Contract awards to external consulting firms at Investissement Québec (IQ) have more than doubled between the last two fiscal years, from $24.2 million to $51.1 million.
The Journal received this information as part of an access to information request. The amounts recorded are only for contracts valued at $50,000 or more.
IQ’s senior director of media and government affairs, Isabelle Fontaine, explained that the value of the contracts awarded is calculated over their entire lifespan and not in the expenditure of each financial year. IQ, she says, has decided on a longer-term collaboration with its service providers.
If you agree on a longer term with a supplier, it is clear that they will offer you better prices. The aim is to be more strategic and achieve better economies of scale,” emphasizes Ms. Fontaine.
Travel spending is increasing at IQ
The consultants were engaged by IQ for a variety of services including information technology, accounting, project and change management, engineering and architecture, communications, marketing, public relations, international economic development consulting, risk management, actuarial science and compensation analysis.
Personnel increase by 152%
In the human resources area, First Vice President Marie Zakaïb approved contracts worth $2.7 million in 2021-2022 and $6.8 million in 2022-2023; an increase of 152% in one year.
IQ says the six-year HR management platform contract alone represents $1.4 million of the total contracts awarded in 2022-2023. The services of a headhunting firm are valued at $391,000 and last for three years. Several further long-term contracts were concluded in the past financial year.
Further information obtained as part of the information access makes it possible to clarify that IQ’s HR workforce currently consists of 44 people in a company with a total of 1,220 employees. This works out to a ratio of one HR professional or one HR executive for every 27 employees. Various sources consulted in the HR world give best practices anywhere between 1 in 60 and one in 100, although this can vary depending on the type of organization.
The HR vice presidency at IQ also consists of 11 managers, some of whom only report to two or three.
For comparison, Loto-Québec employs seven human resources managers for a thousand employees and SAQ, which has 7,200 employees, manages 14 human resources managers.
“Most of the services for which the IQ HR team uses external companies cannot be carried out internally. As far as our support rate is concerned, it compares favorably with our reference market. Given the type of jobs on offer, it cannot be compared to that of other state-owned companies that you take as a reference,” replied IQ’s Ms Fontaine.
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