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Building and Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce is Alberta’s new ten-year labour force development strategy. This sub-strategy for the agriculture industry identifies priority action areas to address the specific workforce issues in primary production and agri-processing sectors. Agriculture and Rural Development will collaborate and partner with industry, industry associations and other stakeholder groups to implement the strategy.
Purpose of the Strategy:
The purpose of the strategy is to help Alberta companies and primary producers:
A) Retain workers and reduce worker turnover.
B) Recruit workers within Canada and internationally.
C) Assess and adopt technologies and automation, which will increase worker productivity.
D) Create a long term focus on workforce development.
A) Retention
Retention of workers to reduce turnover is critical. The focus of this strategy is to educate and inform employers of best practices and options to develop or improve their own programs for worker retention.
Actions:
- Conferences to explore best practices in hiring the right workers and retaining them.
- Workshops to provide hands-on application of methods to compete for and retain workers.
- Supervisor Training courses to improve skills of front line supervisors to coach worker performance and improve retention.
- Consulting Expertise – Support companies to access consulting expertise to develop and implement custom retention strategies.
- Implementation – Support cost shared funding for pilot projects and new initiatives with companies to encourage implementation of retention programs and demonstrate results.
- Work Environment – Review benefit packages for primary production workers. Identify safety programs to benefit food-processing companies.
- Under-employed Albertans – Encourage the development of untapped labour supply in Alberta – persons on income support, disabled, First Nations, Metis, and youth.
B) Recruitment
Actions:
Skilled, as well as lower skilled workers are needed. This strategy will focus efforts for worker recruitment within Canada, as well as internationally. Foreign recruitment is complicated and costly, and companies need to be prepared for added costs and potential issues.
- Job Fairs – Support companies to participate in job fairs within Canada or recruiting missions internationally to interview and select workers.
- Career Promotion and Image Enhancement – Support career promotional campaigns, trade designations and other initiatives to enhance the image of the industry to encourage employment and career choice.
- Recruiting – Assist companies to obtain Labour Market Opinions. Coach companies in best practices for overseas recruiting and settlement of temporary foreign workers. Assist in international recruiting. Provide recommendations for permanent residence under the Provincial Nominee Program.
- Staffing Agencies – Support smaller companies or groups of processors to share the costs of staffing agencies to represent them in international recruitment.
C) Workforce Productivity
Actions:
Productivity improvement through technology and automation is needed to keep Alberta processors competitive and better utilize the available workforce. This strategy supports the evaluation and adoption of technology and automation, as well as the improvement of operating efficiency.
- Technology and Automation Awareness – Identify and share information on technologies and automation. Support companies to undertake direct evaluation and assessment.
- Engineering Assessments – Support companies to access food processing engineering expertise to identify and evaluate productivity projects.
- Automation Solutions – Develop research initiatives with companies, equipment manufacturers, universities and technical institutions to develop or adapt automation solutions for the agri-food industry.
- Productivity Impementation - Support development of industry funding agreements to create automation and productivity pilot projects which will support the acquisition of automated equipment, process improvement and adoption of new technologies.
- Lean Manufacturing – Facilitate the adoption and application of lean manufacturing practices to increase manufacturing productivity, reduce costs, add value to products and services, and improve cash flow and profits.
- Productivity Financing Program – Support application by processors to AFSC Value-Added and Agribusiness Program (VAAP) for loans to acquire and install equipment to improve worker productivity.
D) Long Term Focus – Workforce Development Council
The issues of labour supply for the agriculture and food industry are at a crisis point now, however, long term commitment is needed to ensure future workforce needs are met. A Workforce Development Council, with representatives from industry, government and educational institutions, would elevate the level of discussion, demonstrate commitment and engage partners.
The purpose of the council is to provide a mechanism to channel support, validate strategies and provide input for longer term workforce development issues, including training needs. This council would also play a key role in providing strategies to broader provincial government labour strategies. |
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