How Challenge Factory works to address labour and skills shortages in Canada
The challenges:
- Canada’s military Veterans experience identity-based challenges when they leave the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and enter the civilian labour market. Some struggle to find any work; others struggle to find the right work that will lead to fulfilling careers.
- Canadian employers miss out on hiring talented, adaptable Veterans who can fill their labour and skills shortages because of biases about this population.
The client:
- Veteran-serving organizations and funders like Veterans Affairs Canada
- Career development organizations like CERIC
Who we help:
- Non-profit and government organizations working to support our Veterans through programs and services
- Employers across Canada that need to find, hire, and retain great talent—with a focus on small- to medium-sized businesses (SMEs)
- Veterans transitioning to civilian workplaces
The solution:
- Before addressing the needs of a new population (Veterans), we spent a year just listening to their experiences, challenges, and wins by attending events and getting involved with organizations that bring Veterans together.
- We piloted experiential programs that brought together Veterans and transitioning older workers, who also experience identity-based career transition challenges, to test how inclusive learning programs can break down barriers and lead to better career outcomes for both cohorts.
- We conducted market research that found a) little was understood about employer biases concerning the Veteran population, and b) few employer-focused tools and resources existed to help SMEs understand why Veterans make great hires.
- We conducted the first ever national study that quantified the civilian workplace characteristics of Veterans (such as communication styles) and defined specific biases that exist in employers.
- We created a suite of employer-focused tools designed to help them find, hire, and retain Veterans (and understand why they should).
- We conducted a national study to measure the impact of our three employer-focused tools:
The impact:
- We’ve developed a deep understanding of how experiential learning programs can break down barriers and lead to better career outcomes for Veterans (and older workers).
- Our work has led to the modification of aspects of Veteran career transition supports across the country.
- For the first time, there exists an evidence-based understanding of employer perceptions of Veterans, differences in military-civilian communication styles, hiring challenges in tight labour markets, and the need for employer-focused tools and resources.
- Our learnings and insights about how employers use hiring tools and where there are opportunities for improvements can inform transition, job development programs, and other supports offered to employers and Veterans.
- We’ve developed a reusable program evaluation model for future use.
- We’ve engaged with hundreds of small business owners, hiring managers, Veterans, and Veteran-serving organizations across Canada.
The next steps:
We continue to use the findings of our national impact study to foster conversations, connections, and learning with SME business owners, hiring managers, Veteran-serving organizations, Veterans, and other third parties who provide support to Canada’s employers and transitioning Veterans. As part of our research-to-practice approach to all our work, we also continue to use the recommendations developed from the study to identify future research needs and inform Veteran and employer-focused supports on an ongoing basis.