The recently reported on a project for developing a trades recruitment system for the unionized Canadian construction industry.
Partly a summary of the labour situation in the trades, the report also contains suggestions for attracting new blood to replace workers who are retiring.
According to industry projections, more than 266,000 new workers under the age of 30 will be needed over the next 10 years.
Unions are looking for ways to recruit new workers, but most traditional recruitment strategies have been ineffective.
The project team hypothesized that online, or virtual, recruitment had the potential to reach a larger number of new recruits as well as target specific groups with customized messages.
The team also believed a national rather than provincial and territorial virtual recruitment strategy could deliver a more consistent message across multiple jurisdictions, simplifying the process by which potential recruits learn about the industry.
The project has three phases.
Phase one involved establishing partnerships with provincial construction unions across the country to create national and province-specific content for users.
The union partners are the Manitoba Building Trades Institute, the College of the BC Building Trades, Saskatchewan Building Trades, the 做厙輦⑹ion Trades Association of Ontario and Building Trades of Alberta.
Each provincial construction trades hub website lets users explore and learn more about various trades, sign up for online learning resources and connect with unions in their region for jobs and training opportunities.
Phase two identified, prototyped and tested virtual recruitment resources, which included promotional and social media advertising and search engine optimization strategies.
Multiple provinces also undertook their own paid and earned-media social media campaigns during phase two.
Phase three examined the barriers that kept young people from learning about apprenticeship training and identified recruitment and learning tools that could be tailored to skilled trades.
Data was collected from a variety of sources, including personal interviews and a framework for a program management information system was created and made available to provincial building trades councils.
With regard to its purpose, the project asked two important questions:
- Can online advertising and virtual recruitment stimulate interest in unionized trades? and
- Using an approach that targets users based on their degree of familiarity with the sector, can the project team build learning hubs that provide an engaging and useful experience for users, to the point where they are able to assess their current skills and upskill themselves as needed?
During phase three, advertisements were viewed 453,000 times, which led to 28,500 user visits to the .
The project used paid and unpaid earned-media ads across several platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The researchers found the most effective ads were either videos or graphics, or messages that were short and to the point.
Both nationally and in most provinces, TikTok got the most clicks and impressions.
The main lesson learned is that the key to increasing online engagement is to keep it simple. The directions for users to provincial sites should be immediately clear and straightforward.
The project team also learned recruitment efforts that use platforms like the Learning Hub should cast a wide net to reach their target audiences.
Many users who sign up for virtual learning dont complete their lessons. Only 35 per cent of the users who registered for the Learning Hubs logged on at least once.
Therefore, counsels the project team in its report, program designers who want potential workers to integrate virtual learning into their programs should try to recruit large numbers of potential users.
Virtual recruitment and online upskilling have important benefits, but they also have limitations.
The Learning Hub was effective for users needing additional mathematics credits and test preparation, but it could not replace the more intensive in-person training that apprentices need.
A hybrid approach that combines the accessibility of online learning and the hands-on experience for apprentices is the best way forward.
Dr. Tricia Williams, FSCs director, research, evaluation and knowledge mobilization, says the third phase of the project is expected to wrap up this fall.
The project has been successful, says Williams.
Were trying to widen the pipeline of potential recruits to the trades, she says. So far more than 25,000 people have shown some interest, thanks to the project.
The project team has also been working in the background to get all the different regional associations and unions to work together rather than separately.
We need economies of scale to be most successful, says Williams.
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