In today’s competitive labour market, finding and retaining talent is increasingly challenging. Getting access to the hidden talent market has become a business imperative. Where can business owners find help?
“Of all the challenges facing midmarket businesses in our survey, finding, and keeping the right talent presents the toughest. This is particularly true for the medium enterprises in our survey, a full half of whom mentioned talent as a top-three pain point – 15% more than the second spot, supply chains.”
Veterans are an untapped pool of highly skilled candidates available to fill key roles. Nearly 150,000 highly skilled Veterans are ready to fill key roles in the workforce, with around 8,500 Canadian Armed Forces members transitioning to civilian life every year, as per the 2021 Census data.
Strong partnerships fuel this Challenge
True Patriot Love, Challenge Factory, and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce have partnered to launch the Veteran Friendly Ontario (VFO) Challenge – an experiential training program designed to accelerate and enrich small-medium sized business recruitment, onboarding, and hiring of Veterans.
Are you up for the Challenge?
“Changed/challenged a lot of assumptions – about veterans, about hiring, about identifying corporate culture” Business Leader Participant
This free virtual training program is taking place in later September and October and addresses what 70% of employers are reporting: their real challenge is finding and keeping great people on staff. They need new solutions, because what worked before is now broken.
Getting access to hidden talent pools, like Canada’s Veterans, has quickly become a business imperative. But employers don’t know where to start.
Why Veterans are great hires
Veterans can be great hires. They are work-ready, loyal, educated, and highly skilled. This talent pool gets refilled each year as members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) transition from military into civilian life. But their experiences and resumes are getting lost in translation.
Small- and medium-sized organizations are eligible to participate
Join us for three 90-minute virtual sessions that will not only challenge your assumptions but also provide you with valuable insights and skills to enhance your business. As a small business owner, your only commitments are time (sessions are held from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. so you can get on with your day), willingness to host a Veteran for a day, and a desire to learn.
The program will develop Veterans’ civilian career-ready skills and provide content and tools to help Veterans gain situational awareness of SME needs and challenges. In parallel, it will facilitate further opportunities for small- to medium-sized business owners and hiring managers to experience first-hand the value of Veteran talent, skills, and problem-solving, while increasing business owner competence in talent attraction, retention, and career management.
Our goal is to increase income resiliency for both groups and potentially create new employment opportunities.
“I made huge strides in only a few days with that motivation. Now I’m better positioned to move ahead.” Veteran Participant
Benefits of Participation
Cost Free learning from experts in the Future of Work
“Opened my eyes to new ideas” Business Leader Participant
The program facilitator, Challenge Factory is a research agency and consultancy. Our work with hidden talent pools has been developing since the founding of the organization over a decade ago.
We help purpose-driven organizations and communities shape the Future of Work and several resources have been created to assist both hidden talent pools and employers in their times of need. As a small business ourselves we understand what small and medium-sized businesses have been experiencing.
People say timing is everything, well, the timing couldn’t be more right for the VFO Challenge.
To learn more and to register or nominate participants in this Challenge please visit:
https://challengefactory.ca/services/consulting/get-involved/vfo/
Mark your calendar
The VFO Challenge sessions are all virtual, held in the morning from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM for three consecutive weeks:
To learn more about the VFO Challenge, check out recordings of both the Veteran Information Session and the Business Owners Information Session or contact us at [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you at the Challenge!
