Look for our next weekly newsletter on December 1, 2016
What does WPH believe?
Business, Labour & Community: Planning for Prosperity!
Soft Skills Toolkit for Employers
The results of Workforce Planning Hamilton's annual Employer One survey, completed by 144 employers in January 2016 reinforced that local employers continue to seek employees that have strong soft skills.
Employers are looking for new hires and current employees that demonstrate:
Strong customer service skills - 36% Good work ethic, dedication, dependability - 42% Good communication skills - 34%
With this information in mind, WPH is working on phase 2 of our Soft Skills Project. The first phase of the project included a report authored by John-Paul Hatala, Flowork Inc. called Soft Skills Development: Improving Organizational Effectiveness, which included how to implement a soft skills development strategy and soft skills best practices.
Phase 2 of the project includes working with employers and service providers to develop a strategy, and tools and resources to assist employers to identify and build appropriate soft skills for their workforce.
Employers who are interested in being part of a focus group to review the soft skills tools can contact Cyndi Ingle at 905-521-5777 or by email at: [email protected]
Postsecondary education and jobs: It's a question of skills
A recent study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario reports that the age old problem of matching recent post secondary graduates to employment continues to be a problem.
To move forward - to solve the alignment problem between postsecondary education and jobs and to solve the skills gap- colleges and universities need to do a better job of measuring and credentialing skills (not just the traditional transcript of what courses a student took, the grades they obtained and the credential they received) and employers to do a better job of identifying the specific skills necessary for success in particular jobs.
At first it appears that being self-employed is the same as being an entrepreneur. Both require the individuals to keep their skills current, to grow their networks and to develop resiliency skills. Both also require that the person be continuously scouting or prospecting ensuring that there are future contracts or sales. But there are many other differences that need to be considered. These differences include how the person interacts with their clients, scalability, tolerance for failure, and tolerance for risk.
The results of Workforce Planning Hamilton's annual Employer One survey, completed by 144 employers in January 2016 reinforced that local employers continue to seek employees that have strong soft skills.