7.0 Corporate Services in Support of the Business

7.1 Human Resources

DCC’s chief asset is its people and our corporate success is built on employee ability and commitment. One of DCC’s strengths is its dedicated workforce of engineers, engineering technicians and technologists, environmental scientists and experienced trades people. Other specialists in finance, human resources, information technology, communications and administration support these employees.

At year-end, DCC had 606 employees, an increase of 12% from 543 employees at the end of 2006–07 and an increase of 74% from 348 employees in 2003–04. This growth in the number of employees is in response to DND’s increased need for support as it focuses its internal resources on defence operational requirements.

DCC recognized seven employees in 2007–08 with 10 years of service, eight employees with 20 years of service, three employees with 25 years of service and five employees with 30 years of service.

Recruitment

Recruitment practices focus on engaging professionals who strive to maintain DCC’s continued success and take pride in achieving their personal goals.

DCC’s internal career development practices helped 94 employees advance their careers through promotions, lateral transfers and relocations during the past year. Eleven employees volunteered for foreign deployment in Afghanistan and eight volunteered for northern assignments for DEW Line projects. DCC and DND benefit from the movement of skills around the operating theatres and remote sites as employees hone their skills and test themselves. Through this interchange, DCC expands its collective base of knowledge and experience.

Retention rate

As a knowledge-based company, DCC’s success depends on its ability to put the right people in the right place at the right time. To that end, the recruitment and retention of the types of employees needed to guarantee a high level of service to the client is critical.

Given the nature of DCC’s industry, there will always be some turnover of staff due to the seasonal and geographically cyclical nature of DCC’s work. In 2007–08, DCC met its retention rate target of 90%. This is a slight increase from the 2006–07 retention rate of 89% and similar to the rate of 90.6% from 2005–06. A major factor affecting retention is labour market conditions in certain regions of the country, particularly the western provinces.

The retention rate is a measure of employee satisfaction with DCC’s working environment. In this fiscal year, DCC plans to implement an approach to recruitment developed last year. The Corporation wants to become an employer of choice so that it can recruit and retain the type of employees it needs so that it can put the right people in place at the right time to better serve the client.

Professional development to salary cost ratio

DCC’s ability to serve its client is heavily reliant on the skills of its employees. Therefore, training and development are a high priority with a target for spending on training and development established at 3% of total salary costs for direct education costs. Over the last four years, a portion of the allocation was redirected from direct training to the design and development of a comprehensive training and development framework. As a result, during 2007–08, only 2.5% of salary cost was spent on direct training compared to 2.8% in 2006–07. As this initiative matures and in-house training modules are rolled out, it is anticipated that training and development expenditures will return to the target levels of 3% in the next fiscal year.

Utilization rate

The utilization rate indicates the hours spent on contract related functions as opposed to non-billable overhead functions. It is an important performance indicator as well as a key financial management tool. DCC’s target utilization rate is 70%. In 2007–08, the utilization rate was 71.4%, an increase from 70.6% in 2006–07. The past two years have seen a slight decrease in the utilization rate in contrast to the five-year trend. This decline was the result of allocating resources to non-billable tasks related to managing risks associated with company growth and implementing improvements to the service delivery structure. Over the previous three years, the rate had remained fairly consistent.

 

Direct personnel expense multiplier

The Direct Personnel Expense Multiplier (DPEM) is the factor by which DCC multiplies direct project personnel expenses to recover overhead costs. These expenses include salary costs, payroll benefits and compensated absences, such as vacation, sick days, holidays and professional development time. This multiplier is used to establish billing rates for DCC services. The target range for this indicator is 1.50 to 1.60. Fluctuations in the actual multiplier from period to period are the result of the application of the company’s financial management policy. Consistent with this policy, at times, the DPEM can be lowered below the target range in order to return surplus funds to DND.

With increased business volumes and business activity, and in order to manage operating surpluses, DCC was able to maintain billing rates unchanged for the three year period from April 2004 to March 2007. This in turn caused the DPEM to decline by 6% to 1.43 in 2006–07. For 2007–08, the rate was 1.40, still below the target range of 1.50 to 1.60.

7.2 Communications

The Communications Department is accountable to the senior management group and reports directly to the Vice-President of Corporate Services. With resources allocated annually based on the communication requirements of the entire Corporation, the department has two primary goals: 1) to enable corporate communications that address DCC-wide needs; and 2) to work with business units and service lines to help them become selfsufficient in their communications activities. In pursuit of these goals, the Communications Department connects staff to the tools and techniques that can help them deliver regionand site-specific messages effectively to both internal and external audiences. The primary focus of the past two years has been the development and implementation of a corporate internal communications strategy. The vision is to further a culture of communications within DCC that will, in turn, enhance the Corporation’s ability to deliver service to the client.

7.3 Information Services

Information Services (IS) is located centrally in Ottawa and functions within the Corporate Service Division of DCC. It is responsible for the acquisition and delivery of computing resources as well as application development, maintenance and support for all DCC sites across Canada. The group consists of an IT manager who is supported by a technology staff of 11, including a network administrator, three support analysts, four business analysts and three application developers. This team supports DCC operations on internal IT priorities, such as budgeting and financial tracking as well as reporting and document and records management, along with day-to-day business requirements. In 2007–08 this group completed the conversion of DCC’s payroll system from a third party service provider to an in-house payroll application, part of the overall enhancement of the Corporation’s enterprise resource planning system (ERP).