The London Chamber of Commerce is seeking London businesses (with 1 to 499 employees) to participate in a province wide online research project headed by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and Ryerson University.
As a small to medium sized business owner in London, your participation is very valuable in helping to shape future policies and programs to support the skills needs of SMEs. To express your interest in participating in this project, please fill out this brief online form.
Understanding SME Future Skills Needs Research Project
Given that SMEs (small to medium enterprises) employ the majority of Canadians in the private sector – as well as constitute the majority of businesses, period – it is imperative that their needs are incorporated into any policy or programming solutions proposed by governments, post-secondary institutions, or private sector organizations.
The Ontario Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the Ryerson University Diversity Institute - Future Skills Centre will conduct a qualitative and quantitative research project based in Ontario. Using surveys and virtual forums, the OCC will capture the future skills needs of SMEs and use that data to develop insights designed to support programs and strategies to address them, such as work integrated learning opportunities, accessing underrepresented communities, and government policies and practices.
In particular, the project will:
- Explore perspectives of SMEs vis-à-vis future skills including current and future skills needs, current practices defining skills, and recruiting and retaining talent
- Brainstorm alternative approaches to address their needs including new policies, models, tools and strategies to tap into more diverse pools of talent
- Explore ways to leverage local chambers of commerce and community partners to support upskilling and reskilling to meet SME needs
- Inform the development of approaches that could be replicated or scaled to meet their needs and bridge the skills gap
The project is designed to be as flexible and easy to complete as possible, because we know your time is valuable!
In addition, all responses will be confidential.
Our expectation is for the project to kick off in mid-October but we will be taking participants on a rolling basis through November, in order to reach a reasonable number of completed responses.
