This section of the reporting is organized by key business process and includes context for each business process, a summary of each observation, and the risk associated to each observation.
3.1 HR Planning
Integrated HR planning is a critical tool used to align the HR planning with operational needs and departmental objectives. As such, it was expected that an integrated HR planning process for staffing was in place to ensure sufficiency in VAC’s HR capacity, to allow the Department to anticipate future staffing needs and to proactively support its objectives.
The internal audit team reviewed the alignment of the current HR planning processes within VAC against the Integrated Planning Handbook for Deputy Ministers and Senior Managers issued by TBS-OCHRO in 2008. The TBS-OCHRO guidance prescribed five steps for HR planning, which included:
- Determining the organization’s business goals;
- Scanning the environment;
- Identifying any gaps;
- Setting HR priorities to help achieve business goals; and,
- Measuring, monitoring and reporting against progress.
The TBS-OCHRO guidance further elaborates that the development of the HR plan should include linking budgetary considerations and communicating the HR plan to all employees and stakeholders.
The audit found that the HR plan template was completed at the divisional, branch and departmental level as part of the annual Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process. This initiative was led by the Integrated Planning and Performance (IPP) team with the support of HR and finance team leads. The audit reviewed the design and operating effectiveness of the HR plans.
Design Effectiveness
It was noted that HR plans were not required to be reviewed throughout the year and that progress against the HR plan was not formally tracked. Operational managers noted that the HR plans were typically used for annual planning, but not for regular tracking and monitoring of HR staffing needs.
The HR plan template included three sections requiring input: 1) hiring/staffing, 2) training and 3) succession planning. However, within each topic area, the template did not include the planned financial cost of the activity (i.e. staffing salaries, costs of training) or the anticipated start date of the activity (i.e. staffing start dates, training dates). Including this information would further assist HR staff and operational management in proactively planning and costing of the anticipated resources.
Operating Effectiveness
Operating effectiveness included an assessment of the completeness of information and its usefulness to operational managers. It was noted that all seven divisional HR plans randomly-selected for testing adhered to the designated template; however, the audit noted that the template was not completed in a consistent manner (i.e. incomplete information, differences in level of detail included in the plan).
Interviews with operational managers confirmed that HR plans were not updated as staffing needs changed throughout the year and, as a result, the plans were not utilized beyond the initial planning session and submission of the plan.
Recommendation 1 – HR Planning
It is recommended that the Director General, Strategic Planning, Results and Cabinet Business, the Director General of Finance Division, and the Director General of Human Resources Division work collaboratively to revise the human resources planning process to:
- incorporate regular updates to the plan;
- include the financial cost and timelines (i.e. start dates); and
- work with operational areas to ensure that relevant information for hiring/staffing, training, and succession planning is completed by all divisions
Management Response
The Director General, Strategic Planning, Results and Cabinet Business, the Director General of Finance Division, and the Director General of Human Resources Division agree with the recommendation and will work together to further refine and strengthen the Human Resource Planning component of the Integrated Business Plan. Efforts will also be made to support management in the regular monitoring and updating of HR plans. Work is currently underway to review and update the Integrated Business Planning manual.
Target Completion Date: September 30, 2020
3.2 Roles, Responsibilities and Guidance Documentation
Documented roles, responsibilities and guidance are mechanisms to communicate expectations to staff and provide clarity and alignment to business processes and operations. As such, for HR staff completing staffing and pay transactions, key responsibilities and guidance documentation were expected to be clearly documented, readily available and formally communicated. Similarly, appropriate guidance was expected to be available to operational managers and staff in order for them to fulfill their roles and responsibilities related to HR staffing and pay.
HR Staffing
HRD has established the four-tiered HR model, which included access to a generic email account managed by the Client Service Centre (e.g. HR staff) where managers and staff can submit questions as well as designated HR strategic advisors who provide advice and guidance on more complex staffing activities.
Interviews found that operational managers and support staff were aware of the Client Service Centre’s generic email address for general staffing enquiries. Additionally, the audit found that HR strategic advisors were assigned to divisions for staffing. They provided advice to ensure staffing actions met operational needs, legal requirements, and PSC statutory requirements and guidance. Interviews with operational managers further confirmed that management had access to and were generally aware of the role of HR strategic advisors within the organization.
HR Pay
The audit found that HRD developed the VAC Compensation Guide in 2017 to assist employees and managers in understanding and performing pay-related duties. The guide defined roles and responsibilities, specifically prescribing the function of the VAC Pay Team versus the function and responsibilities of the PSPC Pay Centre. It also outlines responsibilities for section 34 managers in submitting actions that impact pay.
