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Connect with Your Job Development Community
(Part 2 of 4)
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Hi everyone, as I mentioned last week, I'm traveling overseas the next two weeks, but I don't want to lose momentum on our discussion topics. We'll be back with live #MotivatingMonday sessions on April 28th.
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Last week, we discussed the value of connecting with other job developers in the community. This week, we’ll talk about how to best connect with other job developers, getting a sense of all of the organizations involved in job development and opportunities for collaboration. Employers easily lose site of all of the benefits of job development and have difficulty navigating all of the programs, funders, agencies and supports. Working together with other job developers can be a huge support in helping local employers navigate these supports.
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Who do you involve in a Job Development Mastermind Group?
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When you’re organizing a Mastermind Group for Job Development, you want to make a list of the organizations which may be suitable utilizing the following categories:
- Provincially-funded employment organizations
- Federally-funded employment organizations
- Indigenous-funded (ISET) employment organizations
- Organizations with an employment focus that support youth, mature workers, women, those who identify as 2SLGBTQI+, individuals with disabilities, Francophones, immigrants, refugees and survivors of violence and/or abuse
- Public Colleges and Universities (co-op education and employment services departments)
- Private Colleges (co-op education and employment services departments)
- Public and Private Secondary and High Schools
- Mentorship groups
- Placement and executive search firms
- Temp agencies and organizations which provide ‘day-labour’
- Vocational rehabilitation organizations
- Professional licencing bodies
- Apprenticeship organizations
- Industry organizations and professional associations involved in placing workers
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In compiling this list, create a list of organizations which operate within the boundaries of your own community. For each organization, identity the individual or multiple individuals who provide face-to-face service to local employers in your community.
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If you gather names, email addresses and even social media handles, it creates the opportunity to establish social media groups and information sharing chains that can be extremely valuable, even if you don’t establish a Mastermind Group.
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How do you start a Mastermind Group for Job Development?
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Articulating all of the benefits of a Mastermind Group for Job Development can be difficult. We’re attempting to do this through this discussion topic and we suggest you share this discussion topic with other stakeholders, but it would be much more valuable to start off with an information sharing event where you can gather together everyone to measure the interest in starting a Mastermind Group.
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Once you’ve created a list of potential community stakeholders, send out an invitation to a planning event.
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In this fictitious example, I’ve created an invitation for the community of Fredericton, New Brunswick, which has a population of 58,000 people, but could easily apply to any Canadian community.
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EXAMPLE
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Subject Line: Working together to better engage local employers
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Dear Nancy,
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I’m reaching out to all of the organizations in Fredericton who regularly connect with employers to arrange a day of information sharing, networking and collaboration. Our goal is to better understand what we all do in the employment services sector and explore approaches where we can work more closely in the years to come.
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We are inviting 30 people from 18 different organizations. Please bring along any promotional materials and business cards you would like to share with the group.
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The sessions is taking place, Thursday May 15th from 10am to 3pm at our downtown location, Community Employment Services, 152 King Street, in Fredericton. We’ll be serving lunch and refreshments.
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Please let me know if you are able to attend and/or if you have any questions. Please feel free to reach out to me directly at: 506-555-1233, ext. 104 or by email at: raj.sidhu@cesfredericton.ca.
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I look forward to seeing you on May 15th.
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All my best,
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Raj
Job Developer
CES Employment Services
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In the example invitation, I’ve suggested an all-day event where you provide lunch and refreshments. By no means, do you need to follow this approach. The day can be shorter, perhaps a potluck event or you may not provide any refreshments at all.
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In this discussion topic, we’re asking organizations to come forward to sponsor a Mastermind Group. This doesn’t necessarily mean they own the group, but they have agreed to help facilitate its creation and to step in as the organizer. Your organization will benefit from greater exposure in the community but we also want to be mindful of our efforts to adopt a ‘team approach’ whereby the Mastermind Group as a whole is a gathering of peers.
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While lunch is not necessary, if it is something you can arrange, it may help build comfort, break down barriers and foster familiarity among the group.
