Toward a National Aerospace Strategy

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Discussion Paper
Canadian Aerospace Partnership Working Group
on People Skills July 2006
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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Mandate
• To develop creative strategies which attract and
  retain sufficient competent
• and well-trained people to meet the needs of the
  Canadian aerospace
• community.
• Working Group examining ways of to bring about a
  National Focus
• Coordination Around Industry Strengths to
  ensure
• Continual Availability of People.
• People with the Required Knowledge, Skills and
  Competencies.
• Aerospace is perceived as a Career Destination
  of Choice by pools of potential workers (e.g.
  Youth, Immigrants, Non-tradtional Sources,
  (Aboriginals, Disabled) etc).

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Requirement for National Focus Coordination
  Around Industry Strengths
• Findings
• HR initiatives are often not connected to/driven
  by priority market opportunities.
• Multi-stakeholder environment (industry,
  educational institutions, governments) as well as
  regional differences constrain awareness of, and
  ability to build on national and regional HR
  strengths/success (incubating inculcating best
  practices).
• Changing nature of industry requires a capacity
  to respond coherently on a national basis/scale.
• Mandate and jurisdictional issues work against
  linking and leveraging federal and provincial
  activities.
• While an effective national HR voice has emerged
  for the maintenance sector, no such voice
  exists for the manufacturing sector.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• National Focus Tailored to Local Circumstances
• Some levers at the national level e.g. taxation,
  immigration policy,
• most at the provincial level e.g. training
  policy and programs, curricula development,
  economic development priorities.
• Need to frame issues in local context and
  tailor strategies and
• action plans appropriately
• demographic trends, attraction retention
  challenges may differ at
• local level.
• priorities/policies (education, economic
  development, workforce training
• development) sometimes differ at the provincial
  level as does the capacity
• of jurisdictions to act.
• Model of Nova Scotia HR Partnership Workforce
  Strategy Careers Forum Manitobas
  micro/company level workforce needs projection
  software tool.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Achieving National Coordination
• Mandate the People Skills WG
• 1) Identify and define the PS needs of the
  Canadian aerospace industry.
• 2) Identify and spotlight best PS practices.
• 3) Leverage and build on individual PS best
  practices.
• 4) Identify and define a more permanent, more
  structured national
• aerospace HR entity (e.g. national
  coordinating secretariat) to carry forward and
• act on recommended responses/activities).
• Entity needs to
• - be adequately resourced (, people, in-kind
  contributions) by stakeholders
• (HRDC, Provinces, Industry,
  Academia/Educational Training entities).
• - be light and able to act quickly but act in
  the interests of
• all stakeholder groups.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Priority Areas to be Advanced by People
  Skills WG
• 1. Ensuring Continual Availability of People
• Major demographic shifts in Labour Force will
  accelerate
• - labour force participation rates will decline
  due to aging.
• - immigration flows need to be accelerated to
  fill supply gap.
• Aerospace Manufacturing
• - age distributions similar to national
  average.
• - significant proportion of workforce is aged
  45 and older.
• - higher of workers take retirement prior to
  age 65.
• Aerospace Maintenance
• - majority of workers between 35-44.
• - smaller proportion of workers in the 55-64
  and 65 and older cohorts.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Possible Responding Actions
• expand the pipeline and entry points into the
  aerospace industry e.g. Youth, Immigrants.
• help alternative labour polls gain
  industry-defined skills and competencies.
• improve learning supply, including
  apprenticeships, higher learning.
• adopt Prior Learning Foreign Credentials
  Assessment Recognition System (PLFCAR).
• develop more tailored tools and curricula for
  enhancing skills sets.
• expand and enhance capacity of educational
  institutions.
• develop industry-defined career ladders and
  lattices.
• reduce turn-over and improving retention.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills
Priority Areas to be Advanced by People
Skills WG

• 2. Having People with the Required Knowledge,
  Skills and Work Values ( Competencies)
• Which competencies should we focus on?
• changing nature of technology and its pace of
  acceleration will require learning of new
  knowledge and skills e.g. composites.
• changing supply chain dynamics, including demands
  on SMEs to acquire enhanced design, engineering
  and managerial competencies.
• How should these competencies be cultivated and
  recognized?
• the traditional credentials based approach
  fails to fully recognize actual competencies of
  individuals, including current employees as well
  as immigrants.
• training infrastructure is not adequate/consistent
  in all regions.
• inadequate public sector support for
  industry-based training investments of a focused,
  short term duration e.g. days/weeks.
• need for firms of all sizes to interact through
  e-business and to build/work in partnering
  models.
• lack of sufficient apprenticeship programs in all
  provinces.
• Which people?
• pool of displaced trained aerospace workers is
  not fully capitalized on.
• current employees are high priority, in all
  areas e.g. production, engineering, business
  management

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Possible Enabling Actions
• Develop a living database that links together
  disparate data sources (federal provincial) to
  provide real time information on the aerospace
  labour force.
• Ensure that data collection and analysis be done
  in a way that provides both a national and
  provincial perspective.
• Take a comprehensive approach in collecting
  labour force information i.e. compile data beyond
  tradtional sources of potential/skilled workers
  to include other pools (Aboriginals,
  Immigrants, Women, Disabled).
• Develop new micro-level Labour Market Information
  tool(s) to complement those that
  exist/underdevelopment e.g. CAMCs LMIS to allow
  for making projections at the company level on
  specific occupational/skill shortages for use by
• Individual companies
• Provincial associations
• National associations
• Secondary and post-secondary schools
• Provincial Nominee Programs now operating in
  several Provinces.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills
Priority Areas to be Advanced by People
Skills WG

• 3. Improving Perceptions of the Industry as a
  Career Destination of Choice
• Market aerospace as a Career Destination among
  potential pools of labour (Youth, Immigrants,
  Workers in other Sectors, Non-traditional
  Segments)
• Recognize/deal with certain image problems of
  industry being self-inflicted e.g.
  characterizing it a being highly cyclical with
  labour demand peaks and troughs
• Find effective ways to light the fire amongst
  Youth to give them a passion for aerospace
  (important to hear directly from them and those
  who influence them)
• Better capitalize on/link current initiatives
  e.g. those aimed at attracting Women into
  aerospace.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Possible enabling actions
• Conduct a Youth Aerospace Campaign
• - conduct Focus Groups to hear directly from
  Youth, Parents, Guidance
• Counselors, to help frame messages
• - determine most effective delivery approaches
  e.g. interactive learning/video
• games, using workers near retirement as
  ambassadors to bring aerospace into
• the classroom, Youth-oriented Open
  Houses at company sites, visits to flying
• schools to kick the tires of aerospace,
  design competitions, scholarships
• - develop multi-stakeholder execution plan
  (activities, their funding, lead delivery
• entities.

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CAP Working Group on People Skills

• Questions for CAP
• 1. Did the CAP People Skills Working Group get
  the issues right? If not,
• whats missing?
• 2. What is the appropriate balance between
  national focus and coordination and local
  response to aerospace People Skills issues? Is
  there value in replicating the Nova Scotia
  Roundtable in other Provinces?
• 3. Is the identified Way Forward e.g. more
  structured, permanent entity to provide national
  focus and coordination, suitable, practicable?
  Alternatives?