We are about to enter the third calendar year of the pandemic. Not the sort of news one wants to begin a new year with. While many jobs have returned despite the disruptions, there are many in the hospitality, restaurant, retail, tourism, and entertainment sectors that have yet to come back. Some who worked in these sectors will not return either out of fear of catching the virus or because they have reskilled and moved on.
Then there are jobs in other sectors that are being replaced through the increasing pace of automation (partly brought on by the pandemic) or by changes in government policies because of climate change. It is likely we may never see new pipelines being built or see new investments in oil and gas exploration. The irony is that even with these disappearing jobs, there is an acute shortage of labour in the Western world. Two factors account for this. First, the flow of new immigrants has slowed to a trickle because of the pandemic and secondly there is a mismatch of skills in the labour market. 84% of Canadian companies expect to have hiring challenges next year and 33% of employers say applicants lack soft skills.
" 84% of Canadian companies expect to have hiring challenges next year and 33% of employers say applicants lack soft skills. "
From 30,000 feet it is easy to reach these macro economic conclusions. How to solve these problems for a displaced worker or a graduating student is another matter. Many employment agencies and community career development centres have opened their doors to help displaced workers, new entrants to the job market, and those living in the margins of society. Others like ACCES in Toronto featured in this month's issue of the CERIC magazine, continue to find innovative ways to serve clients remotely.
In this newsletter we are featuring the work of Smallwood Community Centre in Marystown, Newfoundland and Labrador. Marystown is a small traditional fishing town closer to the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon than it is to St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador’s capital city. In talking with their staff, what stands out most is their dedication to the wellbeing of their community. Their voices get emotional talking about individual cases - a down-and-out young woman they helped many years ago and who is now a successful professional career woman raising a child. Their 9 week Jobs Transitions program shows remarkable progress in their graduates’ soft skills levels and employability. We compared their results with those in Canada who have taken the ERS twice and the differences are startling. While the benchmark Canadian figures showed a 12 to 25% improvement in soft skills after an intervention -in itself a good accomplishment – those for Smallwood showed a remarkable improvement of 27 to 40%. With this level of success it is easy to see why communities like Marystown thrive and why it is easier to help source government funding.
We have always believed that to truly measure the effectiveness of local program interventions, it is important to have clients take the ERS assessment before and after local programs. It helps with government funding but more importantly, it helps you to make improvements to programs and get successful client outcomes.
The Smallwood Crescent Community Centre is a not-for-profit, charitable organization in
Marystown, Newfoundland & Labrador. The Centre uses a variety of tools to measure client success, particularly as it pertains to Employment Programs. One of the longest running employment programs at the Community Centre is the Transitions to Work Program, which had its first cohort intake in 2011. The program is operated in funding partnership with the Government of NL.
Since the beginning of the program, the Employment Readiness Scale (ERS) has been used to measure progress in clients’ employment readiness. Clients are assessed during the first week of the Transitions to Work program and then again at the completion of the nine-week program. The program is designed to help clients work toward reaching their employment and education goals, while also building confidence, self-esteem, and better interpersonal skills. Clients learn to cope with stress, think positively, build relationships, take care of their mental health, develop resumes, prepare for job interviews, and perform job searches. All these factors play a role toward an individual’s overall employment readiness. Each day of the Transitions to Work program is unique and introduces a new topic, keeping all the participants engaged throughout the nine weeks of the program.
" Clients learn to cope with stress, think positively, build relationships, take care of their mental health, develop resumes, prepare for job interviews, and perform job searches. "
Since the beginning of the program, the Employment Readiness Scale (ERS) has been used to measure progress in clients’ employment readiness. Clients are assessed during the first week of the Transitions to Work and then again at the completion of the program. The program is designed to help clients work toward reaching their employment and education goals, while also building confidence, self-esteem, and better interpersonal skills. Clients learn to cope with stress, think positively, build relationships, take care of their mental health, develop resumes, prepare for job interviews, and perform job searches. All these factors play a role toward an individual’s overall employment readiness. Each day of the Transitions to Work program is unique and introduces a new topic, keeping all the participants engaged throughout the nine weeks.
On the first day of the program, clients are introduced to the ERS in a group setting. They are encouraged to ask questions or comment on the scale and how they feel about the upcoming assessment. Introducing the scale in a group setting, prior to their one-on-one counselling session & employment readiness assessment reduces possible intimidation of taking the scale and heightens their preparedness.