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For the event itself, feel free to organize the agenda how you see fit. You may want to include some or all of the following elements:
- Introduction of participants with each person sharing their role and what their organization does within the field of employer engagement.
- A fun ice-breaker exercise
- Each person sharing the types of individuals they support and the services they provide to clients/students and employers
- Discussion of typical challenges that stand out in the work each person undertakes
- Exploration of the local economy, businesses and employer expectations
- Discussion about the common sticking points each participant has experienced in placing individuals in sustainable employment
- Brainstorming session on how organizations can better work together
- Dialogue on the benefits of establishing a Mastermind Group for Job Development
- If there is interest in establishing a Mastermind Group moving forward, exploration of what this group will look like. This may include whether it will be in-person or virtual; where to meet; times; who will chair the meeting; goals and objectives; and how often the group will meet.
- Wrapping up with Next-Steps moving forward
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A Mastermind Group should be something everyone feels good about and is excited to move forward. Not everyone needs to be a member and people should be welcome to join after the group starts. With this first meeting, you should establish a mutually beneficial framework where everyone sees both personal and group benefits.
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Competition
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This proposal for a Mastermind Group might seem a little naïve at first glance and you may feel we’re overlooking that everyone in this group is competing with each other for clients, students and employment outcomes.
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This competition is not unique to career development. Human resources professionals regularly meet and network even though they are competing for the same candidates. Sales professionals attend networking meetings even though they are competing for the same customers. Even restaurant owners participate in their local boards of trade, chambers of commerce and business improvement associations, even though they compete with each other for customers every day.
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Participants in a Mastermind Group need to buy into the belief that collaboration and networking will create more employment and placement opportunities across the board. If everyone adopts this proactive approach, the group will be much more successful and job development professionals will be speaking with a far more cohesive voice when reaching out to local employers.
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How does this differ from other community stakeholder gatherings?
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While there are many groups of local stakeholders meeting in the community, having a clear purpose for your Mastermind Group will assist in ensuring the group is as productive as possible.
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There may be a group of employment service stakeholders that meet. There may also be groups that meet to discuss disability services, settlement programming or youth initiatives.
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What differentiates the Mastermind Group for Job Development is the singular focus on ‘employer engagement’. It’s a foregone conclusion that the group is assisting individuals hoping to achieve employment or a work placement, but what makes the group unique is the added objective of effectively engaging employers.
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For this reason, it may be helpful to establish a Mission Statement for the group. This can be one of the objectives in the first organizing meeting you host.
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Your Mission Statement should be unique to your group and reflect what the collected members hope to achieve through the group. It should state a purpose for the group which can determine who might be an appropriate member and ensure the group continues to meet the needs of the participants.
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It’s also helpful to address key activities the group will undertake on a regular basis that help support the mission of the group. This is an example of our what a Mission Statement and a list of key activities might look like.
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EXAMPLE MISSION STATEMENT
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The Fredericton Mastermind Group for Job Development (FMGJD) seeks to support, develop and encourage employment, education and vocational development professionals to better engage local employers in inclusive hiring and effective recruitment.
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We seek to achieve this goal through five (5) regular activities:
- Active discussion about employer engagement
- Publicizing details about programs and services
- Meeting monthly to network and exchange information
- To remain current on the changing labour market
- To discuss best practices in effectively engaging employers
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While this Mission Statement and Activities might be suitable for your group or perhaps one you would like to modify to suit your needs, it’s only intended to be a starting point from which you can create your own Mission Statement and Activities.
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A Mission Statement might seem like an unnecessary step but without one, participants might develop unstated expectations of what the group’s purpose is supposed to be. Overtime, as new members come and past members depart, your Mastermind Group might develop a new purpose. While this new purpose may be valuable to the community and the stakeholders, it won’t necessarily be dedicated to help job development staff grow in their roles and outcomes.
