Making it Happen - Supporting our Strategic Program

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Cutting across our goals, objectives, and specific initiatives are two key corporate capabilities that deserve special attention. They are human resources (HR) and information technology (IT). In a rapidly changing environment we cannot continue to improve our services and meet the changing needs and expectations of Canadians without the right people with the right skills and the right tools to do the job. We recognize that the excellence of our own people and systems is a necessary pre-condition for excellence in the services we deliver to the public: our internal operations have to be in line with the standards we set for our external business.

Realizing the full potential of our strategic program depends on an enterprise-wide commitment to progress in HR and IT. As a consequence, to support our strategic program, we have developed specific plans for both areas. In many respects, they are mutually reinforcing. Our employees take pride in a job well done, and increasingly that requires access to leading-edge technology. Likewise, we cannot use new technologies to maximum advantage without people who know how they work and are motivated and supported in putting them to the best possible use.

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Human resources plan summary

For day one of operation as an agency, our organization had to assume new authorities that had previously been largely the responsibility of central agencies. These authorities make up the employer role. The key areas addressed on day one fall under three headings: staffing, recourse, and labour relations. While working to have our own systems in place in each of these areas in time for the official launch of the CCRA on November 1, 1999, our HR Branch also undertook two years of extensive internal consultations with unions, employees, and managers. The goal was to design an overarching framework for a modern, progressive, and integrated HR management regime. This regime includes many elements beyond staffing, recourse, and labour relations. All are integral to the achievement of the CCRA's strategic goals. They include classification, training, human resources planning, learning, official languages, and employment equity.

The challenges

Our human resources plan for the next three years is focused on completing the development of and successfully implementing this regime. In doing so, the challenges we face include:

• managing a large-scale transition involving a workforce with a strong union representation;
• managing HR impacts linked to major CCRA business priorities, including electronic service delivery, Customs Blueprint, corporate income tax (T2) redesign, and tax centre re-engineering and realignment;
• attracting and retaining employees of key occupational groups such as auditors;
• performance management;
• managing and renewing an ageing workforce;
• managing a large-scale term population in the CCRA's tax centres;
• helping employees balance workload and family life while maintaining productivity and service quality in a changing workplace environment;
• implementing change within a two-year employment guarantee; and,
• responding to the findings of the 1999 Public Service Employee Survey.

Our staffing principles

At the core of our HR regime are our staffing principles. Eight principles that are compatible with the rest of the Public Service, and which went into effect on the first day of CCRA operation, govern our new Staffing Program. They are:

HR initiatives

The CCRA's new HR regime constitutes a major departure from a rules-based, centrally controlled system with standards that could not consistently respond to the unique needs of our clients. Instead, the CCRA's new approach to HR is values-based and client-oriented. It represents a major shift from a focus on production and processes, to a focus on people, relationships, and outcomes.

While the new regime substantially strengthens the lines of accountability, it also gives employees greater latitude to use their knowledge and common sense to solve problems and improve service to the public. It is an employee-designed, service-driven system that aims to promote continuous learning and excellence in performance throughout the organization. Under this regime, managers at all levels are expected to manage their people at least as well as their processes, and they are being given a new suite of tools and services to help them do that.

In total, the CCRA's new HR regime has fourteen components. The following table identifies these components, and the relevant initiatives that are either underway or that will be undertaken over the next three years.

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Information technologies plan summary

The Internet and electronic service delivery are redefining the boundaries of the CCRA's business. They are creating new opportunities to both expand and integrate our services in ways that will make it easier and less costly for individuals and businesses to report income, pay taxes, and collect benefits, as well as to comply with the other laws and regulations we administer. In addition, these technologies offer substantial opportunities to reduce operating costs and streamline our own administrative processes and procedures, making them more efficient, accurate, accountable, and transparent.

While we have to expand our electronic commerce infrastructure and capacity to offer clients better services and improve our internal administration, we must also expand to keep pace with the changing environment we operate in. This is essential to ensure we can continue to fulfill our mandate and contribute to the economic and social well-being of Canadians. We have developed our IT Plan to address both sets of pressures.

The challenges

Achieving many of our corporate objectives—particularly in business process improvements, client service enhancements, and the expansion of electronic service delivery—depends on a successful approach to the management and use of IT. The CCRA faces four major IT challenges over the next three years:

• to expand electronic service delivery options;
• to replace aging legacy systems;
• to maximize systems integration and data warehousing; and,
• to enhance enterprise management of the CCRA's technology infrastructure.

IT initiatives

Our IT Plan consists of three areas of activity or core components:

• relationship management to create a corporate partnership that will help align the business we do with the technology we need;
• business solutions that include specific technologies and associated practices to improve the services that we deliver; and
• foundation strategies to guide our overall investment to support these technology solutions and practices.

The following table identifies the initiatives and activities that will be undertaken in 2000-2003 in each of these areas.

Date modified:

2002-01-04