The Employment Counsellors administer the initial ERS assessment to program clients during Week One. Once completed, the Employment Counsellors review the results and build them into the initial employment counselling session with the participants. This discussion centres around a client’s strong points, areas of weakness, and the assessment bar charts. Clients then continue the Transitions to Work in an effort to complete the remaining nine weeks of the program and graduate with their certificate. During Week Seven (the final week of in-house sessions before job searching), the ERS is administered a second time. The second assessment is mandatory for clients and is built into the program schedule to ensure a near 100% retake rate. Following the second assessment, the Employment Counsellors once again review the results. The Employment Counsellors discuss the individual’s overall improvements and successes, as well as their soft skills and employability factors where the client can still grow. Relaying the positive changes of the ERS to the clients acts as a confidence booster and propels them into their future endeavors with a sense of hope.
The statistics related to how the clients have progressed is a mandatory part of the reporting to the Provincial Government’s Department of Immigration, Population Growth and Skills. It proves to the Department, as the program funder, that clients are benefiting from the program and making positive changes in their lives. To date, 235 clients have completed the ERS at the Community Centre. As the graph below shows, positive change from the initial ERS to the retake are significantly high - ranging from a 23% change in outcome expectancy, to 46% change in career-decision making. The success of our clients could be attributed to the structure of the Transitions to Work program, its mandatory reassessment at the end of the program, and the range of sessions & workshops facilitated with the clients during the program.
The Smallwood Crescent Community Centre provides programs and services to tenants of NL Housing and to members of the general public who may need to avail of the services. These programs fall under five large pillars - social, education, employment, recreation, and health. A further breakdown of the programs includes an After School & Homework Haven program; a community meal program; youth outreach; and a number of pre-employment & employment programs such as First Step, Transitions to Work, Connections, & Linkages. The overall goal of the programs is to enhance skills within the community, improve education & health outcomes, and build community spirit. The Community Centre is managed by an independent Board of Directors that oversees a full-time staff of an Executive Director, Coordinator of Community Programs, two Employment Counsellors, a Youth Outreach Coordinator, and several Community Program Assistants who work directly with families & children in the social, recreation, and health programs.
New Features and Services:
We are pleased to announce the launch of ERS2.0 on Oct 4, 2021.
At the request of many of our users, we have added several new features to make using the ERS easier, faster, and more secure. Here is a list of some of the features:
Add and delete staff users at your discretion.
Recycle assigned but-not-used codes in batch mode.
Complete flexibility in using the “Follow-Up” module.
Email capability from within the ERS.
Encrypted passwords for each staff member and client.
To help you get familiar with these new features, we will be holding 4 training sessions during the month of October.
Please choose a suitable time and date that works for you and join us there.
Looking forward to sharing these new features with you!
The response and the attendance to our monthly webinars series for the first half of the year has surpassed our expectations. The topics and schedules of the webinars for the last quarter of the year are on our website under Webinars.
These webinars are to provide refresher training as well as to introduce and highlight some of the more important and sometimes less known features of the ERS.
All webinars are presented by one of our seasoned and very knowledgeable Service Affiliates.
To register, please visit our website, click on Events and select the webinar of interest and you will be redirected to the registration page.
The ERS measure progress clients make when enrolled in local programs. This then helps the Agency with program planning and funding. The webinar shows how, when, and where to set up the programs.
This webinar looks at running Excel and PowerPoint reports in the ERS using the Agency’s demographic coding variables and local programs - a highly effective process to measure success of programs and secure funding.
In the webinar we will look at the many changes in the ERS introduced in 2021 and the innovative ways Agencies are using them to advance the practice of career development.
For more information on any of the above, please contact your ERSI Service Affiliate or send us a note at admin@ersscale.com
Special Speaker Series:
We are excited to announce a new feature at ERS: A special speaker series. These seminars will be held once a quarter and will feature a prominent speaker to provide insights and trends of interest to career development professionals.
If you would like to present or have a recommendation for a speaker please contact us at admin@ersscale.com
Our next special series will be on Mental Health in Mid November, presented by Ontario Shores. Stay tuned for details and register early as spots are limited.
ERS Scale Inc., 3328 Kingsway Ave, Vancouver, British Columbia V5R 0A4, Canada, 1-877-600-7737