Career Edge Organization

Dec 24

Happy (politically correct) Holidays!

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

Here we are, Christmas Eve officially just hours away, and yet as our team at Career Edge Organization slowly trickle out one by one, “Merry Christmas” is seldom heard. Instead the message is, “happy holidays,” and “happy New Year.”

Like many urban, Canadian workplaces, our team is incredible diverse. For many of us, the “holidays” have passed.

Hanukkah for instance took place at the beginning of December this year. And Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar, took place this last September! Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, took place September 10th.

For Orthodox Christians, Christmas doesn’t come until January 7th, so put your “Ho Ho Ho’s” on hold for your Greek and East European friends of this faith.

While many of us in Canada will be out hunting for deals on Boxing Day, others will be observing Kwanza, a week-long holiday honouring African culture.

But we can’t go wrong with “happy New Year,” right? Well actually, different cultures have different calendars. The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) took place back in February, and the Chinese New Year won’t come until February 3rd.

Whenever you celebrate your holidays, there is something undeniably special about this time of year in North America… Maybe it’s the cookies, the gifts, or the beautiful lights that illuminate our streets on these short, dark days; or perhaps it’s the multicultural potlucks that have allowed us to showcase our cooking skills and learn more about each other.

Despite our cultural differences, we all share one very important thing in common here at Career Edge Organization: The holidays mean more time with family and loved ones. So happy statutory holidays to you and your workplace as you lock your doors, shut down your computers, and enjoy some well-earned time off!

Dec 17

Love3

Paid vs. Unpaid internships: 4 reasons why it makes good business sense to pay your intern

By Career Edge Org General

Paid vs. unpaid internship?

The debate was recently highlighted in the Globe and Mail. The article, The ins and outs of internships by Marjo Johne, features Career Edge Organization as their subject matter expert, and explores the benefits of internships in addition to the “paid vs. unpaid” debate.

Well, it’s not a simple choice. Clearly, a paid internship is better for the intern, but what about for you, the employers? What makes better business sense?

While in this post-recession economy, unpaid internships may make good business sense to employers, we can think of a few good reasons why paid internships are the way to go:

1. Motivation

While we are aware that money isn’t the single most important form of motivation, compensation is still a factor in getting the best results from your employees. If workers do not feel that they are getting compensated fairly for the work they do, they may not be giving you 100%.

You know what they say: you get what you pay for! Top talent are willing to work hard to get that much-needed first experience, but you’ll get the most if you pay them fairly. Even a modest stipend will do.

2. Talent Pool

Many people – including talented newcomers, persons with disabilities and recent university or college graduates – simply cannot afford to accept a job without pay. This is a scary thought because it means that your unpaid internship is cutting a significant population out of the talent pool.

One way of looking at it is that you could be systematically filtering out all of the dedicated, hardworking candidates who have to financially support themselves.

3. Retention

If you do bring on an unpaid intern, it may prove difficult to keep them. First of all, your unpaid intern may have to work a second job just to stay afloat – after a while they may find the balance too difficult.

Even if the person is being financially supported by family or loved ones during the internship, it may not be long before they start looking at job boards. Promises of potential paid opportunities “down the road” may not go very far either, as so many unpaid interns have been strung along by companies in the past, they may not take the bait.

4. Reputation and Ethics Considerations

Unpaid internships have a bit of a bad reputation. Some view it as exploitative and even unethical. In the comments that accompanied our Globe & Mail article, some even remarked that unpaid internships were “slave” labour! A bit of an extreme view point… but it’s not an uncommon one.

We’re not saying unpaid internships are all bad. For many job-seekers and employers alike, this has been a viable solution to their hiring needs. But there are countless advantages to hosting paid internships. We’ve been doing this for 15 years – we’ve place over 10,000 paid interns and helped over 1,000 employers find cost-effective talent solutions. Trust me, we would know!

Click here to read the full Globe and Mail article

What do you think about this? Leave a comment below!

Dec 09

Love4

Ability Edge in the Canadian HR Reporter!

