Strategic Human Resources Plan
2008/2011

The Coast Guard Environment

The Coast Guard has 4,554 employees working in 127 locations and on 114 vessels across Canada. Work is carried out in five regions, at the CCG College in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and at national headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario. Because CCG is a highly operational organization, many programs and services are provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

More than half (53%) of CCG employees work on vessels. The remaining 47% work in shore-based operations, providing pollution response, marine communications and traffic services (MCTS), operational support, technical services, instructional services, and business management functions. This proportion has remained consistent since 2004, and is not projected to change significantly over the next few years.

Like many organizations, CCG will lose experienced employees and significant corporate knowledge over the next five years, as approximately 25% of its existing workforce will be eligible to retire. Five occupational groups essential to operations are at particular risk - Ships' Crews (SC), Ships' Officers (SO), Marine Communications and Traffic Services Officers (RO), Engineers (EN)³ and Electronics (EL) - their numbers are expected to decline by 28%. These five groups make up 68% of the total CCG workforce. This plan focuses on these groups because, in each case, labour market pressures and specialized training requirements will add to our recruitment and retention challenges.

In addition, these anticipated departures come at a time when parts of the organization are expanding - for example, ships' officers and crew will be required for the five new vessels being added to our fleet over the next few years. Therefore, we will have to plan not just to replace those who leave, but for new requirements. Understanding our demographic challenges is critical to establishing effective strategies and mitigating risks.

Unions

Coast Guard programs and services are delivered in a highly unionized environment. CCG's diversified workforce is represented by seven bargaining agents: the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Canadian Merchant Service Guild - Public Service (CMSG PS), the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Professional Institute of the Public Service (PIPSC), the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), and the Association of Canadian Financial Officers (ACFO). Graph A illustrates the percentage of employees each bargaining agent represents.

CCG places a great deal of importance on developing and maintaining effective communications and working relationships with its unions. There are regular union-management committee meetings at both the national and regional level, as well as union representation on health and safety committees. Coast Guard management is committed to working with unions in both formal and informal processes to address issues and to resolve disputes and grievances. It is, however, an ongoing challenge to maintain effective communications with all seven bargaining agents, each of which has different interests and priorities.

Collective agreements regulate significant aspects of the work environment, such as hours of work and leave entitlements. Because a number of agreements apply to people on vessels and in MCTS Centres, there are different provisions to be applied for hours worked on a daily or weekly basis, vacation leave, etc. This can make administration and scheduling challenging. Through the collective bargaining process, the Coast Guard will work towards improving consistency for marine personnel (SOs and SCs). Efforts are ongoing to negotiate "identical wording" for the work system provisions (dealing with hours of work and overtime/entitlements provisions) in the SO collective agreement and the Operational Services collective agreement (which includes SCs). Negotiations are complicated by the fact that the groups are represented by different bargaining agents (SO-CMSG, SC-PSAC/UCTE).

Snapshot of our Workforce

CCG has a total workforce of 4,554 employees. Graph B shows the distribution of employees across the five regions, the CCG College, and National Capital Region (NCR).

Table A shows CCG-wide employment tenure from 2004 to 2007.

Please see Appendix A for employment tenure breakdowns by region, and for the CCG College and CCG National Capital Region.

The Coast Guard relies on a multi-faceted, professional and dedicated workforce to satisfy its objective of safe and accessible waterways. Ships' Crew, Ships' Officers, Marine Communications and Traffic Services Officers, Electronics, General Technical (GT), as well as General Labour and Trades (GL), are the main occupational groups responsible for operational delivery; combined, these groups represent approximately 80% of the Coast Guard workforce. The remaining 20% of employees are in occupational groups dedicated to management, administration and technical support of operations. Although approximately 100 additional seagoing personnel (60 SCs and 40 SOs) will be required to operate the new vessels being added to the fleet base, the relative proportion of operational to support personnel is expected to remain stable.

Table B shows distribution by occupational group from 2004 to 2007. Of the five occupational groups at increased risk, the number of SOs and ROs have risen marginally, the number of SCs and ENs have fallen somewhat, and ELs have remained stable.

Note: The GT, EN and EG groups provide scientific and technical support to ship and shore-based infrastructure. GTs include Marine Engineers who have graduated from the Coast Guard College's Marine Engineering Program. ENs include Engineers who have graduated from a recognized university, and are eligible for membership in an association of professional engineers in Canada. EGs include engineering technicians or technologists, an increasing percentage of whom are certified by a recognized Canadian technical association.

Snapshot by Age Group

The federal public service is older than the Canadian labour market and Coast Guard is no exception. As Graph C shows, our workforce is mainly comprised of workers between 40 and 49 years of age (36.7%), followed closely by those who are 50 to 59 (34.2%). There are significantly fewer employees in the remaining groups: 30 to 39 (14.9%), 20 to 29 (9.2%), over 60 (4.6%), and under 20 (0.4%). The high departure levels expected over the next five years will be predominantly from the 40 to 49 and 50 to 59 age groups. This will necessitate a high level of knowledge transfer as we attempt to replace employees with, in some cases, 30 or more years of experience at CCG. We must also recognize that, with significant numbers of employees advancing more quickly than has historically been the case, special attention must be placed on skill development.

