On Friday 10th November 2023, Prepr hosted and delivered an insightful event focusing on the Future of Upskilling in Canada. The event was hosted at the Ontario Investment Trade Centre, in Toronto which provided a fitting environment for a fruitful discussion on the future of employment, as well as Prepr’s growth over the last few years.

Participants of Prepr programs, including Patricio Herran from the Abbott Collection, who completed the Skills for Success program last month. Patricio spoke about the value gained from the instructors and program content. He touched on the “two different paths” he had learnt about, the first being 9 skills which are a collection of skill sets that assist in business and employment, while the “other path” focused more on completing the project of creating a business plan. Overall, Patricio shared that the Skills for Success program has assisted him in his current role as a manager, to think of “all the moving pieces”.

Issa Chini from One37 ID, presented the other side of the Skills for Success program, which works with employers to upskill members of their team. Issa spoke about the toolkit provided by the Prepr team to ensure and improve employee engagement. 

Prepr assembled an incredible panel of visionaries, which included Wendy Cukier from the Diversity Institute, Tricia Williams, PhD from Future Skills Centre – Centre des Compétences futures, and AJ Tibando from Palette Skills; the panel was hosted by Prepr’s Chief Learning Officer Caitlin McDonough.

The experts explored pivotal points such as the talent pipelines, soft skills integration, the business rationale for employer training programs, the role of technology in upskilling, and the sought-after elements in upskilling opportunities for job seekers and employees. 

Key takeaways from the panel discussion:

• Small and Midsize Enterprise (SME) should be working on adopting non-traditional methods to hiring and training. The more they work on the front-end process, the less they will need to subsidize on the backend.
• Learning platforms and training programs should focus on becoming more holistic in nature. By taking a more centralized approach to learning and career development, it will help employers feel more comfortable with taking and signing up for programs and/or learning platforms.
• Dr Wendy Cukier went into the thought process behind the Skills for Success framework by the Government of Canada, and highlighted the focus on skills development.
• Insight into the shift in trades in BC, and seeing the shift of skilled workers from one industry to another has provided many insights into skills shifts that happen on a macro level.

Let’s delve into the event through the lens shared by distinguished speakers.

To start with, the panel spoke about how many SMEs struggle to find value in investing into training as there is a risk factor involved with employees leaving once trained, which leads to an unneeded and unwanted cost to the company. They also discussed the risk factor surrounding employing candidates based on factors such as skills and potential, compared to the traditional credential based assessments which are done at the point of hiring.

AJ Tibando provided a brilliant solution to address this common fear as an employment and upskilling organization, stating that “employer-led-design is so vital to success for job placement. Sitting with those employers upfront and understanding what they need from a business perspective, really getting inside the psychological and emotional side of hiring for an employer will give you an understanding of what you need to reverse engineer” to create a more fruitful hiring process and experience. The panel collectively agreed that there also needs to be an awareness and understanding that strong talent is essential for a successful business. 

Tricia Williams brought up a crucial point regarding how we are in the “midst of a system wide shift of thinking about credentials to now looking at skills”. Many employers now are shifting traditional requirements and expectations during onboarding, to look for soft skills which can be harder to train for. This highlights an overall shift in credential based onboarding to now skills based onboarding.

As the conversation continued, the panel spoke on what the role of technology is in upskilling, and what learning platforms and training programs need to offer to enable and promote things like lifelong learning. Dr Wendy Cukier spoke on the effectiveness of having a “one door approach” when it comes to successfully developing a skills and employment ecosystem. Taking a centralized approach to learning and career development can enable all stakeholders to choose upskilling more comfortably, as there are less barriers to entry to improve your own skills, your team’s skills, or the organization’s processes. 

Dr. Wendy Cukier was on the expert panel that developed the new framework for the Government of Canada’s Skills for Success programs, and one of the main points she highlighted from this experience was that it was critically important “that we could define the skills, we could measure the skills, and we could connect between the measurement of the competencies and development”. Highlighting that the skills that are focused on in training programs should be measurable and well defined. 

Another key takeaway from this part of the discussion was experiential learning plays a big part in truly understanding the skills being taught. This is a huge focus on PreprLabs, as Lab and Challenge creators have focused on creating content that not only defines a clear path of action once the skills have been learnt, but puts these skills into real-world contexts so that users can understand how they would implement these skills in their own life.

To end the panel discussion, Tricia Williams spoke about a program she worked on with Calgary Economic Development, which trained employees in the oil and gas industry, to move to careers in the tech industry. It was insightful to hear about how many workers were forced to make those huge industry changes due to no fault of their own, and with markets changing rapidly as time goes on, it is vital for employers and industries in general to make multiple pathways for people looking to join, reducing barriers to entry, and providing the same level of clarity they are looking for. 

It was an insightful discussion on how various companies can improve their onboarding processes , ensuring the barriers to entry are removed. The panel spoke on how we are in a knowledge based economy, where their talent is a form of business infrastructure, just like any other material resource they would commonly invest in; while also looking at the Future of Upskilling at a macro level, taking into account industry shifts.