Further, the audit noted that HRD has developed a generic “Pay Transformation” email inbox, which is available to all VAC staff and management. This email was available as a resource for VAC staff and management to ask HR pay-related questions and/or to escalate priority HR pay actions to the PSPC Pay Centre. The HR Pay Transformation team oversees and responds to inquiries made to this inbox.
Other resources noted, available to all Government of Canada employees, included GCPedia links on Phoenix for managers and employees, PSPC links on pay-action requests (PARs), and Office of the Chief Human Resource Officer HR-to-Pay stabilization training.
Additionally, there was evidence that HRD communicated roles and responsibilities to operational managers through various mechanisms, including biweekly calendar reminders, teleconferences with the Senior Director of HR Services Management and managers, and all-staff email updates from Corporate Compensation.
HRD monitored the departmental completion rates for the mandatory HR-to-Pay stabilization training and reported the results on the biweekly HR pay dashboards. The Learning unit in HRD also sent emails on January 2019 and March 2019 communicating the requirement to complete HR-to-Pay Stabilization training. As of March 2019, the email indicated that new staff were required to complete the four modules of training within the first month of being hired. Three modules were required for staff and a fourth module is required for managers.
Although documentation was found to be developed and available, interviews noted that the Pay Action Request (PAR) process is not consistently clear to operational managers, including the required timelines to submit PARs. Operational managers and support staff were aware that training, documentation and online guidance exist, but due to the volume of information available on multiple sites and resources, they were not always clear on where to find the specific information they required in various circumstances.
Specifically, managers and administrative staff noted they did not clearly understand the nuances related to HR pay, such as which transactions require a PAR form, when approvals are required from a trusted source, and/or in when employees send information or PARs directly to PSPC. Additionally, managers and administrative staff indicated that they were not consistently using the VAC Compensation Guide as a reference tool. For specific questions and issues, they sought out direct support from their HR strategic advisor, an administrative staff member or the pay transformation team.
Finally, documentation review found that the VAC Compensation Guide had not been updated since 2017. There was no evidence to suggest that a process is in place to ensure the guide is updated at regular intervals to ensure it is providing the Department with up to date guidance and advice.
Recommendation 2 – Documentation Updates (HR Pay)
It is recommended that the Director General, Human Resources Division implement a process to review and update the VAC Compensation Guide at regular intervals (e.g. annually), as well as on an as needed basis, should material changes be made to processes and/or requirements.
Management Response
Management agrees with the recommendation. The Pay Transformation Team will take the lead to update and revise the VAC Compensation Guide, and will implement a process to review and update it annually or as needed.
Target Completion Date: September 30, 2020
Recommendation 3 – Communication Strategy
It is recommended that the Director General, Human Resources Division develop a streamlined approach of existing materials accompanied by a supporting communication strategy to improve awareness of and adherence to the key roles and responsibilities within the department in completing HR transactions.
Management Response
Management agrees with this recommendation. Work is currently underway to develop a comprehensive and streamlined communication strategy to improve awareness and adherence to key roles and responsibilities in completing human resources transactions.
Target Completion Date: September 30, 2020
3.3 Establishment of Service Standards
Service standards are integral to providing strong client service and to effectively manage performance. With respect to HR staffing and pay transactions, it was expected that service standards were established, communicated and adhered to. Adherence to service standards is reviewed in section 3.4.
VAC internal service standards were established on August 2, 2017 as part of the HR Excellence initiative to improve service delivery. Service standards were established for all HR staffing actions. These internal standards are integrated as a functionality in the HR system (My GCHR) to facilitate tracking and monitoring against the standards. (Refer to Appendix B for HR service standards in the system).
As part of HR pay processes, VAC is responsible for submitting complete, accurate and timely documentation to the PSPC Pay Centre to support effective staffing and pay practices and reduce the number of new pay issues. Effective April 1, 2019, it was expected that service standards established by TBS-OCHRO were adopted by the Department, communicated and adhered to. The service standards indicated the number of days in advance that departments are required to submit documentation to PSPC. The audit reviewed the alignment of current VAC service standards against the TBS-OCHRO expectations. Additionally, it was expected that for HR pay transactions, PARs were entered accurately and in a timely manner for HR pay transactions.
HR Staffing
Interviews and documentation reviewed noted that service standards were communicated and understood by HR staff. However, certain operational managers interviewed were not aware that HR service standards existed for staffing transactions.
Further, the audit reviewed department-wide email communications from HRD to all staff and noted that there was no evidence demonstrating that service standards were communicated during the fiscal year. As such, operational managers may not have a clear understanding of when their HR requests would be fulfilled, which, in turn could have an impact on planning and day-to-day operations.
HR Pay
In March 2019, the TBS-OCHRO released standardized timelines (service standards) for 13 staffing processes for implementation by April 1, 2019. All federal government departments supported by the Phoenix Pay System, including VAC, are required to adhere to these standardized timelines in submitting requests to the PSPC Pay Centre for processing.
