March 18, 2013

Updated national human resources toolkit being developed

VINCE VERSACE

DCN managing editor

LA MALBAIE, QUE.

A new national human resources (HR) guide is being developed based on the recently updated Saskatchewan Construction Association's (SCA) HR toolkit.

“The original toolkit was beneficial to our members and greatly appreciated,” said Doug Folk, SCA interim president and human resources co-ordinator.

“But, in this time of growth that we are seeing in our provinces, they advised us that they need information now and did not have the resources to research and develop them.”

>Folk explained the update to his association’s toolkit at the recent Canadian Construction Association (CCA) business and marketing development committee meeting in La Malbaie, Que.

The toolkit is specifically designed to help smaller member firms.

It was first developed in 2010 and it was so comprehensive that the CCA received permission from the SCA to adapt and re-print it as a CCA document, with the inclusion of national-level information.

The SCA said it focused on keeping the toolkit and its SCA Human Resources Binder practical for owner-managers and to create examples that are relevant and provide additional references.

The toolkit provides guidance about workforce planning, recruitment/selection, workforce engagement and performance and a “prescription for leading changing times” – which covers issues such as cash management, optimizing your workforce and managing expenses.

The association has increasingly worked at providing greater resources for labour-force development and an updated version was needed to meet current marketplace demands.

“One of our key issues is that our members are small, 20 and less employee type of construction firms,” Folk explained to the CCA committee.

“The resulting issues we have, with respect to bringing young workers into the workforce, are the lack of human resources support provided to those young workers. In many of those companies, the owner-operator is looking after all the different facets of running a company and the HR-side happens to be lacking or has less support for the young worker.”

Folk said that since the original inception of the toolkit, his association had received a number of requests for specific employment forms and worker orientation guidance.

The SCA binder now has 55 forms in it to give owner/operators just-in-time pieces of information that they can use.

“The issue, we felt, was that we were not maintaining enough workers once they get started down the path of a trade career,” said Folk.

The SCA binder is now updated, including the latest version of the HR toolkit, and it covers areas such as finance and administration, health and safety, conduct and discipline, SCA documents and strategic planning.

All SCA members are provided with the HR binder and they all have access to it on the association’s website.

The CCA has now agreed to once again update and adapt the latest version of the SCA toolkit, after receiving permission to do so.

“We want to ensure it has national focus; for example, references to provincial employment standards legislation will be removed and replaced with relevant references to federal legislation such as the Canadian Human Rights Act,” said Murray Aitken, CCA business and market development committee chair.

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