Staffing Committee

ACS Sub Committee
September 2006

Meetings were held with the Employer June 20th-23rd, July 19th to 21st and September 6th to 8th.

During the meeting in June discussions were held on the actual ACS Standard.  We were provided with an opportunity to discuss the standard and provide our comments to the employer on changes we would like to see.  Brother Lamoreux provided a written submission to the employer following our meeting.  The employer then went on to discuss the BETA 2 testing that they had conducted and advised that it appeared the standard was measuring the descriptions as expected.

During the second day of the June meeting we discussed Consolidation.  The employer advised that as the actual conversion to ACS seemed to be taking longer than expected they would like to proceed with consolidation of the job descriptions as per the list shared with the union.  It was agreed that consolidation may provide an opportunity to introduce the new short work description format but education would have to be done as these would still be evaluated under the legacy standards.

We discussed our concerns with the employers definition of “ Generic”  vs “Generalist”.  The agreement was we needed to get a consistent definition of these terms.

Education was then discussed, the employer advised that they had concerns about the original approach and had determined that the target audience should be HR Community,  MG’s and Union leaders. We agreed to consider the employers proposal and a meeting would be scheduled for July for a planning session as to how this should be rolled out.

July Planning Session:

The employer advised that they wanted to have a few focus group sessions with the MG community to find out what they thought of the new format and to get some additional feedback on the content.  The sessions would be run from August 14-21st and the suggested locations were, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Toronto, Montreal, Shawinigan and Halifax.  WE suggested they look at the NS TSO not “ Halifax”  as this was now a combined office and as well they should hit either St John’s or Saint John to get input on new Call Center environment.  The employer agreed and subsequently added Saint John to the list.

Management advised that all MG’s who were not part of the focus groups would have involvement in a video conference. Members of the focus groups would be asked their opinions of the short format,  training requirements of the employees and then to provide feedback on a sample of 60 job descriptions. 

The employer expected the training session would be available to be shared with the union in September.
September would see the finalization of the consolidation plan and an updated website.  The employer advised they wished to develop a video to be used in training and a discussion followed as to what it could contain.

The employers original vision of Union /Management trainers to jointly deliver three hour sessions to all employees has been modified.  The employer now wishes to proceed with SP Contacts ( union and management in each office).  The intent is to develop a video to be used during team meetings.  Team Leaders would show the video to their team and have available upon request the contact to answer any queries.  The union and management contacts in each local will be the ones to train the MG’s.  The union committed to updating the “ Training” list and providing this t the employer,  they will then match the number of trainers in each location.
Preliminary discussions were held on the possibility of an MOU and we committed to discuss this with Sister Bannon.

The employer hoped the preliminary results of the gender neutrality study would be completed when we meet in September.

Sept 6-8, 2006

The employer provided a review and update of the video conference and focus groups.  The video conference was held August 9th and the 11 focus group sessions were conducted between the 13th to the 23rd.  In addition to the original locations indicate the employer also conducted 3 sessions in HQ.  Overall, managers liked the short format.  They recommended a gradual informing of staff and stated there should not be any announcements using the “ national Distribution” list.  For training suggestions included talking to employees prior to the roll out and they were optimistic regarding the use of a video.  They did indicate tools should be provided highlighting an existing job description as to what areas were actually used in the classification under the legal act standard to help employees understand what was actually classified in a description.

The employer outlined the proposed training plan and after some discussion the following was agreed to:

• Head Quarters:  Training will be provided to the ACS Branch Coordinators and the union identified Contacts. (HQ has provided a list to the Union).  These individuals will have their names and information listed on the website and the list will also be provided to all the MG’s in addition employees will be encouraged to direct queries to the SP Contacts.  The SP contacts in HQ also will have a direct link to the ACS team so they also may be used as a resource.  MG’s in HQ will be able to access any of the SP contacts in order to assist them in educating the employees.  As for the MG training this will be conducted over a 10-15 day blitz.  This session will be mandatory for all mg’s.  The ACS Group will coordinate and plan all sessions. Each of the SP Contacts will be invited to attend one of the MG sessions as well so they will get a further understanding of questions that may be asked. 
• Regions:  The Regional Coordinators along with a member of the ACS Group will be training all the Management and Union identified contacts in their respective areas.  Then the Local Union and Management SP Contacts will be charged with the responsibility of training all of the MGs and the union executives.  The MG’s will then be responsible for rolling the information out to their teams with the SP contacts as a resource to be used as needed. 
• All training is expected to start in October and is expected to be completed the end of November. The first two weeks of October is to be dedicated to the SP contacts so RVP’s are asked to ensure that their locals are aware and that their selected person is available.  A session will be provided to executive council the morning of September 20th 
• Work is proceeding on the training video. 
• A discussion will be held with Sister Bannon as to the logistics of an MOU. 
• A future date has not yet been set for the next meeting as we are awaiting the final outcome of the gender neutrality study,  and a copy of the final weights and levels to be assigned to the standard. 

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