HIO At Work

Hire Immigrants Ottawa

__ Immigrants play an increasingly important role in our economy – as employees, as consumers, and as connectors to emerging markets.

__ Ottawa is becoming home to a greater proportion of Canada’s skilled immigrants, resulting in an increasingly multi-cultural consumer demographic.

__ Labour shortages will soon be felt across many sectors due to declining birth rates, declining numbers

of post-secondary graduates, and unprecedented levels of retirements. Canada will be increasingly reliant on immigrant talent to meet our skills and labour force requirements.

“The local pool of skilled immigrants is a valuable business asset that can help business owners understand and grow their changing customer base. Hiring practices that encourage diversity are simply good business practices.”

Erin Kelly, Executive Director, Ottawa Chamber of Commerce and Joanne Lefebvre, President and CEO, Regroupement des gens d’affaires de la Capitale nationale.

Why HireImmigrants?

The province of Ontario is in the midst of transitioning from an industrial economy based on physical labour to a service-based creative economy, with jobs that require analytical skills and judgment. The city of Ottawa, with its well-educated, service-oriented workforce, and its unique combination of government, technology and university employment is ideally suited to this new vision. Lawyers, scientists, business people, technologists, researchers, artists, entertainers, managers, analysts, teachers and doctors are all examples of the high-paying jobs associated with this class of worker. Ottawa’s immigrant labour force includes many such highly educated professionals. In fact, per capita, the Ottawa region is home to the most highly skilled immigrants in Canada.

It’s Simply Good Business...There’s a strong business case for employers to diversify their workforce. Here are just some of the benefits:__ Attract and retain top talent to alleviate pending skill and labour shortages;__ Better understand and respond to the increasingly diverse local customer base; __ Expand local markets, and develop new global markets, by leveraging immigrants’ international experience and cultural awareness; and__ Enhance productivity, creativity, employee relations, and decision-making through diverse approaches.

Diversified Workforce

… And It’s Good For Ottawa.We all benefit when skilled immigrants in our community are fully employed in skills-appropriate positions. Overall disposable income in the community is increased and, consequently, so are consumer spending and government tax revenues.

There Can Be Challenges.It is one thing to embrace diversity as a concept; it is quite another to achieve organizational diversity and leverage it for success. Local employers face several challenges when recruiting and integrating immigrants into the workplace. Among the most common challenges are language, assessing foreign credentials, and working with cultural differences - including preparing the workplace to be inclusive.

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AboutUs

Hire Immigrants Ottawa (HIO) is a community-based initiative that brings together employers, immigrant agencies and stakeholders to enhance employers’ ability to access the talents of skilled immigrants in the Ottawa area. Funded by the Government of Ontario and launched in 2006, HIO is a project of Ottawa’s Internationally Trained Workers Partnership (ITWP), a locally coordinated approach to addressing barriers to employment for internationally trained individuals.

HIO’s objective is to increase the capacity of employers in the Ottawa region to effectively integrate skilled immigrants into the local workforce. This objective is being achieved through a multi-pronged approach that includes: __ An Employer Council of Champions featuring senior executives from top Ottawa employers who champion the integration of skilled immigrants into the labour force; __ Sector Working Groups that address systemic barriers in their respective sectors; and __ A local awareness campaign that promotes greater understanding of the social and economic value that immigrants bring to Ottawa.

Funded by the Government of Ontario

Employer Council of Champions

BioTech sector working group

Finance sector working group

Public sector working group

Health sector working group

IT sector working group

Employer Councilof Champions

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The Employer Council of Champions (ECC) gives Ottawa’s employers a collective voice, enabling them to champion successful integration of skilled immigrants into the workforce. The ECC is a cross-sector council including leading Ottawa public and private sector employers and influential business associations.

Role of the ECC__ Promote and champion the issue and lead by example__ Develop employer-oriented solutions__ Prepare organizations to compete for the best new talent__ Learn from and network with like-minded businesses

Sector specific working groups are operating in information technology, health care, finance, biotech, and the public sector. Working ‘on the ground’, each group tackles barriers to employment from an employer perspective. Participants include HR professionals from ECC organizations, immigrant agencies, unions, government, educational institutions, and professional associations.

Working Group Objectives__ Address barriers – recommend and implement solutions to common barriers, such as Canadian work experience requirements, language, cultural differences, access to professional networks, and human resource processes.__ Identify gaps – share information and identify areas for improvement, and implement action plans to reduce the gaps.__ Create hiring opportunities – link qualified immigrants with local employers.

