Building skilled workers and strong leaders

Times Contributor

 

Skilled workers and strong leaders are imperative for economic growth and development in rural communities.

A labour market research project is underway and is focused on the Strathmore and Chestermere region. The intention is to identify workplace and leadership needs.

Bow Valley College, Alberta Works, The Banff Centre, and Alberta Rural Development Network have partnered together  to conduct a research project, ‘Rural Employer Access to Workplace Training and Aboriginal Engagement.’

The data collection has taken the form of an online survey, and is directed at employers and business owners in the local region. In order to produce accurate results, the survey was recommended to acquire feedback from over 50 patrons. The survey has successfully exceeded the desired number with over 75 individual responses.

“It’s a bit of a debate between qualitative and quantitative response, but we wanted to make sure we were reflecting the current or emerging issues, significantly impacting any of the human resource requirements for any labour market adjustment needs,” said Teri McKinnon, the Project Manager and Regional Education Representative of Bow Valley College.

The data collection process will be complete by the end of June, and the final results will be presented to Strathmore and Chestermere business communities in September, 2012.

“I am really thrilled with the engagement level of employers and their willingness to participate because I do believe that any labour market data is important for every business owner so that they can facilitate any issues that they are seeing or, strategize for industries as a whole.”

The labour market research project is focused on identifying workplace needs in regards to the local economy. Recognizing workplace gaps and shortages in the gathering of information will be made available to educational institutions, so that action plans can be created to deliver local, relevant, and accessible training services. 

In addition to identifying workplace development needs, building strong leaders goes fairly hand in hand because “leaders need work and work needs leaders.”

“We think the leaders guide the economic base; we want to make sure we are building strong leaders to provide for rural areas so that they can grow.”

More information can be found by contacting Teri McKinnon at tmckinnon@bowvalley college.ca or Research Officer, Tina Jarrett at tjarrett@bowvalleycollege.ca. 

 To complete the confidential survey, visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6FWCGCM