In partnership with SaskJobs, the Kindersley Chamber of Commerce held a special event yesterday in town that worked to show people how they can recruit and retain workers inside a community. 

Randy Jeworski was the lead presenter, and is a Senior Account Executive at the Employer Services Branch with the Ministry of Immigration and Career Training. He shared some background information before taking questions following opening remarks by Kindersley Chamber of Commerce President Rick Miller.

The lunch-hour event began with a call-back to all of the work the Chamber team has done to paint a pretty recruitment picture for the Town of Kindersley. They know they can promote the different aspects of a small town that everyone looks for, and Executive Director Kevin Martin talked about what that means specifically.

"We have what's called an investment attraction portfolio. It's basically 30 pages of all of the great reasons there are to move to Kindersley. Rick started the shop local program a few years ago and that's going well, but this attraction portfolio was kind of a naturally evolving document. As a Chamber of Commerce, one of our mandates if I may use that word, is to attract people and/or businesses to town."

A few of the local attendees made plans to catch up with the Government team who made the trip down. Some good questions were traded back and forth, and the following statement from Martin was one of the main messages that came out of the talk.

"Like they were saying during these crazy times you really have to think outside the box. Like Randy was saying to, sometimes all it can take is a different wording for an ad for someone to think 'hey maybe I can do that'."

Social media presence from each the Town and Chamber has increased over the past year, and can be major tools as Martin and the Chamber really see the potential of people from Kindersley helping to paint the picture of why it's worth it to move here. The other side of this issue is people actually wanting to work, and one thing taken away from yesterday's forum was how the employee now really drives things.

The team at SaskJobs understands this, and wants to work with the willing workforce who is willing to "drive the bus" as we approach the latest period of hiring. People specifically hired to recruit are available through the government, and other features they are presenting such as "Job Feature Friday" help out their overall work being done to get the word out there and bring people to town.

These strategies are being worked on to recruit and retain people in communities, but one piece of the presentation was about growing the talent at home and keeping it there. The idea of "career trees" has been tossed around to give Saskatchewan students a visual outline of where they could potentially enter the workforce based off of class choices.

"It's going to take a bit of an educational program to get people to think differently about work."

Martin wants to see businesses outside of the Chamber circle flourish just as much as their members, and doing whatever they can to promote the idea of working in Kindersley is something that should keep new businesses opening up instead of a very negative result for everyone in just closing down. 

This level of care is just another small town advantage,  and Martin wants to make sure that it is front and centre for anyone making a recruiting pitch to Kindersley.

Visit this link for more information on the team that came out to Kindersley.