On October.26 – 29, We presented several concepts at the Pan Canadian Symposium on Career Development and public Policy sponsored by the Forum of Labour Market Minister (FLMM). Through our presentation we where able to demonstrate and showcase several ideas that have been implemented for local firms in the Kootenays supporting the labour market.

These concepts and online applications have helped organizations such as Kootenay Career Development Society (www.kcds.ca) and Community Skills Centre (communityskillscentre.com) reach out and engage the community using web based tools.

To give an example of some of the concepts we have applied to address the changing needs of the labour market in the Kootenays.

1.) A centre for collecting information
One of the first things we recommend working with any organization is the need to centralize office data and office processes. In the case of KCDS, a central platform for managing registration and office resources was essential….. This approach addressed both the volume of data being managed as well as the need to easily retrieve and add to the collection by members of the staff.

It was determined that a combination of hard copy and MS Office was not the ideal way of collecting and storing information within the organization. All of this information is required for reporting purposes, and retyping, copying and pasting, proved to be a time consuming process. We addressed this concern by combining the website with a comprehensive intranet back-end that provides the means for all KCDS staff to add, edit and report on a diversity of company data.

2.) Increasing communication capabilities between client and facilitator
Over the past several years the web has exploded with online concepts that bring the user closer to organizations (and each other) by employing “direct or lateral” communication tools.  These concepts imply that user’s of the website communicate directly with the organization (or each other) using the website itself, rather then traditional communication channels such as email or phone. This strategy has greatly contributed to the success of the KCDS website as the “one-stop-shop” for all job and career development, and encouraged a regular pattern of reoccurring visitors to the website.

3.) Creating a successful job board by engaging employers
We employed these “lateral communication” concepts on the KCDS website with great success bring employers close to the website and organization as a whole. Employers can register online and manage jobs on behalf of their organization.  Tools such as job expiry and quality control on behalf of the facilitators ensure the KCDS job board stays up to date and accurate.