Service Canada says it has reduced the hours of surplus employees in its call centres. (Picture: Pixabay)
Faced with the predictions of Alain Therrien that the federal government’s measure to reduce the work weeks of civil servants will cause “delays and chaos”, Service Canada wanted to provide details.
Mila Roy, spokesperson, explains that the reduced hours from 37.5 to 30 hours per week is a temporary measure which in fact aims to retain a “slight surplus of personnel” and thus, to avoid layoffs.
She says Service Canada prepared its EI call centers early on with additional staff, “as call volumes fluctuate due to economic circumstances and the pandemic.”
In Quebec, agents were therefore hired, but the anticipated increase did not materialize. The national budget allocated to the employment insurance call centers remained the same and was used in its entirety “to maximize our response capacity throughout the year,” says Ms. Roy.
“No impact”
While Alain Therrien, federal deputy for La Prairie, said he feared longer delays in terms of employment insurance applications, Service Canada indicated that “these changes have no impact on the staff responsible for processing or on the speed of payment of benefits”.
The measure only affects call center employees.
“The employment insurance network has employees across the country and responds to customer needs on a first-come, first-served basis, regardless of the origin of the call,” says Ms. Roy.
Empathy
Service Canada says it empathizes with the impact its decision has on its employees seeing their hours reduced.
However, “this measure is very temporary, with the aim of retaining talent, without penalizing service providers,” reiterates Ms. Roy.
She adds that the ministry is working to ensure affected staff can return to full-time employment in April.
“In addition, he continues to examine possible options to ensure that they retain full-time employment in the future, such as providing additional training and transferring them to other teams,” said Ms. Roy.
