Pilot project in Vancouver focuses on 5 training dimensions, gives candidates ‘place to work and grow in Canada’
A new bridge-to-work program designed to help internationally educated professionals (IEPs) integrate into the Canadian information and communications technology (ICT) sector has wrapped up its first pilot phase in Vancouver. The results were favourable for everyone involved, according to one of the firms that helped develop the program.
“We’re signed up and ready to go when it comes back to Vancouver,” said Scott Michaels, vice-president of client services at Atimi Software and a member of the Integrated Work Experience Strategy (IWES) advisory committee.
“The program was really well-run and the people running it were really well-motivated. The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) did a really great job at pre-qualifying people, too, so the risk too us (as an employer) was really low.”
In total, 29 IEPs completed the ICTC-run, industry-designed program in the Vancouver area in two separate intakes, which ran from March to December 2009. A second multi-intake pilot for IEPs is scheduled to run in Markham, Ont., this spring.
The barriers IEPs face when trying to navigate the Canadian ICT workplace are described as interpersonal in nature. The IWES program allows IEPs to identify and improve those “soft skills” that are necessary for integrating into the Canadian ICT workplace while also preparing candidates for specific occupations and arranging work placements with ICT employers.
“Their technical skills are fine,” said Michaels. “They just really need a place to work and grow in Canada.”
IEPs who enrol in the IWES program spend six weeks in the classroom receiving training in the following five industry-identified dimensions:
• workplace cultural intelligence
• workplace communication
• business networking experience
• connection to community
• guided work experience.
The classroom exercise is followed by a minimum three-month practicum.
The three IWES participants whom Atimi Software took on and then hired permanently after the practicum were able to integrate more quickly into the company’s self-directed workplace culture, said Michaels.
“We’re specialists, we do Mac software, which is not a skill that is widely available anywhere, so we’ve been reaching outside Canada for some time already,” he said.
“But the people who came through this program have a much quicker path to responsibility,” he said. “They’re able to take on solo tasks a lot faster than IEPs that did not come through the program and they’re already an integral part of our team now.”
The IWES program was piloted in partnership with SUCCESS, a multi-service immigrant settlement agency serving the Greater Vancouver area.
Most IEPs do not come to Canada with a “technology problem” but face an employment “integration” problem when they get here, said Paul Swinwood, president and CEO of ICTC.
“Some of these people are coming from countries where, when they graduated from university, were told where they were going to work. They have never had to set up an interview, never had to network, so bridging those cultural differences is very important,” he said.
“But the average IEP is coming here with a work history, so we’ve created programs that identify their areas of development and then work with them on building those. Things such as getting through an interview, working within the system and business networking.”
Linking IEPs with Canada’s small-to-medium-sized ICT firms is another important goal of the program. Of the resumés IEPs send out to ICT companies in Canada, 90 per cent of them go to the biggest 20, said Swinwood.
Creating win-win situations for both sides is key in closing the ICT labour shortage. The ICTC report Outlook on Human Resources in the ICT Labour Market: 2008-2015 estimated Canadian employers will need to fill up to 178,800 ICT jobs between 2008 and 2015.
“The small- and medium-sized employers are the ones out there really screaming for a competent, skilled workforce right now. We’re providing that avenue as well. The real result of the program is confidence-building, on both sides,” said Swinwood.
As newly arrived IEPs in Canada, both Marilou Cajayon, who is now a quality assurance analyst at Atimi Software, and Mauricio Pereira de Oliveira, who was hired after his practicum to work in the project support office at Atimi Software, agreed the greatest gift the IWES program provided was a new sense of assertiveness, confidence and independence.
“Business networking was the best thing I learned,” said Pereira de Oliveira, who has 13 years’ experience in IT, the last seven in his native Brazil.
“For a recent immigrant to Canada, it’s very hard to get a job without previous local experience. What I learned to do well was to contact employers, develop communication and offer my services to them,” he said.
Cajayon, who came to Atimi Software through the IWES program and built more than 11 years’ experience in software development in the Philippines, said volunteering helped her learn to adapt to Canadian society and workplace. She was even accepted as a volunteer at the 2010 Winter Olympics though her career with Atimi Software derailed that plan.
“IWES encouraged me to do volunteer work and that has given me a lot of confidence to interact and to relate to different levels of people here in Canada,” she said. “And it helps me to fit in, while the classroom lectures teach you how to deal with conflict and deal with colleagues.”
Both of them credit the IWES program and others like it for helping to inspire small- to medium-sized ICT firms such as Atimi Software to open their doors to IEPs in Canada.
“Programs like IWES really diminish the gap between IEPs and local employers,” said Pereira de Oliveira.
For Swinwood, whose sector council strives to create a fully prepared ICT industry and workforce in Canada, the most gratifying thing is to see IEPs being able to access the skills they already have and putting them to use for the sector in Canada and for themselves.
“With the knowledge economy, your ability to say what you can do for the company, and the ability to demonstrate that you’ve done it before, is very important. Don’t say, ‘I can write 150 lines of code,’ tell them how you can help them create a more efficient system. IWES gives them the confidence to say that they’re not just a tool in the company’s arsenal but an asset to its team.”
Andrew Warren is a Regina-based freelance writer.
