Initiative keeps tabs on CEOs’ concerns, helps solve problems
When a local college is churning out graduates who don’t have the skills organizations need, HR might not know where to turn. They might have ideas on how to modify a trades training curriculum to match industry needs, but do they know who to call at the college with the feedback?
The Nova Scotia Community College sees itself as responsive and “plugged into” the market, said Anne Rodgers, the college’s regional manager of customized training and part-time studies. But she admitted that, until recently, it would have been hard for a business representative to get the message to the right ear.
But now the college can count on an ability to receive, and respond to, industry feedback. That’s because it has partnered with 25 public- and private-sector organizations in an initiative to help existing businesses solve their needs and grow. Last year, Rodgers heard from a handful of businesses in the booming construction sector that they couldn’t find enough drywallers. Within a matter of months, she was able to set up a curriculum, hire an instructor and train a group of students.
“All of those people had found employment and with the next wave of students, employers are waiting to grab them,” said Rodgers.
In another instance, an association of building supply dealers said they needed a new crop of experts with the sales skills to eventually manage building supplies stores. The college worked with the association to modify a training program. And when the 20 students completed the program, “employers were chomping at the bit to hire them,” said Rodgers.
The initiative, called SmartBusiness, was set up in 2004 by the Greater Halifax Partnership, a government and private-sector economic development organization, after two years of planning. The initiative brings together 26 organizations to help businesses troubleshoot problems such as labour, regulations, financing and taxation. The thinking at the time, said Brad Smith, vice-president of business development at the Greater Halifax Partnership, was that driving a region’s economic development is not just about attracting new businesses to the area. It’s also keeping and helping existing businesses grow.
“The SmartBusiness initiative is really premised on one fundamental, which is 80 per cent of our growth is going to come from our existing companies. We need to go out and talk to CEOs and find out what the opportunities are for growth, what the barriers are to growth and match them up with resources to get things done,” said Smith.
Talking to those CEOs are two interviewers who weren’t hired for their survey or interview experience, said Smith. They’re sales and business development people hired for a strong business knowledge and an ability to engage in an intelligent conversation with a CEO about what his worries are.
“These are people who could carry on and guide a consultation process, fill out the data we needed and at the same time watch where a CEO becomes emotionally engaged. So when they see (the CEO’s) eyes flicker and his face turning red when they bring up regulations, they know that’s where they want to probe.”
Taking action
Themes that emerge become topics for information sessions. In recent months, a number of CEOs have complained that they’re not finding a strong work ethic among young workers. So last December, staff at the Greater Halifax Partnership brought together entrepreneurs and executives for an information session on the young generation’s value system: they’re not just there to work, but to contribute and be engaged.
“We not only gather the information, but we have communication tools to bring it back to the community. That’s really key, because otherwise it’s useless,” said Smith.
With interviews completed with about 900 CEOs and continuing at a pace of five or six a week, Smith said the SmartBusiness initiative has the power to deliver “real-time data that gets updated everyday.”
To help business leaders bring up an issue, the SmartBusiness team uses a software program built specifically for business retention and expansion. Once a company raises an issue with an interviewer, the problem is entered into the system and routed to one of 26 service agencies or providers that could handle the problem. These organizations, partners in the initiative, include a telecom, a credit union, city hall, the department of education, the workers’ compensation board and an immigrant settlement services agency.
To make sure these organizations are as responsive as they can be, SmartBusiness has identified an individual at each of these organizations who acts as a primary contact. These individuals know what the project is about and they’ve got the senior-level support to make sure they can take a problem to the right people in the organization and have it addressed.
Once a problem has been resolved, that individual enters the response into the web-based system and staff at SmartBusiness get an automatic e-mail explaining what steps were taken and what the outcomes were.
“You absolutely need to track: were they able to resolve the issue? What was the result? That’s so we understand what the potential or lost opportunity was,” said Smith.
“We had a company with a permit issue. They needed to break the ground by the Wednesday and they didn’t know what the problem or where the holdup was. We ran it through the system and 6:20 p.m. that Friday we had a call from city hall saying they had resolved the issue and to go ahead.”
Smith said the state of Wisconsin was wooing that company, and it was critical to make things easy to ensure they stayed in Nova Scotia.
“We needed to show that they’re important. We cared, so that Wisconsin didn’t get a chance to have them break ground in that city. So the outcome of that was, Wisconsin didn’t get those 50 jobs. We did.”
Bridging the knowledge gap
Smith said he has seen a considerable level of disconnect between businesses and service providers and agencies.
