Employer Leadership Council aims to help businesses find what they are looking for

YorkRegion.com
April 1, 2014
By Dominik Kurek

If you are an employer who is finding it difficult to recruit and retain the right people for your business, there may be help out there for you.

The Workforce Planning Board of York Region and Bradford West Gwillimbury has created an employer leadership council, a forum for employers to discuss challenges and solutions for employee recruitment and retention.

Additionally, the council will liaise with government in the hopes of driving policy change that could help solve some of these problems.

The initiative is funded by Employment Ontario.

“The whole project, really, is to assist employers,” said Deborah Bonk Greenwood, employer liaison on the council.

The council began meeting at the start of this year and has 75 employers involved from small businesses right up to large and there is room for more. It is made up of five councils, one regional group comprising 15 large employers, plus four local councils made up of small and medium-sized businesses. The local councils are in Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan and one for the northern York municipalities, plus Bradford West Gwillimbury.

Nine key sectors are include, from manufacturing and construction, to retail, IT and more.

Information from the local level is discussed at the regional level, plus regional discussions are brought back to the local councils.

This effort by the workforce planning board is a way to be pro-active about the needs of the future. York Region has 1.1 million residents, projected to balloon to 1.5 million by 2031.

That growth will require an increase in jobs. Currently, there are about 568,000 jobs in the region.

The council was created to get employers into a conversation about today and future needs, said Al Wilson, executive director of the planning board.

While businesses face many challenges, a common problem is finding the right people and keeping them.

Employer liaison Andy Hewitson said businesses spend a lot of money during the hiring process, from searching and interviewing, right up to training costs. Reducing those costs is a challenge.

One participating member on the council managed to reduce the business’ hiring costs by 80 per cent using online social media tools. This business shared its technique with other members on the council.

“Here, you see one York Region business standing up, helping other York Region businesses attack some of the problems related to finding good people,” Mr. Hewitson said.

Businesses also deal with different generations of workers that have different ideas of what they want from an employer. Employers need to understand their workers, Ms Bonk Greenwood said.

“As times are changing, if you’re an employer, you really need to get your finger on the pulse of who you’re employing and really what makes them tick,” she said.

Some businesses have problems with recruiting, while retention is not an issue, while other business may have the opposite problem.

These are some of the topics discussed around the council table.

Mr. Hewitson said the intent of the council is to provide value to its members. He hopes the participants will learn things from each other to help them bring improvements to their own business.

Additionally, this provides participating businesses a forum to voice concerns to government.

“It’s pretty tough at a local level to solve world hunger, but at least we can communicate on behalf of the employers to various parts of government, what the challenges are for them so that policy can be influenced accordingly,” Mr. Hewitson said.

Local businessperson Pierre Bonhomme, partner at Chaggares & Bonhomme Chartered Accountants in Newmarket, is an inaugural member of the board.

His firm deals with about 600 corporate clients and hears many employer complaints, so he joined the council.

“I thought it would give me an opportunity to a platform to bring up some of their concerns and also to hear what other people’s concerns are from the business community,” he said.

Additionally, he hopes to hear solutions to these problems and share them with his clients.

He said a common problem with finding the right talent is the high cost of living in the GTA, plus competitive wages being offered in western Canada, which drives workers from southern Ontario.

Mr. Bonhomme hopes the council’s mandate will be a step in the right direction in finding a solution to keeping skilled workers here.

Another problem he sees is many government programs direct training to what workers want and not for what businesses need.

The Employer Leadership Council, however, is giving businesses a voice in government, which he hopes will reverse that trend.

“I think it will hopefully transform the workforce into one that conforms to what employers are looking for and will make the local population more employable and better suited to meet the demands of what employers are looking for,” Mr. Bonhomme said.

For more information on the council, visit www.employleadership.ca.

SIDEBAR

Cericola Farms manager of human resources Scott Haines is hoping his participation in the Employer Leadership Council will bring short-term and long-term benefits to his company.
 
The company employs more than 300 people at its two Bradford locations, but hiring people with the right skills is always an issue.
 
“The issue that I have mainly is getting the skilled people I need to do the jobs that I require them to do, especially in the food industry,” he said.
 
The council allows him to network with other local businesses. Through networking, he’s able to learn how other businesses have dealt with the problems his company faces, which, Mr. Haines hopes will help him resolve those problems.
 
Long-term, he said, he hopes the discussions of the employer council will lead to changes that improve the local labour market.
 
“I’m hoping that we improve the skill set of the labour market that’s required in York Region.”