Employability skills issues at the heart of staffing struggles

By SAMANTHA JOHNSON, Special to the News on July 28, 2022.

Agreeing to an interview but not showing up, accepting a job and failing to show on the first day, not being able to pass a drug test, not understanding vacation days need to be approved, taking a day(s) off without telling anyone, and suddenly quitting when taken to task on anything. These seem to be a few of the issues some employers are struggling with right now.

Sharon Hayward, CEO of Medicine Hat YMCA said, “We can’t wrap our heads around it, and aren’t sure how to respond. We don’t want to enable it, but we are so short staffed, we also don’t want to chase people away. If you want to work for us, we want to hire you.”

Luc Beriault, Senior Recruitment Manager at Positive Life Concepts in Medicine Hat, indicated “we are hearing it from some of our clients. When there is a market crunch like this there are difficulties. We can say there is a labour shortage. We’ve had two or three horrible years and we’ve also had the federal government funding a tremendous amount of people and it’s giving them some bad habits.”

Hayward finds the entire situation bizarre and there is uncertainty on how to handle it. One thing the YMCA is going to do is add a new module, which will include basic professionalism and employability skills.

“While this training will be helpful for us at the Y, ultimately it will benefit the individuals taking it because these skills will be used throughout their career,” said Hayward.

As a recruiting agency, Positive Life Concepts isn’t seeing it so much and believes it’s due to the way they do their onboarding and the people they attract. As they provide temporary employees to their clients, it gives those who work for them lots of variety, such that they don’t fall into the trap of getting bored with the job and wanting to move on.

“If someone comes to us saying they need a certain amount of people for a set period of time, we know they’ve had trouble finding the right people, the right labour, the right skills,” explained Beriault.

“They need our people to show up on time with proper equipment and a valid driver’s licence and stay until the job is done, maybe working long hours. Our onboarding as a recruiting agency is different. The people that are with us, some have been here for 8-10 years.”

With Canada’s and Alberta’s unemployment rate at a record low of 4.9 per cent, most of the job vacancies are in the service sector, usually minimum wage jobs.

With those types of jobs readily available, it’s easy to leave a current one over the slightest inconvenience and get another somewhere else. However, as Hayward commented, it’s still burning a bridge and sometimes it’s difficult to know how that affects long-term prospects.

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