Expectation (a): Planning - The Board must ensure that the Agency proactively identifies workforce risks and priorities and the strategic plans are developed and implemented to address them.

Assessment Criteria

• HR objectives are integrated and aligned with Agency business and budgets
• Key risks are identified and addressed
• Employees have met the language and competency profiles for their positions
• The Agency workforce is representative of employment equity groups
• Evidence of innovation

Information Considered by the Board

The CRA's long-standing EC succession planning program is now being complemented by an increasingly robust approach to succession planning for key non- EC positions.

To effectively manage the workforce impacts of the Cost Containment Plan (CCP), the deficit reduction action plan, and the creation Shared Services Canada (SSC), the Human Resources Branch led the people management aspects of the decisions and related change management plans in accordance with the Agency's HR regime and applicable collective agreements. A mitigation plan was created and implemented.

The official languages targets established in the CRA Action Plan on Official Languages were surpassed overall in the areas of service to the public, language of work, and participation of English- and French-speaking Canadians.

The representation rates for all four designated employment equity groups continued to surpass their respective labour market availability at the national and Agency-wide level.

Board’s Assessment

The Board observed that the CRA has established a comprehensive workplace planning framework that should reach maturity over the next few cycles. Workforce planning will be vital in responding to a challenging HR environment over the coming years.

Expectation (b): Acquisition - The Board must ensure that the Agency has a human resource management system that attracts the talent it needs to attain its operational objectives.

Assessment Criteria

• The CRA is attracting the talent it needs
• Positions are staffed within acceptable timeframes
• Comprehensive resourcing plans target priority talent needs
• Evidence of innovation

Information Considered by the Board

The need to continuously attract talent has links to one of the four Agency risks whose risk response is to mitigate immediately. The reduction in external hiring combined with relatively constant attrition levels has resulted in there being fewer permanent employees in the CRA workforce for 2011-2012. The overall reduction in the workforce size stems principally from the Agency-wide cost containment plan. That being said, this year the CRA has achieved notable success in its high priority objective of reducing time to staff.

In 2011-2012, the CRA initiated a multi-tiered approach that added annual workforce plans at the branch and regional levels. This comprehensive approach is helping the CRA identify workforce gaps and HR priorities that must be addressed to support program excellence.

Board’s Assessment

The Board remarked that the focus for the coming years should be on ensuring that strategic recruitment provides the Agency with a workforce that continues to support program excellence.

Expectation (c): Development and Knowledge Transfer - The Board must ensure that the Agency has a human resource management system that develops the talent it needs to attain its operational objectives and that sustains the transfer of its corporate knowledge.

Assessment Criteria

• The Agency's learning priorities are aligned with its business objectives and budgets
• The CRA maintains and develops technical and leadership competencies to attain operational objectives
• Promotion and transfer of knowledge is fostered
• Investments in training and learning are optimized
• Evidence of innovation

Information Considered by the Board

The CRA has a well-established history of investing in its workforce and supporting the development of its employees. In 2010-2011, the Agency Learning Priorities (ALP) were developed to facilitate the alignment of the CRA's learning investment with its business and workforce goals. To support EC learning and development needs and to ensure knowledge transfer, a variety of learning initiatives have been delivered this year. Additionally, efforts were made to maintain required technical competencies to ensure that the Agency has the HR capacity and capability to deliver on priorities, objectives, and programs. Recognizing the importance of this imperative, the Agency pursued a number of activities and made significant progress toward addressing the loss of corporate knowledge. In terms of the Agency optimizing its investments in training and learning, the Board commended the Agency for surpassing the national overall completion rate of individual learning plans (ILP) for the third consecutive year.

Board’s Assessment

Given the realities surrounding imminent retirements, the internal movement of employees, and growing technical capacity challenges, the Board commented that knowledge transfer will increasingly become a vital conduit through which to secure corporate memory and organizational sustainability and will remain a focus for the coming year.

Expectation (d): Retention/mobilization -The Board must ensure that the Agency has a human resource management system that retains and mobilizes the talent it needs to attain its operational objectives.

Assessment Criteria

• Promotion of wellness in the workplace
• Effective labour/management relations
• Retention of talent
• Healthy balance between internal mobility and meeting operational objectives
• Adjustment of resources based on changing priorities
• Ensuring employee safety
• Fostering and promoting values and ethics
• Official language of choice in the workplace
• Evidence of innovation

Information Considered by the Board

The CRA has many programs, policies and tools in place to promote a healthy and safe work environment. This year's Employee Assistance Program statistics indicated favourable results. The services offered by the program helped managers, HR professionals, and union representatives deal with complex people management situations and contributed to an effective, productive, and healthy workplace.

The collective agreement for the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada - Audit, Financial and Scientific (PIPSC-AFS) expired this year. The Agency developed a proposed negotiations strategy based on the current and projected economic and political environments.

Retaining existing employees is a pillar of the CRA's approach to effective talent management. The success of the organization's focus on retention has been demonstrated through an average retention rate of 95% over the last five years.

The Agency was successful at maintaining the level of internal mobility to ensure a healthy balance between managing employees' careers and meeting the CRA's operational objectives. In 2011-2012, the Agency's internal mobility rate was stable.

The Agency has needed to demonstrate flexibility to adjust resources based on changing priorities, such as SSC, the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) revocation in B.C., and the continued implementation of HST in Ontario with onboarding of provincial employees. The Agency has been successful at managing these changes.

The Agency undertook many necessary measures to foster and promote values and ethics within the organization. The Agency's goal is to make integrity a real part of daily operations and decision making. To achieve this goal, the CRA developed a comprehensive report to benchmark values and ethics at the CRA.

The Agency made sustained efforts to ensure that employees work in a bilingual environment and that managers' bilingual capacity is sufficient to respond to the needs of their employees. In 2011, supervisors who met their linguistic profiles of their positions increased in comparison to the previous year.

Board’s Assessment

As next steps, the Board noted that the Agency will establish integrity as a separate Expectation.