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

We are pleased to share the following article, originally published in the Canadian HR Reporter on November 29, 2010, which features host employer Kaye Leslie at Scotiabank and former Ability Edge intern, Elizabeth Novak.

Attitude top barrier to employment for the blind

Visual disabilities to double in 25 years, firms need to do more to accommodate

By Shannon Klie

Attitude is the number one barrier to employment for people with a visual disability, according to Kaye Leslie, manager of workforce diversity at Scotiabank in Toronto, who herself has only two per cent of her vision because of juvenile macular degeneration.

“It’s perceived to be the most difficult disability to accommodate,” said Leslie, who has worked at Scotiabank for six years.

People are afraid of blindness in a way they aren’t afraid of other disabilities, she said.

Dec 01

Love3

Ability Edge JOINs in at the ACTION Makes It Happen 2010 Employer Conference

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

By guest contributor, Rizwan Abdul, Client Relations & Human Resources Manager at Career Edge Organization

The 2010 JOIN 7^th Annual Conference was held on November 29 in Downtown Toronto. The theme for this year’s conference was “ACTION Makes It Happen” The annually held Fall conference organized by JOIN is the employer-to-employer event that taps into the vast economic potential of people with disabilities. This conference brings corporate, government, disability-owned businesses and the JOIN BLN (Business Leadership Network) affiliates together to create workplaces and marketplaces where people with disabilities are fully included as professionals, customers and entrepreneurs.

The major sponsors of this year’s conference were Scotiabank, Province of Ontario and CIBC. Interestingly, all three organizations hire actively from the Ability Edge program for recent graduates with disabilities. Career Edge Organization participated in the conference as a Business Leadership Network member of JOIN and was represented by Donna Smith, Vice President and Rizwan Abdul, Client Relations and Human Resources Manager.

Nov 26

Love3

Not All Resumes Are Treated Equally: How Toronto’s Skilled Immigrants Are Getting Hired

By Career Edge Org Diversity and Inclusion

By Paul Gallant

(Originally published in Yonge Street on July 28, 2010)

When Erich Shih arrived in Canada two years ago, he found his first job in three weeks – as a gas station cashier in Milton. It was something of a shock since both he and his wife had been established teachers in their country of origin, the Philippines. Shih didn’t look down on the gas station work, but it wasn’t at all what he had planned when he applied to immigrate to Canada.

“I wasn’t trained to be a cashier,” says Shih, 33, who was attracted to Canada because of its social services, health and education systems. “I was living with my sister-in-law in Milton and I needed to start earning money. I didn’t know where to start.”

Nov 19

Love3

Conan O’Brien you’re not alone; according to the Montreal Gazette “aspiring younger staff have nowhere to go”

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

The following article is from the Montreal Gazette –

read it and let us know your thoughts!

“Older workers who won’t retire hurt successors’ careers; Aspiring younger staff have nowhere to go”

By Michelle Nichols, Montreal Gazette, Mon Nov 15 2010

U.S. late-night television host Conan O’Brien was not alone when his career aspirations were crushed this year by an older colleague who refused to retire, experts say.

Nov 11

Love3

Should Remembrance Day be a statutory holiday? Lest we forget.

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

NEW: Click here to take the poll!

Scanning this morning’s to-do list, I see a long list of things to remember – remember to do this, remember to get that, remember to call someone, remember your appointments… and somewhere, buried in that long list is one small bullet point:

~ Remembrance Day, 11 AM ***

It’s there, lest I forget.

Remembering the extraordinary sacrifices and tragedies that occurred in times of war is incredibly important to us here at Career Edge Organization, and not just as a Canadian not-for-profit that promotes diversity but as a genuinely diverse team with people who represent a wide range of cultures and ethnicities. Each of us here have a different understanding of what war means – what it has meant to us, our families and our ancestors.

At 11 AM we will be taking a few moments in silence to reflect upon these things and each of us, in our own way that is relevant to us, will pay our respects.

But there are those that feel this is not enough, and that in the busyness of our day, Remembrance Day will be nothing more than an afterthought, spliced into our to-do lists somewhere between points 6 and 7. Furthermore as WWII veterans age there is a growing concern that the memories will be lost with them and eventually forgotten (despite the best efforts of Mr. Spielberg and others).