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Timing for Meetings
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Timing is a key factor for a Mastermind Group. Groups can take place weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly or even quarterly. If you are looking for a group that will be actively engaged, build accountability and motivate the members, you’ll likely want a meeting that occurs at least once per month.
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You want the date and time of the meeting to be clear and predictable. It’s the tendency of many meetings to choose the date of the next meeting at the current meeting. The intention is to ensure the maximum number of people can attend. Unfortunately, there is always going to be a conflict for someone and groups invariably go forward never quite knowing when the next meeting will occur.
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By selecting a pre-determined date and time, (such as the second Tuesday of every month 1:00pm to 2:30pm at the meeting room in the downtown library), participants can easily plan for this and schedule it for months to come. Invariably this will cause a conflict for some and while this is unfortunate, the long-term success of your group needs to be the priority over any one person’s schedule. Simply try to schedule a time that will work for most people even if there is the occasional conflict.
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The location of the meeting can be a regular venue or can change based on space availability. The location and the date of the meeting should be predictable, meaning that even if participants haven’t attended in sometime, they can predict or easily look up the location and the time of the next meeting without much difficulty.
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If you choose to do the meeting online, tools such as Microsoft Teams, GotoMeeting and Zoom will suffice, but it would be beneficial to encourage participants to leave their cameras on to achieve greater participant engagement.
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The meeting should be no less than one hour and no more than two. That is a pretty tight time-frame but one hour ensures participants get a meaningful opportunity to connect while limiting the meeting to two hours ensures people don’t skip it for fear of losing out on an entire morning or afternoon of work.
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How is a Mastermind Group run?
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For each meeting there should be a chair and someone to take minutes. Not everyone is going to be able to attend and so establishing a Google Drive folder to track minutes and information shared will be valuable for engaging those who can’t attend regularly.
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It is extremely valuable to establish a set agenda whereby things that come up can be scheduled in. Work with your group to ensure you build an agenda that is effective and enjoyable to go through.
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The following is a sample Agenda you may want to adopt or build on in creating your own regularly occurring Agenda.
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EXAMPLE: Mastermind Group Agenda
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- Identify the Chairperson and Minutes Taker
- Meeting called to order
- Discussion of items brought forward from the last meeting
- Participants share what is new or changing within their organization and/or services
- Employer perspectives – how has the labour market changed in a way that is impacting employers
- Employer news – changes in the local employer landscape
- Project discussion – dialogue over projects the group is undertaking such as a large job fair or networking event
- Additional Items
- Meeting Adjourned – Select Chairperson and Minutes Taker for the next meeting, confirm date and venue
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The Minutes taker should distribute the minutes to everyone who attended the meeting and remind everyone about the next meeting.
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In building an agenda, you want to create a format that is easy to follow, provides tangible items people can discuss, opportunities for people to share what they are doing and one which celebrates success. You want to avoid implementing policies or items that are overly bureaucratic, time consuming and those which don’t provide value back to the individual participant.
Finding opportunities to benefit employers
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Over the next three weeks, we will be discussing how the benefits employers receive from a Mastermind Group for Job Developers and how this group can raise the profile of job development in the community. For our April 28th meeting we will return with a LIVE session on Monday morning, at 8:30am Pacific / 11:30am Eastern where I will share our plans for a National Networking Day, providing an opportunity for Job Developers to gather coast to coast to establish Mastermind Groups, develop community plans and seek opportunities to significantly grow the awareness of job development services in the community.
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We’ll be releasing Part III of our four week series on job development networking next Tuesday April 22nd (as many career development organizations will be closed on Monday April 21st) in the Job Development Pulse as well as on YouTube and on most podcast platforms. See you then.
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We'll be sharing these thoughts at our #MotivatingMondays meeting of the Canadian Job Development Network, Monday Apr. 14th at 8:30am Pacific; 9:30am Mountain; 10:30am Central; 11:30am Eastern; 12:30pm Atlantic and at 1pm in Newfoundland.
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On the morning of Monday April 14th 'Click this Link' to join the session on YouTube. (We're returning with LIVE sessions on April 28th.)
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