The Public Service Commission and the Treasury Board Secretariat have made an important contribution to moving forward on recruitment, and they are committed to going even further. They have developed "Meeting the Recruitment Challenge: An Action Plan" (Appendix C).

The action plan sets out three years of recruitment efforts toward renewing the Public Service. In particular, it aims to increase the representation of youth and equity group members, particularly members of visible minority groups. The plan also aims to recruit more equity group members into executive positions. The central agencies will work in partnership with departments to implement the plan, share innovative practices and take collective action to remove barriers.

The action plan sets out five recruitment priorities:

• Recruitment programs, policies, approaches and strategies will be reviewed and enhanced so that they are aligned with targeted needs. This will mean more use of Post-Secondary Recruitment and attention to current occupational shortages. It will also mean identification of and action on obstacles to effective recruitment. The Sub-Committee strongly endorsed this priority and further recommended that a pool of generic positions be created into which young professionals could be hired.

• Diversity will be a major focus, consistent with the commitment to create a more inclusive, more diverse Public Service. This will centre on efforts to increase the appointment of people from equity groups, including at the EX level, by reviewing current practices and processes to address possible impediments to this commitment.

• Awareness and capacity building will focus on ensuring that the information and skills are in place for hiring managers and human resource specialists to fully understand and take responsibility for recruitment.

• Workplace-of-choice efforts will centre on marketing the Public Service among potential recruits, especially on-campus, and among priority functional communities. This will require reviewing and changing all forms of communication and interaction with potential recruits, such as Web sites, letters, and presentations. Links should be made with central agency tools and those that exist in departments so that the brand name is consistent and recognizable.

• Strategic Planning will help to clarify Public Service recruitment needs for the next three to five years, with specific business cases for key recruitment challenges. Over time, this will lead to recruitment planning as an integral part of doing business for all managers. As part of overall support for decision making, the Treasury Board Secretariat will consider re-establishing the capacity to make external salary comparisons that were formerly carried out by the Pay Research Bureau.

The Public Service Commission is establishing a centre of expertise to assist departments in developing demographic processes and conducting workforce studies. The Commission will do more to analyze current hiring patterns and the views of students hired as summer or co-op workers. This will require a better integration of human resources systems across the Public Service.

The Public Service Commission is prepared to work with departments as they rethink their existing approaches to Post-Secondary Recruitment, COOP/internship, and summer employment activities (including those for high school students). This would

• lead to a much more strategic method to identify, evaluate and hire young permanent employees;

• add important word-of-mouth credibility to support other recruitment efforts; and

• create a vehicle for departmental executives to identify barriers to improved recruitment and retention.

The Treasury Board Secretariat is examining the pension plans for federal public servants to determine if there are obstacles to the recruitment of new, or retention of, older staff and, if so, to propose amendments to remove such obstacles.

As part of the ongoing renewal of the Executive group, development programs will be enhanced to meet specific recruitment needs, particularly with regard to diversity.

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