Mengistab Tsegaye of LASI World Skills (Photo by Darren Brown, OBJ)

Employers trying to recruit skilled immigrants may have to undertake a complete review of their hiring practices in order to attract new Canadians to their organizations, said members of a group aimed at integrating immigrants into Ottawa's labour force.

A draft report recently created by the Employer Council of Champions (ECC), a 30-member committee made up of Ottawa's top private- and public-sector employers, recommended human resources processes make better use of immigrant service agencies, track and report the number of immigrants hired, review diversity policies and provide networking opportunities for employers and immigrants.

"If you don't have contacts, it's difficult to make contacts," said Rosemarie Leclair, the CEO of Hydro Ottawa and ECC co-chair. She added organizations who drafted the action plan have begun reviewing their recruitment processes, to examine barriers preventing employers from tapping into the skilled immigrant labour pool.

The action plan will be presented at a May 13 summit hosted by the ECC and its provincially funded parent organization, Hire Immigrants Ottawa.

The ECC was created about a year ago along with working groups comprised of employers and other stakeholders in the health care, IT, finance and public sectors.Those working groups identified barriers to hiring immigrants, such as concerns about "culture clash" in the workplace and how to assess foreign work experience and credentials.

"There is no defined way of having foreign credentials recognized or validated against our equivalent Canadian credentials," said Ms. Leclair. "These are barriers for employers because you will be asking for so much experience.

"You don't know when (immigrants) come with their experience ... whether or not it is relevant."

The action plan suggests breaking down these barriers with more networking and coaching activities, internships and mentoring programs, sharing success stories and increasing the amount of specialized skills and language training available to new immigrant employees.

But the executive director of Ottawa-based Local Agencies Serving Immigrants World Skills, a coalition group that partners with Hire Immigrants Ottawa, argued the process of bringing together like-minded employers and immigrant agencies has been equally valuable.

"Employers have been telling us, 'Where do we go for skilled immigrants? Where do we find them? Can you help?' We've made it easier, we've actually created a single entry point for immigrants," said Mengistab Tsegaye, adding the ECC is also a single entry point for employers.

Companies also face the challenge of not only recruiting, but also retaining skilled immigrants, said Mr. Tsegaye, who explained many newcomers to Canada leave their jobs because they don't have a support system, such as a mentor, to help them advance their career.

A Statistics Canada study conducted earlier this decade suggested the country as a whole faces a challenge retaining its skilled immigrants – approximately 40 per cent of working-age male immigrants admitted in the business and skilled worker classes left Canada within 10 years of landing, the study found.

"I think we have been extremely good at attracting and recruiting the best and the brightest from around the world. But once they get here, I think we haven't really taken advantage of the skills and talents they bring to Canada," said Mr. Tsegaye.

With immigration expected to account for virtually all of Canada's net labour force growth by 2011, employers of all sizes need to address these barriers if they want to have a skilled workforce, suggested Ms. Leclair.

"It becomes important to make people aware that this is where the labour pool of the future is going to be," she said.

"Come five years from now, you're going to have some real challenges in recruiting if you are not starting to look to this group of skilled labour and starting to deal with those (barriers)."

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ECC ACTION PLAN

Identified barriers