Upholding Accountability

The Commission is committed to leading by example and sustaining an organizational culture of respect, integrity, dignity, and understanding. Valuing our employees, and setting the highest standards of performance and accountability and striving daily to model them, supports our role as a dynamic and progressive leader in human rights promotion and practice. The Commission is committed to sound management in all aspects of its work, particularly with respect to resource management, whether financial or human resources. Deepening our learning culture and expanding learning opportunities are also priorities.

Workplace Well-Being

The Commission is a flexible, high performance organization that supports a quality work environment. Employee engagement contributes to a fair, welcoming and healthy workplace. A strong commitment to continuous growth and to an enhanced culture of workplace well-being is reflected in the Commission’s programs and services.

The Labour Management Consultation Committee provides a forum for discussion of human resources issues between the Commission’s bargaining agents and management. Throughout 2007, the Committee continued to hold its quarterly meetings. Bargaining agents were also full participants in our annual strategic planning sessions.

The Commission continuously evaluates its human resource needs, as part of our strategic focus of attracting and retaining a qualified and diverse workforce in a competitive labour market.

Workplace diversity continues to be a priority. The Commission successfully sustains its representation of designated groups to levels above their availability in the workforce; all designated groups were fully represented in the Commission’s workforce in 2007.

The Commission’s own employment equity targets are set by the Canada Public Service Agency based on 2006 Census data, and reflect the categories of employment in our workforce. As of December 31, 2007, the Commission had 173 employees, of whom, by self-identification:

• 64.2% were women against a target of 61%;
• 13.3% were persons with disabilities against a target of 3.4%;
• 11.6% were members of visible minorities against a target of 8.6%; and,
• 4.0% were Aboriginal peoples against a target of 2.6%.

The Commission is committed to providing a fully bilingual workplace where staff may work in their official language of choice. As of December 31, 2007:

• 76.3% of positions at the Commission were designated bilingual imperative, 22.5% were English essential, and 1.2% were either English or French; and,
• 52% of employees said their mother tongue was English and 48% French.

Staff turnover in 2007 was 15.6%, compared to 22.5% in 2006. There have also been changes in senior management due to retirement and promotion.

As part of its efforts to support a continuous learning culture, the Commission offered services to help employees meet their individual learning plan objectives and develop their career management skills. Specifically, the Learning and Development Division offered individual career counseling services to help employees identify their personal values and traits, and explore their right fit in order to maximize their productivity and increase job satisfaction and personal fulfillment.

Managing information technology security is another facet of ensuring a modern workplace. To provide a secure workplace and working environment, the Commission has been implementing the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) Management of Information Technology Standard. By doing so, the Commission both complies with TBS standards, and will also provide its employees with IT support, guidelines and policies to operate in a safe and secure IT environment.

The Commission continues to offer its employees access to an informal conflict management system to recognize, respond to and resolve workplace issues early.

Stewardship

The Commission and its dedicated staff set the highest standards of performance and accountability and strive daily to model them. The Commission has modern and effective policies, practices and frameworks in key program and corporate areas, including finance, human resources, procurement, and information management. Horizontal oversight committees at the Director General level provide recommendations for future directions through the Secretary General to the Chief Commissioner.

TBS has commended the Commission for the quality of its management in a number of areas:

Values-based leadership and organization culture

The Commission was commended for strong performance in addressing professional, ethical and people values, and for an acceptable performance regarding the extent to which its leaders foster a culture of respect and integrity throughout the organization.

Extent to which the workplace is fair, enabling, healthy and safe and extent to which the workforce is productive, principled, sustainable and adaptable

The organization has demonstrated "strong" health and safety practices in the workplace. This is supported by the strong results received from the Public Service Employee Survey. This survey found that employees are proud of the work in their unit; are committed to making the organization successful; and know where to get help for ethical dilemmas. The survey also noted that the organization has strong official languages practices.

Performance Management

Case, Audit and Initiative Management System

The Commission is improving its performance management capabilities and reporting by upgrading its case management system. The project aims to provide Commission staff with a more efficient and effective system. Through these upgrades, the Commission will implement workflow capabilities; develop connections to the Commission’s Records, Document and Information Management System, where necessary; and make existing case management functionality accessible to teleworkers and users with screen readers.

Commissioners as of December 31, 2007

Chief Commissioner: Jennifer Lynch, Q.C.
Deputy Chief Commissioner: David Langtry
Part-time Commissioners: Harish C. Jain, Carol McDonald

The Commission expresses its thanks to two Commissioners whose mandates expired in 2007 for their important contributions to the work of the Commission: Mr. Kelly Russ and M. Aimable Ndejuru