HRM’s executive council met on Monday and talked mainly about data. At the start of the pandemic, there was an increased concern about the safety of Asian women and non-binary people in the city, so the Women’s Advisory Committee asked for a staff report to find out how much of an issue it is, and how to address any of those issues.
Staff found, however, that although race-based data is a crucial first step—and even though this was one of the 2019 Wortley Report recommendations—data collection has yet to be completed. The city also doesn’t have strong connections with the various Asian communities in the HRM, so it hasn’t really done much with this staff report because it doesn’t have any data or a good way to get any data. City staff also told the committee that even if they had data to create programs, the city has resources to start those programs, but not to sustain them.
The meeting schedule for council for the next year was set until June of 2024.
Councillor expense accounts are changing slightly: They’ll now be pooled and split evenly among councillors. There were some slight concerns raised, which were questions about minor technicalities.
Finally, councillor Paul Russell brought forward a motion to get the HRM workplace data he wanted. A few weeks ago, Russell demanded a clearer picture of the HRM’s workforce, but was told a council meeting was not the place to do it. He was told the executive standing committee was the place to get this information, which is what he did today. Staff agreed this was worthwhile data and will be collecting it. Or at least, staff will be collecting all the data they can from automated systems, but training data is manually entered and collected, and getting Russell that information would take people off other work. Overtime data is also collected manually at this point in time, ditto on succession planning. So any manually collected data will be hard to collect and will be coming Soon™.
Councillor Waye Mason amended the motion to make sure the committee wasn’t asking staff for information they couldn’t actually collect. The city’s HR people will be tasked with collecting the data they can and working to be able to collect the data they currently cannot.
Here’s the full list of information Russell wants from the city—he’ll get most of it in the new year:
1. Prepare a supplemental report that includes:
a. The number of involuntary departures
b. The turnover and retention rates
c. Where turnover is defined as the number of hires in a period compared to the number of employees at the end of that period
d. The new-hire turnover rate
e. The number of both voluntary and involuntary departures
f. The number of training programs offered, and which ones are mandatory
g. The number of training sessions delivered, both mandatory and optional
h. The number of mandatory training sessions that are still required to be taken
i. Where training classes are required as a matter of employment (for example with police,
fire and transit), the number of training classes and the number of new hires as a result
j. The vacancy rate at the time that the report is created
k. Average overtime per employee
l. Average absenteeism per employee, total number of absent hours, the dollar value of that,
and the prorated budget amount
m. The number of safety incidents reported and the number of WCB claims filed
n. Succession metrics for mid-level management positions and above, including the number
of “Ready For” candidates and the number of “Ready in 2-4 year” candidates
2. That this information is reported both across the organization and per business unit
3. That this information is included in future annual workforce reports.
This article appears in Oct 1 – Nov 6, 2022.