Sector Working Groups

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Awareness Campaign

An ongoing campaign creates community awareness around the issue of integratingimmigrants into the local labour market and promotes greater understanding of the social and economic value that immigrants bring to the city. Elements of the awareness campaign include:__ Quarterly HIO Communiqués that are distributed to stakeholders and interested individuals; __ Print media and online advertisements;__ Periodic media advisories and press releases, as well as local media coverage of significant events and coverage through print and online articles in various journals and reports; and__ The HIO website which provides access to HIO Communiqués, media related materials and other resources and information for employers, including downloadable documents such as the Working Groups Action Plan and the ‘Employer’s Guide to Integrating Immigrants into the Workplace’.

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IT sector working group

Health sector

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IT sector working group

Health sector

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ECC Objectives__ Collaborate – create an environment of cross- sector collaboration for the delivery of effective and innovative programs.

__ Build capacity – stimulate strategic investments and partnerships that encourage and enable more of Ottawa’s employers to hire immigrants.

__ Initiate action – act as a catalyst for new ideas, innovation, excellence and improvement.

“Hire Immigrants Ottawa works with employers to enhance their capacity to attract and retain the very best talent and to help them develop solutions to the challenges they face. Together, we’re working to ensure that skilled immigrants are given an equal opportunity to contribute to the future of Ottawa, and building stronger workplaces that benefit from a truly talented and diverse workforce.”

ECC Co-Chairs, Rosemarie Leclair, President and CEO, Hydro Ottawa Group of Companies and Hicham Adra, Sr. Vice President and General Manager, National Capital Region, CGI

HIO At Work

Stakeholder RelationsHIO has been a catalyst in strengthening relationships among local employers, immigrant service agencies, and educational institutions. One concrete example is the recent launch of the Ottawa Job Match Network, a one-stop service for local employers to help them identify qualified immigrants for employment opportunities.

Cross-Sector Information SharingWorking group members share information, promising practices, and useful tools and resources at their monthly meetings. HIO ensures that this infor-mation is shared between working groups as well as within the membership of each group. As the number of sector-specific working groups grows, new groups benefit from the previous experiences of already established groups.

Knowledge TransferHIO supports other regions interested in learning how to establish a similar model in their municipalities and communities. This includes proactive outreach to communities in Eastern Ontario as well as responding to expressions of interest from communities and organizations across Canada.

Collaborating

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ECC Summit and HIO AwardsThe ECC periodically hosts a Summit which provides an opportunity to publicly celebrate successes, highlight promising practices, share information, and recognize employer achievements. The HIO Awards recognize local employers for their innovative recruitment and retention policies, and promising practices around the integration of skilled immigrants into their organizations.

Employer’s GuideIn partnership with the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, HIO has produced an Employer’s Guide to integrating immigrants into the workplace. The guide is particu-larly aimed at Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) who typically have limited human resources capacity. This online guide offers practical tips and suggestions for employers to address the most common challenges that they face when recruiting and integrating immigrants into the workplace.

Cross Cultural CompetenciesHIO provides opportunities for employers to participate in cross-cultural information and training seminars and workshops. These short-burst seminars and workshops are aimed at improving employers’ cultural competencies so that they may better prepare themselves and their organizations for a more culturally diverse workplace.

Building Capacity

Skilled Immigrants HiredEmployers participating in HIO have demonstrated an increasing ability to success-fully recruit and hire skilled immigrants. Successful strategies include reviewing and revising HR policies and practices supporting employee diversification, improving recruitment activities targeting skilled immigrants, and participating in networking and coaching events involving skilled immigrants.

Informing and Educating Information and education help organizations, employees, immigrants, and the community at large achieve greater success with integrating skilled immigrants into the workplace. HIO periodically hosts information sessions for employers, highlighting available useful tools and resources. HIO produces regular communiqués that are distributed to a broad range of stakeholders and interested individuals, periodically releases media advisories, and receives local media coverage of significant events.

Action PlanThe Working Groups have identified the main barriers and systemic challenges within their respective sectors, and have produced an action plan to address the barriers and challenges. The ECC strongly supports the action plan and is committed to ensuring that appropriate elements of the plan are undertaken within their respective organizations.

Initiating Action

To Learn More

HIOVisit the HIO website at www.hireimmigrantsottawa.ca. The site provides access to resources and information for employers.

Contact Us613.228.6700info@hireimmigrantsottawa.ca

The Internationally Trained Workers Partnership Ottawa (ITWP)Created in 2002, ITWP is a locally coordinated approach to addressing barriers to employment for internationally trained workers in Ottawa. Visit the ITWP website at www.itwp.ca

The Internationally Trained Workers Partnership Ottawa partners are: