NON-TRADITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN
By Contributor
The Greater Trail Community Skills Centre (Skills Centre) and Bock and Associates, with funding provided by Status of Women Canada, are working on a project to increase non-traditional opportunities for women in the mining and refining sectors. Teck Trail Operations is participating in the project as an active partner, hosting a 30-month mentorship program.
The goal of this Mining and Refining for Women (MR4W) project is to enhance the retention, advancement and career development opportunities of women in positions ranging from front-line production and maintenance to professional roles. The intention is to develop and refine a pilot model at Teck Trail Operations that can be transferable to other resource sector operations.
On May 16, 2016, 16 women employed at Teck Trail Operations in engineering and professional roles were recognized for their successful completion of the first of two eight-month cohorts of the program. Each of the participants has worked on various projects that identified barriers and solutions for women in the workplace. The next mentorship group will consist of those in front-line production and maintenance roles.
With the anticipated future shortage of skilled labour in the resource and construction sectors, organizations, as well as government, are looking for solutions to attract, recruit and retain skilled talent. At the same time, data continues to show that women are interested and want to enter non-traditional careers. The challenge is how to prepare and support women and men for this shift in workforce composition.
“The funding from Status of Women Canada allows us to examine the workforce with a new lens to better understand gender diversity and how to level the playing field for female employees already working in, as well as entering, non-traditional careers in the resource sectors,” said Jan Morton, the Skills Centre’s Executive Director.
“We are pleased to participate in this program because we want to attract, retain and develop great people at Teck Trail Operations and we know that increasing gender diversity will help ensure we achieve that,” said Thompson Hickey, General Manager, Teck Trail Operations.
About the Skills Centre:
Established in 1997, the mission of the Skills Centre is to build a caring community of skilled, productive and engaged people. Within the context of community economic development, the primary focus of the organization’s work is labour force development, which includes working with employers, employees and job seekers. Their work includes awareness, advocacy and active programming to address the various socio-economic factors that affect both the availability and the capacity of the local labour force.
About Status of Women Canada:
The Status of Women Canada (SWC) is a federal government organization that promotes equality for women and their full participation in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada. The organization works to advance equality for women by focusing its efforts in three priority areas:
• increasing women’s economic security and prosperity;
• encouraging women’s leadership and democratic participation; and
• ending violence against women and girls.
SWC is responsible for providing strategic policy advice and gender-based analysis support, administering the Women’s Program and promoting Commemorative Dates in Canada. It is contributing $249,158 in funding to support the delivery of the project.
For further information, contact:
Jan Morton, Executive Director, Skills Centre
at 250 368-5316 ext. 216
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