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The recipient of CERIC’s Etta St. John Wileman Award was announced as Lynne Bezanson, Executive Director Emeritus of the Canadian Career Development Foundation (CCDF) on Jan. 25 at Cannexus, Canada’s Career Development Conference. Lynne was recognized for a remarkable career, devoting herself to strengthening the reach and impact of career development in Canada and internationally. This award for lifetime achievement celebrates individuals who have established themselves as leaders within career development and devoted their lives to enhancing the sector as a whole. 

Wileman Selection Committee Chair Jennifer Browne honoured Bezanson as a pioneer in building the professionalism of the field. “From her early days as a teacher and guidance counsellor to her extraordinary work in the federal public service and non-profit sector in areas of research and development, policy consultation and capacity building, her commitment to this field and to those it serves knows no bounds,” Browne said. 

Beginning in 1976, Bezanson’s achievements include creating the national Competency-based Employment Counselling Training Program with the federal government to build the competencies of 4,000 employment and special needs counsellors. This program was recognized by Canadian post-secondaries and adapted by federal employment services in France, Sweden, Japan and Malaysia. In 1990, she joined CCDF and led the Creation and Mobilization of Counselling Resources for Youth (CAMCRY) initiative. CAMCRY was the first significant research and development initiative in the field of career development in Canada and served as a catalyst for career development as a viable research focus across Canada.   

In 1993, Bezanson became the Executive Director of CCDF and shaped it to become a trusted national leadership and innovation body for the career development sector. She was instrumental in forming the Canadian Research Working Group for Evidence-Based Practice (CRWG), creating collaboration amongst francophone and anglophone researchers across Canada and establishing the evaluation framework adopted by federal government to guide funded projects. She was a driving force behind the international movement to mobilize policy, practice and research leaders. She also chaired the International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy and was an expert contributor to OECD guidance studies internationally.  

Devoted to professionalizing the field, Bezanson brought the sector together to build the Canadian Standards and Guidelines for Career Development Practitioners. The first of their kind in the world, the S&Gs have underpinned practice and training in the field for over 20 years and served as a model for countries around the world. 

The award is given in the name of Etta St. John Wileman, a champion and crusader of career, work and workplace development in Canada in the early 20th century. She believed that work was about the individual and in the importance of work to the human soul. Wileman was a strong advocate for a national system of employment offices. She also lobbied for the role of parents and schools in the career development guidance of children. Past recipients of the award have included Marilyn Van Norman, Dennis Pelletier, Norman Amundson, Mildred Cahill, Bryan Hiebert, Donald Lawson, Michel Turcotte and Roberta Borgen (Neault). It is awarded on a less-than-annual basis. 

Bezanson was not able to join us for the virtual award presentation but CERIC hopes to be able to present it to her at Cannexus in person next year in Ottawa.

The majority of Canadian executives (81%) are having difficulty finding people with the right skill set to fill positions and 78% agree there is a skills gap in their respective industry, but few have drawn on the expertise of career development professionals to address recruitment and retention challenges, according to a national survey recently conducted by Environics for CERIC.*

For the Career Development in the Canadian Workplace: National Business Survey, CERIC surveyed 500 Canadian executives in more than 11 industries including service, retail, hospitality, construction and manufacturing. The survey reveals keen insights into Canadian organizations’ current views on skills and talent gaps in the labour market; hiring underrepresented groups as part of equity, diversity and inclusion strategies; and the importance of investing in career development. The survey also provides comparability to CERIC’s 2013 survey to track differences within the past eight years.

Top challenges for Canadian businesses

In this fluid pandemic landscape and underlying uncertainty, the challenge of finding young & skilled talent has increased in the past eight years. The top five challenges faced by employers are:

1. A shortage of skilled workers (75% vs 68% in 2013)
2. Finding young workers (66% vs 51% in 2013)
3. Supply chain issues (70%)
4. General state of the economy (69% vs 77% in 2013)
5. Regulation and red tape (52% vs 63% in 2013)

While employers in Ontario were the least likely to experience a shortage of skilled workers in 2013, they are now the most likely, followed by executives in Quebec and the Prairies.

Recruiting and retaining talent

Eighty-one per cent of Canadian executives are having difficulty finding people with the right skill set to fill positions in their companies – up from 70% in 2013. Additional difficulties include:

• Finding reliable candidates with the right work ethic (29%)
• Competitive job market in their respective industry (23%)

While the importance of resumes has not deviated significantly since 2013, executives are finding a potential employee’s online footprint to be increasingly important (63% vs 52% in 2013).

Despite the growing importance of equity, diversity and inclusion, there has been a modest increase in the proportion of executives putting effort into customizing their recruitment approaches to attract and reach members of underrepresented groups (51% vs 46% in 2013).

Take a hard look at soft skills

Executives who have experienced more difficulty in employee retention (72%) more often identify a skills gap in their industry (42%) and are finding it increasingly more difficult to recruit people with the soft skills they deem important (40%). While positive attitude (29%) and good communication skills (22%) continue to be seen as the two most important soft skills for prospective employers, the importance of reliability and dependability has increased by more than 100% since 2013. The survey revealed executives are most likely to hire someone with soft skills who is a good fit and provide training (78%).

Investing in career development to close the skills gap

While 73% agree employers have a responsibility to provide career management programs for employees, only 27% provide these programs and 45% were unaware of career development professionals before this survey.

“Canadian executives have the unique opportunity to help Canadians take charge of their career by investing in development strategies that help employees identify personal strengths and clarify career goals that can positively contribute to job satisfaction,” says André Raymond, CRHA, Laval University and Chair of the Board of Directors.

The findings from this survey will be released during an industry expert panel discussion at CERIC’s Cannexus conference on Jan. 24 at 1:15 p.m. ET.

*From Nov. 18 – Dec. 17, 2021, Environics conducted a national telephone survey with senior-level employees from 501 randomly selected Canadian businesses across the country. The margin of error is ± 4.4 percentage points, at the standard 95% confidence level.