ENHANCING SKILLS
Job grant spurs upgrades
At work, Xiongtan Yang goes by Ted.
He came to Alberta from China six years ago to attend graduate school at the University of Calgary.
Shortly after graduating he landed a job at Process Ecology, which assists upstream energy companies to manage emissions.
Highly skilled in his vocation, Yang is confident in his technical knowledge. Yet he’s always known his English — both spoken and written — could use a little more polish. The problem was he never had the opportunity on the job.
“I always want to make sure everybody I am working with understands what I’m saying,” Yang says.
And he admits his pronunciation and accent have made communicating with clients and colleagues bumpy at times.
Yang’s chance came about recently, however. He was among a handful of employees at Process who had the opportunity to brush up on their language skills through a couple of programs offered at Mount Royal University.
The courses, custom-crafted for companies like Process, are largely the result of the Canada-Alberta Job Grant, a program jointly funded and run by the Alberta and federal governments.
After their launch a few years ago, the job grants have been responsible for providing funds to cover the cost of post-secondary programs, benefitting thousands of Alberta workers and employers.
Since the program launched, tens of millions of dollars has been approved for training, says Andrew Hanon, spokesman with Alberta Labour. Several thousand applications have been approved “for more than 2,400 unique employers in Alberta.”
More than 10,000 courses have since been approved under the program, including training for project management, risk management, health and safety courses, leadership skills and driver training.
Also included are the language arts courses Yang and his colleagues were enrolled in at Mount Royal University.
The grant has boosted interest in a number of programs, such as supply chain management and social media for business, says Jonathan Love, spokesman at Mount Royal University’s faculty of continuing education and extension.
According to Lindsay Baker-Reid, human resources manager with Process Ecology, Mount Royal customized its course offerings for the company, even sending a continuing education adviser to assess employee needs.
“They were assessed for both their strengths and where they needed some work.”
One of those courses — English skills development — was offered on-site at Process.
“It was a very small setup with four people and one teacher,” Yang says. “The format was very helpful because she helped us where we needed to improve the most.”
The course allowed Yang to improve conversational skills, with a particular focus on pronunciation.
“For our work, especially with emission management, I need to communicate clearly,” he says. “Sometimes you have to call oil and gas workers in the field and it’s very important they understand what you’re talking about.”
The other course was offered online, focusing on writing skills for presentations, reports and emails. It is a challenging course, but it also proved very beneficial, Baker-Reid says.
“At the end of the day, they realized that all that writing was what really helped them make progress.”
All in all it was money well spent, she adds, allowing Process to accelerate skills upgrading for staff.
“We would not have been able to do it without the job grant program,” she says. “Otherwise, we would have to do it one employee at a time, which would have taken years longer.”
She adds that plans are in the works to apply for the grant again for more professional development training this fall.
For staff, Yang included, they enjoyed sharpening their skills.
“I think the Canada-Alberta Job Grant was perfect for our company because we are small,” he says about Process, which employs a dozen people.
Most importantly, “It pays twothirds of the cost of the courses,” he adds.
The significance of this financial incentive can’t be overstated while the economy slowly recovers.
“It’s really difficult to retain employees and make sure we are still staying on top of skills and professional development,” Baker-Reid says.
“This grant is a big help to make sure we can do what’s critically important to the future of the business.”