The timelines require that departments submit requests to the PSPC Pay Centre a minimum of five or ten business days prior to the effective date, depending on the type of request. Meeting these timelines for HR pay is key to reducing impacts to employee pay, especially given the backlog of pay issues since the roll-out of Phoenix.
While the audit noted that the service standard requirement by TBS-OCHRO was not in place for the entire scope of the audit, this service standard was reviewed for compliance. The review of the service standard allowed the audit team to provide a baseline of how VAC met the TBS-OCHRO standards from April 1, 2018 to April 30, 2019.
Internally, HRD requires seven weeks to process HRSR requests, and as such, has established the service standard uniformly. This service standard was established by HRD in order to meet the TBS-OCHRO service standards and ultimately, to help prevent impacts to employee pay. Additionally, the service standard communicates to VAC’s operational managers their responsibility to submit HR documentation for processing by HRD.
During interviews, operational managers expressed awareness of the internal seven week service standard for submitting request documentation to VAC HRD. Managers noted that the seven week timeline is not always achievable or reasonable, from a business operations perspective given that some transactions are less complex or do not consistently allow for advanced notice to a manager (e.g. sick leave).
Dashboards for HR pay were shared at departmental governance committees to communicate the timeliness of HR pay transactions. A review of the VAC dashboard noted that compliance was assessed against a four week standard, instead of the established seven week standard.
It was noted that inconsistency between the documented service standards in the Compensation Guide (seven weeks) and the service standards used for reporting (four weeks) may negatively impact the managers’ understanding of their roles and responsibilities for HR pay, and thus, HRD’s efforts in stabilizing HR-to-pay.
Recommendation 4 – Communication
It is recommended that the Director General, Human Resources Division develop a streamlined approach of existing materials accompanied by a supporting communication strategy to improve awareness of and adherence to service standards for HR staffing and pay to managers and staff to facilitate a common understanding of expectations and roles and responsibilities.
Management Response
Management agrees with the recommendation. Human Resources will develop a comprehensive communication strategy to improve awareness and adherence to key roles and responsibilities in completing human resources transactions. Compensation and HR Management Systems will contribute toward the development of a communication strategy with regard to improving the awareness of service standards for pay and to facilitate a common understanding of roles and responsibilities for managers and staff.
Target Completion Date: September 30, 2020
Recommendation 5 – Alignment of Service Standards (HR Pay)
It is recommended that the Director General, Human Resources Division reassess the internal service standard for HR pay to ensure alignment between the established service standards and those used for monitoring and reporting.
Management Response
Management agrees with this recommendation. Work is currently underway to reassess our standards with the others to ensure they do not conflict in any way and align to tell a cohesive story.
Target Completion Date: March 30, 2020
3.4 Performance Against Service Standards
HR Staffing
The audit team reviewed a judgemental sample of 20 HR staffing transactions during the scope period of April 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019. Within the selected sample, the audit selected a targeted sample of 15 staffing requests that did not meet the service standard to facilitate the identification of root causes for the delays.
Through the file review, it was found that the following factors affected the adherence to the defined service standard timelines:
- Selection of the Appropriate Staffing Activity. The audit team noted that the incorrect staffing activity was selected in the HR system for 3 of 20 samples (15%). As a result, the incorrect service standard auto-populated in the system. Notably, service standards for external appointments (service standard of 20 or 25 days) and external advertised inventories (service standard of 140 or 160 days) were interchanged.
- Data Input Errors in the HR System. Through the review of files selected for testing, the audit noted data integrity issues in 11 of 20 files (55%), where the manual entry of dates was incorrect or missing.
Key errors included selection of the wrong dates, the application of one date to all sub-activities for a hiring process, dates that did not align with the My GCHR system notes, and dates of sub-activities prior to HRSR received date, and dates that were missing. - Factors outside of HRD control. It was noted through interviews and in file reviews that the following factors affected HRD’s ability to meet the service standards: receiving supporting documentation required, priority clearances from PSC, receiving signed letters and forms from candidates, security clearances, PSPC Pay Centre transfers-out, and second language evaluation scheduling and testing with the PSC.
Recommendation 6 – Data Integrity (HR Staffing)
It is recommended that Director General, Human Resources Division implement a quality assurance review processes to improve integrity of the data used to track compliance to service standards.
Management Response
Management agrees with this recommendation. Since the time of the audit, HRSR notes have been modified to make service request types clearer to the user. This has provided a clearer distinction as to when to use appointment and when to use process. HR Staff are continually reminded to double check data before submitting, to take the time to ensure entry is correct the first time. Quality checks are in place to review data entry completed by new employees. Training sessions have been delivered on HRSR, in both official languages and a SKYPE assistance line has been activated to provide real time support.
