Seneca College encourages use of Essential Skills
submitted by Amy Koning, Manager, Faculty Workforce Skills Development, Scarborough Campus

An Employer Guide will encourage employers and employees to become more conscious of Essential Skills.

Seneca College, the largest college in Canada with more than 100,000 full- and part-time students, is developing and distributing an Employer Guide which will encourage employers to adopt Essential Skills as a means to continuously update employee competencies and improve productivity and safety performance.

The 12-page Employer Guide, part of Seneca’s initiative to build awareness of Essential Skills in the Toronto and York regions of Ontario, is being distributed throughout Ontario to more than 50,000 companies. It is targeted at business leaders and owners, human-resource practitioners, business associations, and employees.

For more information on the Employer Guide, please contact Amy Koning at (416)299-6625 ext 258 or amy.koning@senecac.on.ca

The Guide is one of two important initiatives at Seneca, both of which are funded by the Government of Ontario.

The second short-term project will encourage employment agencies to use an Essential Skills approach.

Seneca College is coordinating the development and delivery of awareness sessions for 200 front-line staff. Invitations for the Spring 2008 sessions have been sent to staff working in community and employment centres across the Toronto and York regions, including ACCESS, JVS, YMCA, and March of Dimes.

These sessions will focus on the sharing of Essential Skills information, resources, tools, and tips to assist in career planning with clients and for building partnerships with local employers. Each participant will be offered the opportunity to take a TOWES test at no cost. 

The project is expected to increase awareness of Essential Skills resources to assist with human-resource planning and practices, increase coordination of community-based approaches to addressing labour markets, and identify alternative strategies to increase employment opportunities for under-represented client groups such as youth and immigrants.

For more information on Seneca College’s Essential Skills projects, please visit www.senecac.on.ca/cms/community/eskills9.jsp