Diane Lorenzato, assistant deputy minister, human resources, Public Works and Government Services Canada
With baby boomers set to retire over the next five years, companies are becoming more innovative with how they attract and retain new workers, and the public sector is no exception.
Last month, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) launched a multi-media campaign aimed at attracting younger workers and recent post-secondary graduates in order to fill a shortage of over 300 workers within PWGSC.
Diane Lorenzato, assistant deputy minister of human resources at PWGSC, stresses that there is a need to ensure that PWGSC has the right skill sets to deliver on its mandate, and related programs and services.
"The baby boomer retirement is a big factor," says Lorenzato. "The other big factor is that the Office of the Privy Council has clearly emphasized public service renewal as one of the key priorities for government."
Lorenzato adds the government needs to start building today in order to ensure that they have the public service that's needed for the future.
"Renewal is a key priority for all departments, we've decided to work together and ensure that we take a Government of Canada approach to launching our post-secondary recruitment campaign," she says.
Over the next five years approximately 30 per cent of full-time workers in PWGSC will be eligible for retirement, Lorenzato says.
The multi-media recruitment campaign was launched on the PWGSC Web site on September 17th .
"The focal point of our marketing campaign was to really build a recruitment Web site that would target graduate, college and university students, and would be relevant to them," says Lorenzato.
Chris Drummond, vice-president of marketing for Toronto-based recruitment firm CNC Global, says the Internet is an optimal place to be if you want to build an awareness campaign, particularly one aimed at a younger audience.
"If I were recommending anything to the federal government, it would be to spend a little time on the Internet and get to know it a little better as an avenue for both getting their message out, and attracting interest," says Drummond.
Getting the message out and attracting interest from that younger audience is one of the aims of the campaign, says Lorenzato. The theme of the campaign is, "Your career, your life. Find your niche with us".
"The reason we chose that theme is that PWGSC has such an array of disciplines that you can virtually find your niche in any part of our department and have a very exciting career," she says.
In line with being relevant to a younger audience, the campaign also includes video-clips of PWGSC "ambassadors", which Lorenzato explains are young employees that joined the department within the past few years.
"These ambassadors are passionate about what they do," she says. "We didn't give them a script; we just put them in front of a camera and asked them to tell us what is it that they enjoy about working at PWGSC, so it's their own perception that is coming across in those video clips."
According to Dave Tighe, director for public sector recruiting solutions at CNC Global, another factor that's important to establishing, creating and promoting an employer "brand" from the government perspective, is ensuring that the applicant has a positive experience in the hiring process.
Continued: Retaining IT talent
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