This article originally appeared in Breaking Ground, a publication of the Edmonton Construction Association. View the original here.
By Jim Timlick
Social procurement gaining traction in Edmonton's construction sector
Social procurement is hardly a new idea. In fact, it's been around for decades. At its core, it's about adding a social value component when it comes to evaluating the price, quality, and environment of the goods and services purchased by a company.
While the notion of social procurement has been around for some time, it has started gaining some serious traction here in Edmonton over the past few years. In 2019, the City of Edmonton adopted its own social procurement policy with an aim to use the city's purchasing power to advance its poverty reduction goals.
The policy has already influenced a number of city-led projects, including proposed upgrades and ongoing maintenance for the materials recycling centre in Edmonton. A request for proposals (RFP) for the project asks companies submitting a bid to identify how they would support barriered individuals to be employed in performance of the contract and what they currently do to support the employment of women, Indigenous people, and people living on low incomes.
So, what could this potentially mean for Edmonton's construction sector? The implications are significant, to say the least. Not only could it prompt some companies to seek out new sources of goods and materials, but it could also compel them to reexamine the way they go about hiring people.
“It's a great way for companies to not only give back to our communities, but to find great local products and people,” says Brooks Hanewich, manager of strategic initiatives for EndPovertyEdmonton.
EndPovertyEdmonton is playing a lead role in helping the City of Edmonton and other companies and institutions to implement their social procurement strategy. That includes working with individual companies to help educate them about social procurement and how it can benefit them. It's also partnering with community agencies to address the barriers to employment some people face and provide skills training to enhance their employability.
Social procurement can provide huge benefits to social enterprises and local businesses in terms of purchasing. It can have an even more profound impact in terms of human capital by providing meaningful employment for Indigenous people, newcomers, women, and other groups that often face barriers to employment.
Hanewich says it's not only these groups that benefit from social procurement, but construction companies and other employers as well.
“I think there's a huge segment of society that is just an untapped, golden pool of labour talent that we haven't thought of before,” says Hanewich. “If you look at newcomers and Indigenous people, there's a lot of value they're going to bring to the construction sector and we need to figure out how to tap into that. There's a lot of people out there that would love those jobs and have the talent and qualifications. We just have to figure out how we get those people more involved in the labour market.”
As part of that effort, EndPovertyEdmonton is collaborating with a number of workforce development organizations to help them to more effectively respond to the needs of employers by providing specific training to individuals. It also includes working with companies like Chandos Construction and A&H Steel when they are bidding on jobs that have a social procurement component.
One of those agencies is Action for Healthy Communities (AHC), a non-profit that provides immigration, settlement, and employment supports for newcomers. It offers a number of employment initiatives, including a workforce participation program that serves as a sort of bridge for newcomers who have skills but lack industry-specific knowledge and connections. A number of the agency's clients have gone on to find employment in the construction industry.
“Newcomers don't arrive here and leave their skills behind,” says Andrea Streisel, AHC's employment program lead. “They have all the capacity and lots of hands-on skills. What they lack is clarity about how to apply those skills in a Canadian context and the social capital and network to connect to employment opportunities. They're not sure how they fit in the sector. We try to help them figure that out and teach them about workplace and safety culture and then connect them to employment.”
Streisel says a number of recent studies have shown that hiring from immigrant populations can result in significantly reduced turnover for employers. Hiring newcomers can also help to diversify a workforce and attract future generations of workers who see the success friends and family members have enjoyed.
One of the companies that has seen the benefits of social hiring practices first-hand is Ideal Contract Services, an Edmonton-based drywall and paint contractor. It has stepped up its social procurement efforts of late as part of an effort to promote more responsible recruitment.
“As a company, we see a lot of value in recruiting people who have never worked in construction before, not only for our company to be able to teach good habits from the beginning, but also to act in a socially-responsible and community-minded way,” says Sara Becker, process manager for the company.
That's part of the reason why Ideal recently teamed up with AHC to develop a pilot program called ISM (Interior System Mechanic) Start. Participants practice language and essential skills specific to the trade, for example vocabulary and industry terminology related to drywall installation and steel stud framing. They also participate in safety and workplace culture training that prepares them to be successful when they begin employment. To date, about a dozen individuals have gone through the program, which is offered through AHC in partnership with the Alberta Wall and Ceiling Association (AWCA), and a couple of those people have already been hired by local construction firms.
The idea behind ISM Start is to eliminate barriers for newcomers to become involved in the trade and let them know about the opportunities available to them in the construction industry.
“What we're looking for mainly is people who are willing to work and are excited to work,” Becker explains. “A lot of the time there's a steep learning curve for [newcomers] once they are on the job. There's language barriers and a lot of difficulty integrating and assimilating into the culture of construction. [But] those sorts of hurdles can be mitigated through these sorts of programs. People get to understand the culture and there is less opportunity for conflict.”
One of the more noteworthy recent construction projects to incorporate social recruiting was a 240-unit housing redevelopment project in Edmonton's Londonderry neighbourhood. The project was a partnership between Capital Region Housing (CRH) [now Civida] and construction company Stuart Olson. The company set a goal of employing five per cent of workers on the job from the ranks of tenants of the social housing provider's other buildings.
AHC's Streisel says that the key to incorporating any kind of social procurement into a project like the one in Londonderry is making sure there is a solid assessment process in place before work begins.
“Even if we all speak the same level of English, we're coming from different levels of experience. So how can we assess people's skills in a meaningful way to help them access those opportunities where they can really add value,” she says. “In order to do a really good job with social procurement of labour I think you need to have employers, trainers, and service providers all at the table having that conversation. I think that's what's missing right now.”
Hanewich says that in order for companies to do more than pay lip service to social procurement, policies need to be easy to understand and adopt. That's where agencies like EndPovertyEdmonton and AHC can step in, he adds.
“It can't be seen as something that's really difficult to do or hard to wrap your head around,” he says.
Hanewich expects to see social procurement become more and more common in the construction industry as companies start to refocus on societal responsibility and what they can bring to the community.
“I think we're really on the brink of starting to get efficient and effective in these systems pieces. I'm encouraged by that. In the future what I'd really like to see is this become not only second nature, but something that is very easy to do and very successful for a company, to say we're interested in social procurement so let's make it happen.”
For more information about EndPovertyEdmonton please visit endpovertyedmonton.ca/procurement.
