Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER MAY 2018 12 NEWS "If you look at their experi- ences, there's a lot of individuals that have gone to school for ge- ography, for phys-ed, for English literature, for fine arts, and here they are selling enterprise soft- ware for 10s of millions of dol- lars that had nothing to do spe- cifically with what they're doing right now," he said. "e key word here is trans- ferable skills; where people have been either let go, or they're look- ing for a new job and they want to have their skills transferable into another industry." ose human skills will be im- portant for the future when many people will jump to different ca- reers and industries, especially if they are transferable. "Case in point, the cannabis space is exploding right now, and up until two years ago, nobody had any real experience within cannabis per se, that they could put on the resumé," said Quarin. "All the individuals that we're recruiting for the cannabis space, they are looking for transferable skills." "If I'm speaking as someone who's never seen the cannabis plant before, never smoked be- fore, (but) they truly understand the way the regulation system works within Health Canada, or they understand agriculture because they've worked within the forestry industry, those can be transferable into a medicinal thing," he said. Education's role But are schools focusing enough on these soft skills? Institutions are teaching hu- man skills, but they may need to shift their focus, said Sarah Watts- Rynard, executive director at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum in Ottawa. "It's harder to put your finger on how you describe solving or how it is that you participate in active listening, for example… those are the kinds of skills certainly em- ployers are looking for, but I think that's a much harder thing to de- scribe," she said. "ere are ways of practising teamwork in education, there are ways of being a good communi- cator and there are elements in almost every program that speak to that." Often, you'll hear the stereo- typical criticism of millennials not having the verbal communication skills, said Reynolds. "Everybody's on screens and communicating and using text messages and messaging-type formats and I do think it's incum- bent upon the schools to make sure that we do develop that softer side too, and not make it all about the numbers." "It's an evolution: We're recog- nizing that those softer skills are important and we need to make sure that we're retaining that within the educational system," she said. Skills-development institu- tions should begin to more for- mally teach soft or human skills so future workers are better able to manage disruption, said Watts-Rynard. "It's a matter of revisiting what the curriculum looks like already and where some of those skills elements actually do get picked up, and then to really identify the gaps." It's important to consider how we can rethink our education sys- tems, said Hartpence, and "cata- lyze so we redirect and improve our education systems where nec- essary, to allow for the transitions to happen in the future." Employers are starting to probe some of the areas that are more about the fringe part, the social part of education, or those extracurricular activities, said Watts-Rynard, "because those are perhaps the ways that people can best articulate where they gained teamwork skills or problem-solv- ing skills or perseverance." While these kinds of skills may be prized by employers, they can't always be taught in a school setting. "Let's assume we're going to teach you the technical skill, what I want to know is: How do you feel about safety or tell me about a time that you worked as part of a team? How do you communicate with people because communi- cation and the ability to problem- solve as part of a team is actually critical to you being mentored," said Watts-Rynard. Work-integrated learning might be another way to develop human skills, she said. "Apprenticeship is like work- integrated-learning on steroids," said Watts-Rynard. "We're starting to see more post-secondary programs trying to integrate co-ops and intern- ships and those other kind of placements, recognizing that we can teach you everything there is to know about being an ac- countant, but until you actually are trying to work with a client or a spreadsheet in a real envi- ronment, you really can't under- stand the complexity of trying to do that." Apprenticeships can be more about training to competence, according to Nobina Robinson, CEO of Polytechnics Canada in Ottawa, an advocacy group for 13 technical institutions across Canada. "Apprenticeship is work-based learning, where you are spending 80 per cent on the job, but 20 per cent of your time you come back to class and you get in-class train- ing," she said. at has not been done for a range of professions in Canada and it probably should be consid- ered, said Robinson. "Just because you have a BA in political science doesn't make you a good policy analyst; just be- cause you have a BA in commerce doesn't make you a good market- ing and salesperson for a company that wants to innovate." SKILLS < pg. 3 Candidates now adding soft skills to resumés

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