Conference Sketch

By David McKay

The Art of Networking and its Value as a Career Management Tool

Canadian Society for Training and Development Durham (CSTD – Durham Chapter)

November 20th 2008. Less than 48 hours before the event, the scheduled speaker sent an email from the airport—a death in the immediate family prompted a last minute cancellation. Immediately the chapter executive activated their networks and put an all-call out for an eleventh hour replacement.

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Challenges and Changes in the Career Development Field

By Judith Thomas and Trevor Snow

In today’s economy, Job Developers and Career Counsellors need to be prepared to assist all job seekers, including those with disabilities. Due to the aging population and an increase in the number of persons with disabilities, we are encountering a different caliber of client than in previous years. Working for the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work for the past few years has shown us a different type of clientele than we first encountered. In 2006, the vast majority of our caseload was seeking entry level positions. Our Workplace Essential Skills Partnership (WESP) employment program has greatly evolved since then to serve a very different demographic. We have very few youth and are serving mostly highly educated and very experienced people. Many of them have a gap in their employment to allow for a grieving process and acceptance of their new reality as a person with a disability.
Although WESP is familiar working with clients of this calibre, the numbers are notably increasing. With this economic climate, WESP is expecting to see even more highly qualified job seekers with disabilities in need of professional employment guidance.
As well as evolving many new and innovative workshop segments aimed at middle management level, we have had to drastically revamp our whole intake process. Topics of key interest to our clients, in addition to the usual employment ones, are disclosure, human rights, and accommodation needs. We also have equity employers come in to talk to our participants so that the latter hear “straight from the source.”
The WESP team also recognized the need to focus on employers looking to hire people directly into non-entry level roles. In doing so, WESP required to better understand the specific needs of these employers and ensure to meet or exceed them.

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It’s the Best of Times, It’s the Worst of Times

By Denise Feltham

Panic is a common emotion for many working aged individuals as they are bombarded with terms such as stock market crash, economic crisis and recession. Media coverage focuses predominantly on the automobile and real estate industries, citing massive layoffs, plant closures and a decline in housing sales and re-sales. According to Service Canada’s Labour Market Bulletin for the Greater Toronto area, despite a seasonal expansion that generated 71,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2008, the unemployment rate increased to 6.8%. Difficulties in the manufacturing industry as a result of soaring oil prices and a shift in focus from gas guzzling to more fuel efficient, smaller vehicles have caused a decline in the goods producing sector. The fallout of this changing trend is the impending loss of 2,500 jobs when General Motors closes its truck assembly plant in Oshawa in 2009. In the first half of 2008, Toronto experienced a 14% decrease in re-sale of homes, with real estate agents selling 43,685 homes from January to June. A decline in revenue for the newspaper industry because of reduced consumption of hardcopy papers in favour of more website visits resulted in 160 layoffs by Torstar Corporation. The tourism industry experienced a decrease in visitors during April, May and June because of a weakened American economy, a higher Canadian dollar, tightened border security and the inflated price of gasoline.

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Getting Stress Hardy

By Jerome Shore

People talk about stress all the time. We’re stressed because we have too much to do, in too little time, with too few people we really like in a world that’s become too complicated. When I’m under lots of stressful pressure I feel like I’m a wet towel being wrung by two giant hands and my sanity is dripping out.

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Is there an Art to Mastering Change?

By Di Wright

Mastering the art of change is essentially the embodiment of transformation of the spirit within. Masters of change transform adverse situations and challenges into learning opportunities for growth and development, not only for themselves , but also for others. They essentially shape transformation through challenge!

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Generational Conflict in the Workplace

By Marilyn Van Norman

I was asked by the CERIC Research Committee to do a literature search on ‘Generational Conflict in the Workplace’, as it was an area identified through a Contact Point survey as a topic of research interest. After doing the search both the committee and I were stunned by the amount of research that actually has been conducted and the number of books and articles written on this topic. I have listed several references following this article but a much more comprehensive bibliography can be found on-line at Contact Point.

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Women, Find Your Balance

By Jen Denys

I think I would have made a fantastic roaming reporter. I love to talk with people (friends and strangers) about where they are in life, how they got there and what’s next for them—sometimes to the chagrin of my family. I particularly enjoy talking with women about the choices they have made when it comes to finding balance in their lives. Being a mother of young children, I used to think that balance was an issue exclusive to my circumstances. I’ve come to know that all women face this challenge whether it’s balancing work, kids, fitness, time with spouse, caring for aging parents, time for self, community activities, etc.

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Is Your Schedule Out of Balance?

By Janet Barclay

Life today consists of a flurry of activities, including work, shopping, family, household chores, social engagements, community service, continuing education; the list goes on and on. In fact, there may be days when you find yourself eating “on the run” or while you are working, or rushing from one place to another with little or no break in between. Although you may feel that you have to maintain this pace in order to meet all of your commitments, if you keep it up too long, you’ll get tired and stressed out, and unable to do your best at anything.

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