www.iechamilton.ca

The IEC Catalyst , June 2010

 

Golden Horseshoe Bioscience Network (GHBN)
Connecting with the future workforce made easy!

Sal Macaluso (Right) with his career mentors at GHBN

You have probably heard a lot about the workforce shortage anticipated in the coming years. You also understand that your best employees from the baby-boomer generation will soon wave goodbye as they head off for retirement. What have you done to ensure that your business is able to carry on when the surplus labor pool vanishes? Have you started to prepare for the anticipated shortage by helping to build tomorrow’s talent pool?

If you are managing a business today, you are in the perfect position to develop young people that will become the properly trained employees of the future.  Jobs have changed a great deal in the past decade so, without your help, how will young people know there are opportunities in your type of business? Most of all, how will they know what they should do today while they are in school, to land on the great jobs you will have in the next 5 or so years?

Well, it might not be as complicated as you think once you find out about www.employerregistry.ca, the Ministry of Education’s online community dedicated to connecting local employers with tomorrow’s workforce. That is what Justin Policarpio, Research Analyst and Communications Officer at Golden Horseshoe Bioscience Network (GHBN), found out after meeting Beth Gibson, the School-to-Work program manager at IEC. He said, prior to this, he didn’t know much about providing experiential work experience opportunities for high school students. With the help of IEC, Justin registered his organization at www.employerregistry.ca, enabling him to post a co-op placement vacancy for a student interested in communications and science.

Sal Macaluso, a grade 11 student from St. Mary Secondary School grabbed the opportunity and started doing his co-op placement at GHBN. He is responsible for supporting Justin in many aspects of GHBN’s communication work including writing for their blog, tweeting, preparing flyers and building networks for upcoming events. Sal said he is interested in Biochemistry and plans to go to Med school, so working at GHBN has given him the chance to learn more and develop his network in his area of interest.

Even though Sal works at GHBN for just a few hours a day, he managed to become a useful addition to the GHBN team. Justin wrote on their blog recently stating ‘the social aspect of the GHBN website has been getting good feedback and it is all thanks to our Grade 11 co-op student Sal.’  Justin added that mentoring Sal has proven to be tremendously beneficial because he can now fully count on Sal to handle the communication aspect of their work while he is not around. As a result, Sal has been offered a summer job at GHBN. In addition, Sal has been a great help for a new start up company called Campus Helper that matches tutors with students. Justine asserted that Sal’s contribution in providing a fresh, youthful perspective for how to market this initiative to youth has been tremendous.

Justin recommends career mentoring as a great way of introducing students to the real world of work, “while also getting things done with your work that you otherwise just can't fit in your schedule.” He noted that “the process is simple, and the people at the Industry Education Council are great and very efficient in what they do.”

So, are you ready to connect with your future workforce like Justin did? Contact IEC and we will help you make the appropriate connections on your behalf, customize your involvement and register you at www.employerregistry.ca, the online community connecting local employers with students through a range of exciting opportunities. Remember that your level of involvement in career mentoring students can be adjusted according to your needs, ranging from giving Career Talks or Workplace Tours to taking Co-op students or hiring interns. Registering at this site will help you find information on innovative programs than can help you define your future workforce.

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