SmartBusiness – The Smart Way to Help Halifax Businesses (cont.)

In response, the Greater Halifax Partnership brought in Dianne Buckner, a business journalist and host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s weekly business program “Venture,” for an issue-focused luncheon that attracted more than 200 businesspeople. Ms. Buckner spoke about the issue of work ethic, the shortage of labor and the challenges that employers are facing in these areas. She offered compelling evidence of the need to tackle this issue and how business could do just that.

In advance of the luncheon, the Partnership invited a select number of local businesses and Venture producers to discuss labor issues in a smaller group setting. Venture subsequently returned to Halifax to film at the Partnership and some of our local companies, specifically around the issue of labor.

We discovered that significant workforce issues also exist in manufacturing, so we implemented a project to collect best practices in retention and recruitment for this vital sector. The project included:

• Inviting manufacturers to comment about their own challenges and particular areas of interest relative to employee recruitment and retention;

• Conducting one-on-one consultations with local manufacturers to probe explicit challenges in this area;

• Holding focus groups to verify that identified bestpractice strategies for recruiting and retaining employees will work for local manufacturers; and

• Developing an interactive, on-line assessment tool for manufacturers.

This project is now wrapping up. Our plans include sharing the information directly with the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters and manufacturing companies in Halifax. The project also will be used as a template for future spin-off projects from SmartBusiness.

Workers’ compensation consultation

During SmartBusiness consultations, a number of business leaders raised concerns about the workers’ compensation system in Nova Scotia. To help foster discussion and resolution, we compiled comments from more than 1,200 consultations and provided them to the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB), an active participant in the SmartBusiness Action Team. The WCB made a commitment to build on the relationships developed through SmartBusiness to further engage the business community.

Last spring, the Partnership organized a briefing with Nancy MacCready-Williams, CEO of the WCB, and 15 SmartBusiness clients to gain additional insight and clarity around what works and what needs improvement.

Ms.MacCready-Williams revealed some shocking statistics, outlined exactly what WCB is doing to make workplace safety top-of-mind for Nova Scotians, and reviewed WCB’s current work around injury prevention and back-to-work programming. Attendees then had a unique opportunity to communicate their specific challenges and ask questions.

As a result, the Partnership helped bridge the divide between the WCB and key employers. The WCB is now working with us in ongoing consultations with businesses. These consultations educate the business community about their responsibility in helping to lower the WCB rates in their own industries, and allow businesses to educate the WCB about challenges they face.

A model for success

With investment of $1.5 million per year from 140 organizations – the highest investment per capita of any economic development organization in North America, at $3.50 – the Greater Halifax Partnership’s investors clearly see the value. In fact, the SmartBusiness model is now being emulated by regional, national and international organizations.We’ve had calls from all over Canada and the world due to recognition of our program’s success, recently consulting with economic developers as close as Moncton and Winnipeg and as far away as Iceland, Romania and Ukraine. The demands on our time have become so great that the Partnership has set up a separate consulting practice in response.

In 2006, we were proud to have our leadership role recognized by the Economic Developers Association of Canada (EDAC), which presented the 2006 EDAC/RBC Financial Group Development Achievement of the Year Award to the Partnership. But most importantly – thanks to efforts of the Partnership, its Action Team, investors and other stakeholders – research shows that business confidence in Greater Halifax is at an all-time high. Now that’s smart business.

For more information, visit www.greaterhalifax.com.

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