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Graduate Grapevine - Number 11, Winter 2008

An International Perspective…Leveraging Immigrant Talent to Strengthen Canadian Business

If we always do what we always did, will we always get what we always got?

In a project funded by the Workplace Skills Initiative Division of Human Resources and Social Development Canada and hosted at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Linda Manning leads a team of professionals and academics working to understand workplace practices that may be unwittingly creating barriers for advancement and promotion of highly skilled immigrants in Canadian organisations. Armed with the research results, her team is now developing online training modules for small- to medium-sized employers (SMEs) and their immigrant employees to develop the competencies for an inclusive workplace.

In collecting data for this project, focus groups were held with human resource professionals and highly skilled immigrants in three cities in Ontario: Thunder Bay; Ottawa; and Toronto. These half-day focus groups are also being held in three cities in Quebec: Gatineau; Montreal; and Quebec City.

Canada’s SMEs represent over 97 per cent of independent business, and account for approximately 50 per cent of GDP. In 2005, SMEs employed 64 per cent of private sector employees (Source: Pohlmann, Swift and Whyte, 2006,‘Harnessing Canada’s Competitive Advantage: Small Business has Big Plans’, Business Outlook and Budget Priorities for 2007, Canadian Federation of Independent Business). Employers across Canada are facing increasing numbers of retiring management professionals, and this is causing concern for SMEs, in particular because of their limited resources. Those who retire take with them the tacit know-how of the business, know-what needs to be done and know-who of influence circles in the workplace (Source: Euker Tom R, 2007, ‘Understanding the Impact of Tacit Knowledge Loss’, Knowledge Management Review, Mar/Apr).This represents a significant loss to any business, no matter what size.

To fill the positions left by the retiring work force, employers usually groom younger employees, but there are just too few of them. There are, however, a growing number of highly skilled and experienced Canadian immigrants who can be trained and integrated into management positions and become leaders in the organisation.

The problem addressed by the Leveraging Immigrant Talent project is that even if they find employment, highly skilled immigrants are often underemployed and undervalued. Their competencies and capabilities are often not recognised; they become disengaged, and often leave the organisation. In fact, 40 per cent of skilled and professional male immigrants leave Canada permanently within 10 years of arrival (Source:Griffiths, Rudyard, 2008, ‘Wanted: Hard Workers Our Immigration System is Broken. Fixing it should be a bipartisan affair’, National Post 21April). This level of turnover would be a human resource challenge in the best of times, but given the looming shortage of management staff, and given the inherent difficulties experienced by immigrants, it has become a crisis.

The professionals coming to Canada have attributes that make them attractive as employees to be groomed for management and leadership. They come with a higher level of education than the average Canadian of the same age, and they often have years of valuable leadership experience when they arrive. They have overcome challenges that most Canadians never face: they have learned a second language well enough to work and live in a different country; they work in a culture far from home and family; and they are loyal and hard working. They want to stay with their employer and remain in Canada. So why do they leave? What happens in the workplace to make them disengage and give up?

The focus groups with human resource professionals and skilled immigrants revealed a remarkable similarity in perception and observed practices. Here Linda Manning’s team recounts the top 10 practices reported by both groups that are the core of the online training tool, which has been designed for use by employers and employees to help lower the barriers to management careers for highly skilled immigrants.

  1. Recognition of international credentials, which includes both work experience and education.
  2. Recognition of immigrant employee competencies and capabilities.
  3. Provision of opportunities for experience/training/professional development.
  4. Provision of opportunities to demonstrate leadership and management skills and competencies.
  5. Better communication practices, including communication channels and sharing the ‘unwritten rules of the game’ and an understanding of the organisational culture.
  6. Avoiding talent management practices that reflect bias in performance assessment methods and standards for promotion.
  7. Opportunities for relationship building and networking.
  8. Mentoring practices for immigrant career management.
  9. Acceptance of language differences (accent and methods of expression).
  10. Avoiding organisational bias reflected in inconsistent messages from senior management about diversity and resistance to diversity.

Competency profiles for managers, human resource professionals and employees have been developed from the list above. The next step in the development of the training modules is to identify the knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes that are preferred, and those that are observable and are trainable. It is expected that the first of the modules will be ready by early 2009. They will be available to anyone interested in learning more about employer practices for an inclusive workplace.

For more information

Readers are invited to contact Dr Linda Manning, PhD University of Ottawa.

Tel. +613 562 5800, Ext 3741
Email. [email protected] .

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