Sharing the Flame: Work and Learning

Recognizes workplace learning programs that promote lifelong learning, facilitate career development and upgrade employee skills

Alinov Québec

Created in 1995 by the Continuing Education Department of the Cégep de Trois-Rivières, Alinov is a practice firm which assists unemployed clients to use its employability training to upgrade their knowledge and skills while acquiring work experience and pursuing their efforts to find employment.

Alinov is set up as a full-scale virtual company that replicates the commercial operations of a distributor of aluminum recreational and domestic products. Trainee clients are offered a 14-week training program divided into three segments:  40% work experience, 40% training and 20% job search. 

Objectives
  • offer a service to job seekers in the form of a professional development training period in a simulated business environment, thereby promoting a rapid and lasting return to work and giving them confidence in their abilities by upgrading their skills through experience and training in a real work situation
  • offer a service to employers that enables them to recruit qualified employees who are ready to make a contribution from the moment of hiring
  • offer a dynamic and realistic process and opportunities to its partner members in Canadian and international practice firm networks
Innovation
  • opportunity to combine a number of facets of professional development in a single internship: accounting, human resources, purchasing and logistics, customer service, sales and marketing, graphics and computer support, communications and clerical support
  • allows employers an accurate assessment of an applicant’s abilities
Benefits

The experience segment allows clients to develop as they would in a real job and to apply concepts related to administrative operations according to their field of interest.  The training segment focuses on computers, interpersonal skills and attitudes, and languages.  The job search segment gives trainees the time to prepare their resumes and actively look for work.  Alinov’s job placement target of 80% is regularly achieved and exceeded.
Contact

Patricia Marchand
Chef de secteur
Alinov Québec, entreprise d’entraînement des Services d’intégration au travail du Cégep de Trois-Rivières
3500, rue de Courval C.P. 97
Trois-Rivières QC  G9A 5E6

Tel: 819.376.1721, ext 2064
Fax: 819.691.1256
E-mail: patricia.marchand@cegeptr.qc.ca
Website: www.alinov.ca
PTP – Adult Learning and Employment Programs

PTP­–Adult Learning and Employment Programs, formerly Preparatory Training Programs of Toronto, is one of Ontario’s largest community-based adult literacy and basic skills programs.  Their mission is to provide basic skills education, upgrading, job search and related services to adults preparing for employment, training or further education. Originally focusing on Essential Skills programming to guide instruction outcomes, PTP recognized the need to capture learning gains and developed Communications and Math Employment Readiness Assessment (CAMERA) as a reliable standardized assessment.  A job search program, Job Solutions, was developed to meet the needs of adults with language and literacy barriers. 

Objectives

Underpinning all of PTP’s work is a commitment to continuously improve adult learners’ access to excellent programs and services that reduce the barriers they encounter on their way to realizing their goals.  PTP actively pursues opportunities to engage in groundbreaking research and innovative resource development, particularly in the field of workforce literacy.  These activities allow PTP to continuously renew and refine the programs and services it brings to its participants.
Innovation

PTP’s CAMERA System is uniquely designed to be sensitive to the learner and accessible to agencies delivering workforce literacy. 

  • CAMERA (Communications and Math Employment Readiness Assessment) – a valid, reliable standardized assessment for capturing learner gains
  • Signposts – curriculum guidelines focusing programming on document use, reading text, writing and numeracy as described in HRSDC’s Essential Skills Profiles
  • workwrite series – seven instructional resources  linking directly to activities in the classroom by offering employment-contextualized practice
Benefits
  • more than half of PTP’s community of learners attain their training goals and an equal number find and maintain employment
Contact

Aleksandra Popovic
Senior Manager, Resource Development
PTP East Centre
815 Danforth Avenue
Suite 201
Toronto, ON  M4J 1L2

Tel: 416.510.3266 ext. 23
Fax: 416.510.2566
E-mail: aleks@ptp.ca
Website: www.ptp.ca
Reclamation and Prospecting (RAP)

