie workers comp).
Hi, thanks for comment. I didn’t think about context not being clear…I am working on different sections at a time, spreading out some areas that are needing of research while others I am already “done” so to speak, and this is one where I “jumped” ahead.
For the departmental profile, one thing that I’ll make clear in one of the earlier chapters is that I think a lot of people waste time and energy applying to jobs at departments that don’t interest them much. While some of the HR texts refer to it as “issue-value alignment” between people and their positions, the reality is much simpler in some cases — they don’t know what the depts do, so they do a scattergun approach. Far more effective, in my view, is a targeted approach to the depts you DO have an interest in for their files, etc., or put differently, a mandate you can get behind. But with some 40-ish major departments in the “Core Public Administration”, lots of people don’t even know what programs some depts do, what their priorities are, etc. So, while I intend to include a para or two in the main text, I thought I would include short one-page annexes on each of the departments. Not as required for those who have been in government for awhile, perhaps, but from outside govt, could be extremely useful.
Soooo, long explanation to say I thought I would pull together one sample profile and bounce it off a few people. It isn’t so much about what they (HRSDC) has to do with HR, so much as “Is this a dept that would interest you?”. One thing I’d really like to add to each is an overview of how many AS, PM, EC, ENG, IS, etc they have — I think it would go a long way towards saying “this is primarily a funding org” (if they are almost all PMs) or a policy-driven analyst dept (mostly ECs), but that data is proving a bit elusive in a public format (lots available internally, but I’m trying to avoid ATIPing it). I could also consider changing it all to prose paragraphs rather than bulleted, and “lead” people through it a bit more.
From that vein, any thing you think I should add that would help someone say “This is a dept I might be interested in”? I’m a little worried about length too, so happy to consider cutting some elements.
PolyWogg