In Canada, Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec are the only provinces that don’t observe Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday, although many organizations such as banks and government do take the day off.

Every year the same debate arises – this year, an Ontario Conservative MPP is introducing a bill to have Remembrance Day replace February’s 3 year-old “Family Day” as a stat holiday. The debate has even taken to Facebook and other forums.

Others argue that the holiday is best observed by children when they are at school and by adults when they are at work – putting people in environments where there is a formal structure around recognizing the holiday. Their concern is that without this people would spend the days at home watching day-time television and the issues won’t even be talked about or in some cases, even acknowledged.

There are definitely two considerable sides to this debate – what do you think?

Nov 03

Love3

Lose the Gen Y stereotypes! New survey shows Gen Y employees prefer traditional approach to work environment, pay and dressing for success

By Career Edge Org Uncategorized

In January 2008, French Canadian cartoonist Marc Beaudet’s now infamous sketch was published in Journal de Québec. The image, seen here, depicts the stereotypical millennial male with his trademark low-hanging jeans and characteristic “buttock cleavage” exposed.

The picture really does paint a thousand words. It’s congruent with everything we think we know about Gen Y:

1. Gen Y are lazy (too lazy, it seems, to pull their pants up)

2. Gen Y have no respect for traditional values, as seen by their highly casual and liberal attire

3. Gen Y are best suited to work in unstructured, untraditional environments

Would you be surprised to learn that a recent study (as seen here in the Toronto Star article, “What twentysomethings want from their jobs” ) found that Gen Y employees actually have “traditional” preferences when it comes to work environment, pay and dress code?

Surprised? Take our poll

The Gen Y survey of young job-seekers across Ontario yielded some enlightening results. For instance, Gen Y prefer a “formal office structure with cubicles for entry level employees” over open-concept offices.

And despite a growing trend towards social HR and social media recruiting, a whopping 80% of Gen Y are still looking to job-postings and corporate websites when deciding where they want to work.

Finally, despite “Millennial Mike’s” plumber-esque attire as depicted in the cartoon above, Gen Y said they prefer a “business casual” dress-code over the “just-rolled-out-of-bed’ t-shirt and jeans look at the office.

While amusing, it looks like Beaudet had this fascinating cohort pegged wrong, and he’s not alone. The online (and, for the matter, offline) world is flooded with millennial myths. It’s time employers started getting the real facts.

Click here to read the press release

Take the Poll!

Have something to say? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Oct 26

Love4

An open letter from the CEO – and a call to action for Canadian employers

By Career Edge Org Press release

From Issue #12 of CareerBulletin‘s “A Letter from the President”

By Anne Lamont, President & CEO, Career Edge Organization

“When in greeting, you touch my hand. What knuckled shutters open? What fear do you unlearn?”

These are the words of American artist and poet Laura Hershey, who has spinal muscular atrophy. They are part of a labour awareness campaign for National Disability Employment Awareness Month or “NDEAM 2010” which occurs annually in October, both in the US and Canada. As employers assess their current and future hiring needs, it is important to remember that “talent has no boundaries, and that workforce diversity includes people with disabilities”.

In Canada, over 15 per cent of the population has some form of disability. When we assess the impact more broadly to include family members, over 53% of the population are touched by disability as a result of having a family member with a disability.

Career Edge Org

Happy (politically correct) Holidays!

Paid vs. Unpaid internships: 4 reasons why it makes good business sense to pay your intern

Ability Edge in the Canadian HR Reporter!

Ability Edge JOINs in at the ACTION Makes It Happen 2010 Employer Conference

Not All Resumes Are Treated Equally: How Toronto’s Skilled Immigrants Are Getting Hired

Conan O’Brien you’re not alone; according to the Montreal Gazette “aspiring younger staff have nowhere to go”

Should Remembrance Day be a statutory holiday? Lest we forget.

Lose the Gen Y stereotypes! New survey shows Gen Y employees prefer traditional approach to work environment, pay and dressing for success

An open letter from the CEO – and a call to action for Canadian employers

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