“An example would be one firm that was bringing in Ukrainian welders and was having language problems. But it didn’t know that (in Nova Scotia) we have an organization called the Metropolitan Immigration Settlement Association (MISA), which has people going into organizations to help with (these) issues,” said Smith. “And so we’re sitting there, ‘Have you done this?’ ‘Who are they?’ Well, that’s an easy one. Two days later MISA is in there helping them with those issues.”
Smith said he understands why businesses often grapple with what resources are out there. “Business people are getting up everyday and it’s, ‘What’s in front of me today?’ And SmartBusiness is going in there and finding out where the knowledge gaps are, and saying, ‘Hey, we can fix that. We can help you there.’ That’s why they’re thankful — because we’re doing the thinking and analysis for them.”
Labour needs in Nova Scotia
What keeps CEOs up at night
According to the interviews and surveys conducted by SmartBusiness, the top four worries for CEOs are labour, regulations, financing and taxation. For example, 55 per cent of the firms surveyed rate availability of labour as fair to poor. In the construction sector, almost two in five say it’s poor and three in five say they’re worried about the aging workforce.
“Labour continues to get more and more emphasis,” said Brad Smith, vice-president of business development at the Greater Halifax Partnership, the organization behind SmartBusiness. “Labour is going to be the economic driver of the future. There’s no question. If you have well-trained labour that aligns with business needs, you’ll do well.”
An early example of the role workforce and labour issues play in business retention and expansion came early in 2004 — before SmartBusiness was officially launched. When Toronto-based Manulife Financial took over Maritime Life, which employed 1,100 people in Halifax, business and community leaders in the area feared an exodus of jobs to Manulife’s head office.
Robert Daigle, vice-president of business development of Nova Scotia Business Inc., a provincial economic development agency, said when staff at the agency heard of the news, they called together a number of stakeholders in the region and arranged a meeting with contacts at Maritime Life with whom they had had a long-term relationship.
The point was to hear from Maritime Life what the region’s strengths were from the perspective of available skill sets.
“And it became very clear that it was going to be in IT,” said Daigle.
So the group made a pitch to keep CGI, a firm that was providing information technology services to Maritime at the time and which was also in danger of leaving. The group noted the “strong alignment” between industry, government and the colleges and universities. The province also offered financial incentives — $7.9 million paid out over five years for the creation of 500 jobs on top of the 400 existing jobs. But Daigle said it was the IT workforce, not the provincial money, that sealed the deal. CGI stayed and turned its offices into an international software development centre.
“The first thing when we approach an organization about developing a business, the first question is, can they get the people? That’s the first question on their mind. ‘If we’re to locate here, can we get the skill sets to do the job?’”
The Nova Scotia Community College sees itself as responsive and “plugged into” the market, said Anne Rodgers, the college’s regional manager of customized training and part-time studies. But she admitted that, until recently, it would have been hard for a business representative to get the message to the right ear.
But now the college can count on an ability to receive, and respond to, industry feedback. That’s because it has partnered with 25 public- and private-sector organizations in an initiative to help existing businesses solve their needs and grow. Last year, Rodgers heard from a handful of businesses in the booming construction sector that they couldn’t find enough drywallers. Within a matter of months, she was able to set up a curriculum, hire an instructor and train a group of students.
“All of those people had found employment and with the next wave of students, employers are waiting to grab them,” said Rodgers.
In another instance, an association of building supply dealers said they needed a new crop of experts with the sales skills to eventually manage building supplies stores. The college worked with the association to modify a training program. And when the 20 students completed the program, “employers were chomping at the bit to hire them,” said Rodgers.
The initiative, called SmartBusiness, was set up in 2004 by the Greater Halifax Partnership, a government and private-sector economic development organization, after two years of planning. The initiative brings together 26 organizations to help businesses troubleshoot problems such as labour, regulations, financing and taxation. The thinking at the time, said Brad Smith, vice-president of business development at the Greater Halifax Partnership, was that driving a region’s economic development is not just about attracting new businesses to the area. It’s also keeping and helping existing businesses grow.
“The SmartBusiness initiative is really premised on one fundamental, which is 80 per cent of our growth is going to come from our existing companies. We need to go out and talk to CEOs and find out what the opportunities are for growth, what the barriers are to growth and match them up with resources to get things done,” said Smith.
Talking to those CEOs are two interviewers who weren’t hired for their survey or interview experience, said Smith. They’re sales and business development people hired for a strong business knowledge and an ability to engage in an intelligent conversation with a CEO about what his worries are.
“These are people who could carry on and guide a consultation process, fill out the data we needed and at the same time watch where a CEO becomes emotionally engaged. So when they see (the CEO’s) eyes flicker and his face turning red when they bring up regulations, they know that’s where they want to probe.”
Taking action
Themes that emerge become topics for information sessions. In recent months, a number of CEOs have complained that they’re not finding a strong work ethic among young workers. So last December, staff at the Greater Halifax Partnership brought together entrepreneurs and executives for an information session on the young generation’s value system: they’re not just there to work, but to contribute and be engaged.
“We not only gather the information, but we have communication tools to bring it back to the community. That’s really key, because otherwise it’s useless,” said Smith.
With interviews completed with about 900 CEOs and continuing at a pace of five or six a week, Smith said the SmartBusiness initiative has the power to deliver “real-time data that gets updated everyday.”
To help business leaders bring up an issue, the SmartBusiness team uses a software program built specifically for business retention and expansion. Once a company raises an issue with an interviewer, the problem is entered into the system and routed to one of 26 service agencies or providers that could handle the problem. These organizations, partners in the initiative, include a telecom, a credit union, city hall, the department of education, the workers’ compensation board and an immigrant settlement services agency.
To make sure these organizations are as responsive as they can be, SmartBusiness has identified an individual at each of these organizations who acts as a primary contact. These individuals know what the project is about and they’ve got the senior-level support to make sure they can take a problem to the right people in the organization and have it addressed.
Once a problem has been resolved, that individual enters the response into the web-based system and staff at SmartBusiness get an automatic e-mail explaining what steps were taken and what the outcomes were.
“You absolutely need to track: were they able to resolve the issue? What was the result? That’s so we understand what the potential or lost opportunity was,” said Smith.
“We had a company with a permit issue. They needed to break the ground by the Wednesday and they didn’t know what the problem or where the holdup was. We ran it through the system and 6:20 p.m. that Friday we had a call from city hall saying they had resolved the issue and to go ahead.”
Smith said the state of Wisconsin was wooing that company, and it was critical to make things easy to ensure they stayed in Nova Scotia.
“We needed to show that they’re important. We cared, so that Wisconsin didn’t get a chance to have them break ground in that city. So the outcome of that was, Wisconsin didn’t get those 50 jobs. We did.”
Bridging the knowledge gap
Smith said he has seen a considerable level of disconnect between businesses and service providers and agencies.
“An example would be one firm that was bringing in Ukrainian welders and was having language problems. But it didn’t know that (in Nova Scotia) we have an organization called the Metropolitan Immigration Settlement Association (MISA), which has people going into organizations to help with (these) issues,” said Smith. “And so we’re sitting there, ‘Have you done this?’ ‘Who are they?’ Well, that’s an easy one. Two days later MISA is in there helping them with those issues.”
Smith said he understands why businesses often grapple with what resources are out there. “Business people are getting up everyday and it’s, ‘What’s in front of me today?’ And SmartBusiness is going in there and finding out where the knowledge gaps are, and saying, ‘Hey, we can fix that. We can help you there.’ That’s why they’re thankful — because we’re doing the thinking and analysis for them.”
Labour needs in Nova Scotia
What keeps CEOs up at night
According to the interviews and surveys conducted by SmartBusiness, the top four worries for CEOs are labour, regulations, financing and taxation. For example, 55 per cent of the firms surveyed rate availability of labour as fair to poor. In the construction sector, almost two in five say it’s poor and three in five say they’re worried about the aging workforce.
“Labour continues to get more and more emphasis,” said Brad Smith, vice-president of business development at the Greater Halifax Partnership, the organization behind SmartBusiness. “Labour is going to be the economic driver of the future. There’s no question. If you have well-trained labour that aligns with business needs, you’ll do well.”
An early example of the role workforce and labour issues play in business retention and expansion came early in 2004 — before SmartBusiness was officially launched. When Toronto-based Manulife Financial took over Maritime Life, which employed 1,100 people in Halifax, business and community leaders in the area feared an exodus of jobs to Manulife’s head office.
Robert Daigle, vice-president of business development of Nova Scotia Business Inc., a provincial economic development agency, said when staff at the agency heard of the news, they called together a number of stakeholders in the region and arranged a meeting with contacts at Maritime Life with whom they had had a long-term relationship.
The point was to hear from Maritime Life what the region’s strengths were from the perspective of available skill sets.
“And it became very clear that it was going to be in IT,” said Daigle.
So the group made a pitch to keep CGI, a firm that was providing information technology services to Maritime at the time and which was also in danger of leaving. The group noted the “strong alignment” between industry, government and the colleges and universities. The province also offered financial incentives — $7.9 million paid out over five years for the creation of 500 jobs on top of the 400 existing jobs. But Daigle said it was the IT workforce, not the provincial money, that sealed the deal. CGI stayed and turned its offices into an international software development centre.
“The first thing when we approach an organization about developing a business, the first question is, can they get the people? That’s the first question on their mind. ‘If we’re to locate here, can we get the skill sets to do the job?’”