HR Pay
A proportionally representative sample of 25 HR pay transactions was randomly selected for three pay request types and was tested for accuracy and timeliness (in alignment with service standards) as well as evidence that the request was accompanied by appropriate approvals and evidence that the trusted source reviewed the request.
Within VAC, the “trusted source” function resides in HRD. The trusted source is responsible for the review and submission of pay request documentation to the PSPC Pay Centre. Approvals for three key request types, including leave without pay, return from leave without pay, and terminations were repatriated from PSPC back to departments and agencies. As a result, an employee in the Pay Transformation team processes PAR forms for these transactions and submits the completed PAR and supporting documentation to the PSPC Pay Centre.
The trusted source has been established by PSPC as a control measure in place to support the accuracy and completeness of pay documented submitted to the Pay Centre. As the trusted source, the Pay Transformation team is responsible for verifying that the manager had the delegated authority, per section 34 of the Financial Administration Act, to approve the transaction.
HR Pay Testing Results
The testing of HR pay transactions reviewed four areas including accuracy, timeliness, approvals, and authority of the trusted source. Through testing, it was found that all PAR forms reviewed were accurately inputted and aligned with the data inputted into the My GCHR system. Additionally, all PAR forms reviewed were approved by the trusted source, who was included on the trusted source list. The audit team was unable to assess 3 of 25 samples given that the completed PAR forms were not on file.
With regards to the timeliness of the submission of PAR formsFootnote 1, it was found that 18 of 23 samples (78%) met the VAC performance standard of four weeks. 16 of 23 samples (70%) of samples met the TBS-OCHRO standard for timeliness.Footnote 2
3.5 Monitoring and Reporting
HR staffing
In October 2018, the data analytics unit was established under HRD. The unit has been responsible for the preparation of weekly reports. These reports are distributed at the weekly HR management team meeting to facilitate monitoring of timeliness and opportunities for improvement.
In February 2019, the HR Workforce Update was produced, reporting on compliance to service standards, broken down by HR staffing transaction type. This report was shared with the Corporate Branch Committee.
While reports and dashboards are produced and communicated, results on HRD’s ability to meet service standards was summarized such that it was difficult to identify trends. Through data analysis, there were three key types of staffing transactions that were significantly impacting the compliance rate to service standards: external and internal deployments, appointment from processes for term and indeterminate hires, and external non-advertised hires.
More detailed reporting for these areas, that could be used to drive change and improvement, was not included in the reports. Examples identified by audit team included (1) the volume of transactions non-compliant and compliant by transaction type and (2) the average number of days over the service standard by transaction type.
Recommendation 7 – Monitoring and Reporting (HR Staffing)
It is recommended that the Director General, Human Resources Division enhance monitoring and reporting against non-compliant HR staffing transactions to identify trends regarding timeliness and to drive improvements to HR staffing processes.
Further, it is recommended that this information is shared regularly with senior management.
Management Response
Management agrees with this recommendation. The HR Management Systems Team is supporting the HR Client Service Centre to explore reporting on compliance with HR staffing service standards. HR will use continuous improvement loops to identify areas within the staffing process to gain efficiencies. Formal reports by area will be ready for distribution by April 1, 2020. Human Resources will be reporting on timeliness and improvements to HR staffing processes on a quarterly basis through an HR Update to CPPMC and SMC. Quarterly reporting to begin in January, 2020.
Target Completion Date: April 1, 2020
HR Pay
VAC's HR team has implemented monitoring and reporting mechanisms to track the progress of the HR “critical to pay” transactions, which includes the creation of pay dashboards and the review of PAR rejections.
Dashboards
VAC had implemented a biweekly HR pay dashboards as of November 2018, prepared by the data analytics team. The pay dashboards were found to be detailed, including manager compliance to the four week submission service standard, the number of pay enquiries submitted, the percentage of staff who have completed HR pay training, the PAR rejection rate, and an update of the HR pay initiatives. It was noted that HR pay updates were communicated to the HRD Director General (DG), the Corporate Branch Committee, and the Senior Management Committee.
Rejected PARs
Accurate and timely submission and reporting of PARs helps prevent new pay issues from occurring. As such accuracy and timeliness in submitting PARs to the PSPC Pay Centre is very important. If there are errors in the completed PAR forms and/or corresponding documentation the PAR submission will be rejected by the PSPC Pay Centre. On a monthly basis, PSPC submits a report to VAC detailing the number of PARs that were rejected for the month, and the source of the rejected PAR (i.e. was the PAR submitted by the Pay Transformation team, an employee, or other).
It was noted that the PAR acceptance rateFootnote 3 increased from 90.7% to 94.5% from April 2018 to April 2019 (see Appendix C). The VAC acceptance rate was in line with the average federal department acceptance rate of 94.6% in April 2019.