Passport to Prosperity

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• Employers May Offer a Range of School-work Opportunities

        Adobe Acrobat files:

• Employer Checklist: Work-Experience Opportunities for Students, Determining the Best Fit for Your Organization
• Getting Key Decision Maker Buy-in to Offer High School Students Work Experience
• What Next? Steps to Implementing a School-Work Program
• Youth Work Experience Alleviates Pressure of Skills Shortages (News Release)
• Ten Reasons Why it Makes Good Business Sense to Offer Students Work Experience (News Release)

Wanted: More Interested Employers, More Work Experiences for High School Students

• More Work Experiences Needed for High School Students
• Employers Needed
• Offering Students Work Experiences
• Helping Students Benefits Employers
• Provincial Partnership Council Urges Employer Involvement
• Employers Endorse Programs That Offer Work Experiences
• Making the Connection, Getting Involved
  
  
• Business-Education Councils, 2005-2006

• Career talks, classroom visits
• Involvement in career fairs or career days
• Worksite or industry tours

• Job shadowing
• Work experience

• School-work transitions
• Cooperative education
• Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program
• Mentoring

Building the Talent Pool

• create better-prepared workers, and reduce time-consuming and costly recruiting, hiring and training efforts;
• help enhance the work ethic in students, and provide valuable lessons such as pride in a job well done, punctuality, dependability and honesty.

Boosting the Employee Satisfaction Quotient

• Employees who work with students gain new leadership and interpersonal skills.
• Employees say their morale is improved and they enjoy the enthusiasm of youth.
• Work experiences reinforce the organization's commitment to its workers and their families, by benefiting the children of employees.

It Makes Economic Sense

• Youth unemployment is persistently higher than the adult rate, while employers scramble to find good and committed employees.
• Giving students work experience helps promote a variety of career choices. It also enlarges the pool of qualified workers in sectors with shortages of skilled employees.

It's Good for All of Us

Provincial Partnership Council Urges Employer Involvement

The Provincial Partnership Council was created in April 1999 to lead an employer recruitment effort and to help create more opportunities for high school students to get work experiences. Top business and community leaders from across Ontario have joined forces with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities in support of this effort.

Thomas A. Flanagan, President and COO, BMO InvestorLine: "Students are an incredible resource for us, and we have, in fact, hired a number of them when they completed high school. We would encourage any employer looking for young, creative talent to come forward and involve their organization in these programs."

Nathalie Ouellet, Associate Producer, Mega TFO Children & Youth Programming
"Employers should be open to the idea of welcoming a student - I think they will be pleasantly surprised."

Dominic Totino, Director of Maintenance, Aviation and Flight Technology, Seneca College Aviation Program:
"It gives the industry a chance to show off good things about that particular industry and get students involved in it."

Mike Morgan, Program Head, Toronto District School Board:
"I would encourage every company out there to really invest in this program."

John Cordeaux, Chef, Fairmont Royal York Hotel:
"It gives us the opportunity to seek these young people right from an early stage and hopefully these people will be our future culinarians."

Madeline Dennis, Coop Education Coordinator, Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Sciences Centre:
"This is your future, our youth. So support it - welcome it with open arms. You won't be sorry."

Brian dePoe, Program Director, E-Z Rock:
"You want to get somebody that's good. You want to get them good, you have to point them in the right direction early on - and this program does that. I've seen it work and I certainly encourage any business to try it."

Catherine Swift, Chair, CEO and President, Canadian Federation of Independent Business:
"Employers are willing to train in the specific skills for the job in their workplace, but they want the person to have a decent work ethic. They want them to be punctual; they want them to be willing to learn; they want them to have a good attitude and enthusiasm, and those things that are very generic. You do that in one job and you're going to learn and pick up those skill sets that will apply right across the board for your whole life."

Charlie Coffey, Executive Vice-President Government & Community Affairs, RBC Financial Group:
"Education is the foundation of Canada's economic well-being and the prerequisite to sustaining our quality of life. This makes school-to-work transition programs - programs that help bridge the gap between learning and working - that much more of a high priority."