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Employer Cultural Diversity Support Services (ECDSS) Project
Background:
Immigrants are a major factor in population growth and a significant human resource for the Canadian labour market. Despite the fact that British Columbia has a large number of foreign trained and educated workers, employers have faced and will continue to be challenged by the critical issue of skills shortages. To assist employers with the integration of skilled immigrants into their workforces to fill these shortages, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. has developed a ‘5 Step Solution’ for employers to utilize the skills and experience of skilled immigrants to meet labour market demands. To build on the success of ‘5 Step Solution’, the Employer Cultural Diversity Support Services (ECDSS) is further introduced as part of labour market partnerships initiative by Ministry of Housing and Social Development.
ECDSS Objective
The primary objective of the ECDSS project is to focus on assisting employers in activities related to recruitment planning, workforce training and workforce maintenance through the identification of support service model to ensure all employee/employers’ level of cultural diversity awareness and skills are maintained.
ECDSS Target Group
The identified labour market issue focuses on local employers and employer groups, with specific attention to serving employers and employer associations from industries experiencing critical skill shortages in BC (Construction, Energy, Tourism & Hospitality and Transportation).
All sizes of employer organizations will be targeted including small and medium sized enterprises.
ECDSS Timeline
Phase One – Project Initiation and Development
Phase Two – Tool Delivery, Testing and Evaluation
Phase Three – Awareness Campaign
ECDSS Expected Results
The expected outcome is the development of a cultural diversity tool for employers that will improve their capacity to gain, train, and retain culturally diverse employees as well as an ongoing process for human resources planning.
ECDSS Community Partners
S.U.C.C.E.S.S. actively works with various community partners and for the purpose of this project, S.U.C.C.E.S.S will work with employers and employer groups in the Greater Vancouver area. It is expected that the project community partners will contribute to the project by a) participating in the Employer Project Advisory Committee meetings/promotion events b) sharing success stories from the employer test sites c) group discussion and speaking at events.
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