The Reclamation and Prospecting (RAP) First Nations Workforce Training Program is a three-year pilot project that provides at-risk First Nations youth (18-35 years of age) with the knowledge and skills they need to find entry-level employment in the mineral exploration and mining industry.  First Nations youth considered at risk of not pursuing education or with limited employment opportunities are specifically targeted for this project.
Objectives
  • build participants’ labour market skills and employability
  • increase participants’ access to and interest in skills training and further education
  • build positive impressions of the mineral exploration, mining and environmental stewardship sectors as a provider of desirable employment opportunities for participants
  • generate efficient project design and processes
Innovation
  • hands-on, respectful education to at-risk First Nations youth
  • delivered by experienced instructors, industry professionals, First Nations team leaders and elders, student experience the benefits of working as teams, mentoring and exploring the industry in the context of their culture
  • living in drug and alcohol free bush camps that mirror actual industry exploration camps
Benefits
  • highly successful in building participants’ labour market skills and employability, increasing access to further training and education and developing positive relationships between First Nations communities and the mineral industry
  • 88.8% of the first year’s students found employment within one year of the program
Contact

Andrea Kosalko
Manager of Continuing Education & Industry Training
School of Exploration and Mining, Northwest Community College
3966 – 2nd Avenue
PO Box 3606
Smithers, BC  V0J 2N0

Tel: 250.847.4461
Toll free: 1.877.277.2288
Fax: 250.847.4568
E-mail: akosalko@nwcc.bc.ca
Website: sem.nwcc.bc.ca/
Teck Business Education Program

The Teck Cominco Business Education Program began as a single course in the Fall of 1996 and has grown into a Graduate Diploma that ladders into a customized Executive MBA program. This ongoing initiative demonstrates that universities and corporations can collaborate within pre-existing institutional frameworks to

  • develop rigorous academic programs that meet the needs of industry;
  • bring professors and professionals together to solve complex emerging problems in business and at the interface between business and society; and
  • provide a non-traditional path to a graduate degree for workers in remote locations.
Objectives
  • help managers approach decision making from business and social as well as technical and engineering perspectives
  • ensure academic rigour of training and development
  • help shape and propagate a common culture across a rapidly expanding organization
  • create sustainable communities of learning by bringing employees together from across the organization to learn and solve problems together
Innovation
  • works within existing institutional frameworks in novel ways
  • includes corporate subject matter experts in the program design
  • frames content from the client perspective
  • schedules delivery at the convenience of learners 
  • provides formal level of accreditation for some participants with limited formal academic qualifications
Benefits
  • develops the capacity of future leaders to manage sustainably in a globalized and rapidly changing industry
  • provides a non-traditional path to graduate education for non-traditional learners
  • brings the university into rural communities
  • builds leadership capacity at the company, community and industrial level
  • provides opportunities for joint industry-university research and problem solving
  • provides insights for participating faculty members into key provincial industries
Contact

Mark Selman
Director
The Learning Strategies Group
Faculty of Business Administration
Simon Fraser University
500 Granville Street
Vancouver, BC  V6C 1W6

Tel: 778.782.5070 or 778.782.5013
E-mail:  selman@sfu.ca
Website:  business.sfu.ca/lsg  
Workplace Learning PEI Inc. Literacy and Essential Skills Development Service

Workplace Learning PEI Inc. (WPL) is a joint initiative of business, industry, labour and government that was developed in response to the changing needs of employees and employers on Prince Edward Island. WPL has been in existence in its current form since 1997.

The purpose of the WPL Literacy and Essential Skill Development Service is to address the lack of co-ordinated services, particularly in the areas of literacy and essential-skills training. Funding is provided by the provincial government to cover the costs of the program and time for employees to participate. By launching this program, the provincial government intends to remove the barriers that are associated with literacy issues.
Objectives
  • facilitate opportunities to acquire literacy, learning and essential skills
  • promote lifelong learning by reducing barriers to adult learning
  • encourage and assist employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to provide training for low literacy and/or less-skilled employees
  • recruit and provide training for practitioners
  • develop a comprehensive communications plan
  • establish WPL Literacy and Essentials Skill Development Service as a model of how a skills-development service can be successful in other jurisdictions
Innovation
  • workplace learning coordinators work with each employee to determine the best learning path
  • learning takes place at the workplace during working hours and is available to employees who are permanent, temporary, casual or on a recall list
Benefits
  • employees have more confidence, greater job satisfaction and are able to work more efficiently as a result of participating in WPL programs 
Contact

Barbara Macnutt
Manager, Workplace Learning PEI Inc.
PO Box 3254
40 Enman Crescent
Charlottetown, PE  C1A 8W 5

Tel: 902.368.6286
Fax: 902.368.4844
E-mail: bemacnutt@edu.pe.ca
Website: www.nald.ca/workplaceedpei

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