The Iron Ore Company of Canada is in the midst of an expansion that will take its Labrador City operation's annual production up to 26 million tonnes and has launched a study to determine the feasibility of producing 50 million tonnes a year.
Mr Glenn Andrews senior human resources business partner at IOC said that on the second day of the Newfoundland and Labrador Employers' Council conference at the Sheraton Hotel, tackling the province's looming labor shortage, the government forecasts there will be 77,000 job vacancies in the province by 2020.
He said that one way of dealing with the problem is to turn to technology in order to do more with less, the theme of a panel discussion involving three winners of the council's Employer of Distinction awards.
He added that "Our strategy was to go to larger equipment both shovels, trucks and reduce the number of operators required to move a certain amount of dirt. We've gone from 240 tonne trucks to 320. In years gone by, they were 100 tonne, 150 tonne, so we've bought new, bigger equipment, which should require less operators. The other challenge that we are dealing with is growth. So the need has continued to increase while the number of operators available has continued to decrease."
Ms Sharon Horan, president of Fit For Work, an occupational health company that prepares injured employees to return to the workplace, said her company used to have four more offices in Gander, Stephenville, Goose Bay and Labrador City than the four it has now, but couldn't find enough qualified staff to keep them open.
She added that "We had to reorganize that because attaining those skills that we required and then retaining them just got to be too much of a challenge and we were constantly beating ourselves out trying to find the right skill set. So doing more with less is not something we look forward to, but every year seems to come with a new challenge for us and we are forced to respond to our staffing shortages while trying first and foremost to maintain some type of excellent customer service."
Mr Horan said her company's biggest challenge in retaining staff is competition from the government. She said her employees are often approached by Eastern Health for open positions, and she’s had to raise salaries as much as 25% in one year just to keep up with government contracts.
She added that "So when you hear something like the government is negotiating a new deal for nursing, for example, that has a huge impact on a company like mine, because to maintain my nurses, I have to be better than government, and that's pretty tough."
Mr Mike Wadden president & CEO of recycling company Ever Green Environmental said that the challenge to do more with less came about in 2007, when the company shifted from a clinical mental health program to an affirmative business that receives no core funding for a staff in which 80% of employees have some form of mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
He added that "“We had to, in order to survive, develop a fourfold productivity improvement in one year. So some of the challenges that groups are experiencing now, we experienced back in 2007."
(Sourced from www.thetelegram.com)