Projected Retirement

Coast Guard is facing unprecedented employee departures: approximately 25% of the existing workforce will be eligible to retire in the next five years. A comparison of retirement eligibility and actual retirements helps predict the percentage of those eligible to retire who are likely to do so.

Graph D shows retirement eligibility for 2004 to 2007.

Table C shows how many employees become eligible to retire in each year, providing a further breakdown by key occupational group.

Note: These figures denote employees eligible to retire, recognizing that not all those eligible to retire will do so. This may create a cascading effect into future years.

Attrition

Attrition, including retiring employees and those leaving for other reasons (residual attrition), has been fairly stable for CCG over the past four years, with a total of 3.4% in 2004, 4.0% in 2005, 3.9% in 2006, and 3.9% in 2007.

Assuming the trend continues, over the next five years the projected departures will be 1070 employees, with 629 of that number from the five groups essential to operations: SC, SO, RO, EL and EN.

Table D below shows projected departures for 2008 to 2012.

Note: Calculations do not reflect anticipated growth or reductions in the workforce.

Additional Requirements

Pressure to replace retiring workers will be further compounded in the future with the need for Coast Guard to hire additional staff to crew new vessels. The five recently approved vessels alone will require approximately 40 SOs and 60 SCs.

CCG also recognizes that it does not have enough people to do the additional maintenance and refit work that will be required, so will have to increase resources devoted to these activities both on vessels and on shore. Actual requirements are being assessed, as is the feasibility of reallocating resources to fund these new positions. Next year's version of this strategic plan will include actual numbers.

Summary of Projected Requirements over the Next Five Years

CCG's projected requirements for the next five years, reflecting projected departures and anticipated requirements, total 1227 employees, with 778 or 63.4% in the five occupational groups essential to operations (see Table F).

The focus has been placed on these five groups because, in each case, labour market pressures and specialized training requirements will add to our recruitment and retention challenges.

In addition, one needs to remain cognizant of the fact that retirements have a domino effect - they create opportunities for advancement for others in the organization, but there are associated staffing and training requirements. These factors must be addressed in our strategies.

Official Language Representation

Official language representation in the Coast Guard has remained relatively consistent since 2005: approximately 20% of employees declare French as their first language, and 80% declare English. The Coast Guard College, a fully bilingual institution, offers bilingual training programs for Officer Cadets; for many positions in Coast Guard's five regions, some degree of proficiency is required.

Over the past five years, Coast Guard's total annual investment in language training has averaged $350,000, exclusive of employee salaries. In future, more positions will be staffed as bilingual imperative, so Coast Guard must be proactive in creating language training opportunities, and individuals who wish to advance within the organization will need to make language proficiency a priority. This is especially important for individuals who aspire to management positions.

Over the past few years, significant effort has gone into ensuring that people meet the language requirements of their jobs. As shown in Table G, the percentage of employees who meet the requirements of their bilingual positions has risen year-over-year since 2004. CCG is, however, experiencing two key challenges - finding technically competent candidates who meet the language requirements of vacant positions and training mariners in French. If we cannot meet language training needs through traditional sources, CCG will have to develop in-house training resources.

Diversity

The Canadian Human Rights Commission's 2007 Annual Report documented that, in the public service, women, Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities continue to be fully represented. However, members of visible minorities continue to be under-represented when compared to their availability in the workforce. Given present hiring trends, gaps will continue to increase unless assertive, dynamic corrective actions are taken ⁴.

Through considerable effort, CCG is making progress. The composition of its workforce is improving relative to Canadian labour market availability, although it is not yet representative. As Graph F demonstrates, from 2004 to 2007, representation of women has increased from 72.6% to 82.5% of labour market availability. The majority of this increase was in the SC occupational group. In the same period, representation of Aboriginal persons increased from 77.5% to 85.7% of labour market availability, and persons with disabilities increased from 90.1% to 93.8% of labour market availability.

Even though positive results have been achieved, there are still significant gaps to be addressed, including the need to increase representation of visible minorities which, in 2007, was at 70.5% of labour market availability. This mirrors the national public service under-representation of this group. And, although it has increased from 37.8% in 2004, there is still a significant gap in representation of women in the SC occupational group at 50.7% of labour market availability.

Through hiring in the years ahead, CCG will have opportunities to reduce these gaps and create a workforce that is more aligned with Canadian labour market availability.

In Summary

CCG is entering a period of unprecedented change and challenge. A high percentage of our employees, — many of whom have spent the majority of their career with CCG — will depart, taking their significant corporate knowledge and skills with them. Attrition rates suggest that, next year alone, CCG will need 195 employees, 116 in at-risk occupational groups, just to maintain current staffing levels. This does not take into account the staff requirements for CCG's new vessels. Hiring provides us with an excellent opportunity to improve the diversity of our workforce. With this in mind, we must continue to make human resources management our highest priority so that we have the skilled people in place to fulfill our mandate.

With this plan, we are taking steps to prepare for the challenges associated with the high level of attrition we anticipate over the next three years, and to address the particular pressures associated with the five occupational groups at highest risk.

The four Coast Guard human resources strategies are: Attract and retain a skilled workforce. Improve the diversity of our workforce. Focus on training, learning and career development. Improve national consistency in human resources management.

---

³ While members of EN, EG and SO occupational groups all have engineering skills, on ENs are eligible for certification as professional engineers in Canada.

⁴ Canadian Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2007