14 managers cut, no change in service: N.L. Housing CEO

Glen Goss says restructuring amounts to annual savings of $1.4 million

The interim chief executive officer for the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corp. (NLHC) says the corporation is becoming more efficient, not less bloated.

Glen Goss said he didn’t think the term “bloated” would be appropriate to describe the corporation’s former management team — before 14 positions were cut from the ranks, as announced Thursday.

“That’s not a term I would use,” he told The Telegram.

He said it was instead an efficiency issue.

The cuts included three vacant positions. It will reduce the total number of management positions at the Crown

corporation from 76 to 62.

The job cut will not affect the corporation’s service to

the public to any significant degree, Goss said.

“It’s a management restructure is what it is, and it (will) have minimal impact, if any at all, on our client services,” he said.

Goss was appointed to his current role in mid-december 2017, moved up from within. He said he was involved “right from the beginning” in a review of operations launched in September 2016 and which ultimately resulting in the job cuts.

Asked how 14 managers could be removed from an organization without any effect on daily services, he said clients don’t directly deal with managers and this was essentially about doing things differently behind the scenes.

“A lot of (the work) will be absorbed by the remaining management,” he said.

“There may be changes to some programs, there may changes to who oversees what function, but that does not mean the function itself has to change, which allows us to keep the service for our clients.”

In terms of overall cost, the one-time cost to the public purse is about $2 million, including severance payments, but in the long run it’s a roughly $1.4-million annual budget saving.

As for the next budget, Goss would not speak about whether or not the NLHC had any requests in for changes in programs or general expenditures.

“I’m not in a position to talk about that right now,” he said.