Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency Update: Job Vacancies

Members have been reporting violations of the collective agreement with regard to filling workplace vacancies. By not filling vacant positions it was leaving an extraordinary and sometimes impossible amount of work to be done by existing staff which was causing significant strain on the members and the services they provide to Nova Scotians. In order to address this issue we filed policy grievances with each former housing authority and raised the alarm with your employer with the express goal of ensuring your employer adheres to the collective agreement and fills the staffing vacancies.

Over the past 9 months, we have been meeting with your Employer in order to address the vacancy issue.. We are happy to report that your employer has made meaningful changes to better address vacancies and retention, which include:

• Moving to a new electronic management system (Yardi) which will streamline the process.
• Three junior human resource consultants have been hired on staff, specific to recruitment and are assigned in a district with another employee relations consultant.
• Changing the PAR process and now have less people required to approve a posting (signatures) for recruitment.
• Now have an improved tracking system with a spreadsheet on vacancies
• More accountability within HR and management.

We are satisfied that the above steps will properly manage and fill vacancies and that the employer has addressed the concerns within our policy grievances. However, the employer agrees that more work needs to be done. To this end, the union and the employer have entered into an agreement to meet quarterly for the next 12 months. These meetings are to provide ongoing updates to the union on the employer’s vacancy and retention efforts.

We want to thank you for bringing the concerns to us and we also want to thank you for the work you do every day.

Should you have any questions or concerns please reach out to your Employee Relations Officer, Dustin Rioux at drioux@nsgeu.ca.