Generation Impact

so hello and welcome everyone, my name is Michelle Branigan and i’m the CEO of electricity human resources canada

Thank you all for joining us today i know that many of you are thinking about vacations right now so i

do really appreciate you being here i know that you’ll all find some interesting takeaways that may shape how

you and your company plans to attract and recruit new talent going forward as we know the

canadian electricity sector is undergoing a demographic shift as older workers begin to

transition out of the workforce we’re seeing gaps emerging across a wide range of occupations and they span

engineering the trades business communications at technology and and others now young canadians

possess the skills and the knowledge to fill these roles but they’re not coming to work in this

sector our last lmi or labor market intelligence uh data reported that only five percent

of this sector are comprised of youth now as canada’s go to

uh organization for electricity human resources needs we conducted research to find out why so our latest report uh

generation impact future workforce perspectives surveyed over 1500 young workers across

the country we found that the biggest barrier to youth interest in pursuing a career in the electricity

sector was a lack of knowledge about the nature of the sector and the career the depth of careers that are

actually available now this insight presents us uh with a key opportunity to bring on

a new generation of workers and to really foster innovation but to maintain a strong workforce the

sector is going to have to position itself competitively to attract young employees and in order

to do that of course we need to understand their values and their motivations so if you’re on

this call you likely know that there are many varied very rewarding career paths in

electricity we are an essential service but this message so far has not been heard by the young talent

entering the canadian workforce on another note today is world youth skills day it’s a united

nations recognized holiday that focuses on the importance of youth employment and skills development

this year’s focus is on ensuring uh continuity during the covert 19

pandemic recognizing that youth make a substantial contribution to the essential skills

needed even during the most turbulent times and so as we were as we discussed this report today i ask

that you keep in mind the ways that you contribute to our economy and innovation and remember that we

cannot leave them behind uh during hardship now i also want to thank uh acknowledge

the support of our partners so the alberta electricity system operator or aso

elektra skills canada and the society of united professionals all of which have supported this report

because they believe in our next generation of workers now the government of canada is a

dedicated supporter of our work and our sector um to speak on behalf of natural

resources canada i would like to now invite paul lafave member of parliament

for sudbury and the parliamentary secretary to the minister of natural resources uh mr lafave welcome and thank you so

much for joining us today thank you michelle uh

good afternoon everyone very pleased to be here first i would like to uh begin by acknowledging that i am

calling or actually joining you in your offices or home from the traditional lands of the

anishinaabe people here in the sudbury area so it’s great to join you if only

by virtually but to help launch this important new report it is fitting that it is being launched today as

michelle mentioned it’s world youth skills day i don’t think we planned it that way to do this

the the launch of the report today but it’s uh it’s really very fitting so as you all know youth are the key to

our economic prosperity and they are the leaders not only tomorrow but of today so

engaging and supporting youth so we can together address our current and future challenges

is a priority for our government it’s why in the past year we launched canada’s first ever youth policy developed jointly with

young canadians it’s why this report is so important and the first of its kind a report that looks at what

young people think about a career in canada’s electricity sector not by guesswork

not by making assumptions but actually asking them and we’re also exploring their levels of

interest in the sector and in knowledge of the types of exciting and rewarding jobs that are await them

and then providing a road map for engaging them so why is this report so important for two main reasons

first because young people and women are underrepresented in this industry and that’s a problem as

the current workforce ages and eventually retires we need to recruit younger workers to take their

places a diverse workforce to lead the charge in this critical industry second this report matters

because electricity matters to meeting our climate change goals to creating good jobs and to shaping the

global transitions to cleaner forms of energy for canada that transition

offers an opportunity to dream big by creating an economy powered by clean and affordable electricity

and we are well positioned to do this canada has one of the best non-emitting electricity mixes in the

world with each region bringing its own strength hydroelectricity quebec manitoba bc

nuclear energy ontario and new brunswick and wind and solar from coast to coast electrification isn’t just an

opportunity it’s an imperative because let’s be clear canada will not

meet its climate change goals unless we drive clean electricity to every corner of our economy including

intersectors that are energy intensive such as transportation heating mining

and oil and gas extraction by imagining an economy powered by clean sources of electricity we can transform

existing industries and create entirely new ones strengthening canada’s competitiveness

and protecting the environment the report you’re launching today sorry

takes us closer to that future by building a bridge between an industry looking for young talent

and young canadians looking for jobs that are fulfilling innovative and well paid through the

student work placement program i’m proud to say that our government has provided 13.7 million dollars to support your organization and

important work that you do we also understand the importance of giving young people a leg up which is why over the past three years

we’ve invested 25 million dollars in youth employment through our green jobs program and created over 1700 stem

jobs for youth within the natural resources sector today i’m also delighted to announce

funding for two other initiatives that will also advance our environmental and reconciliation goals

first we are providing more than two hundred thousand dollars to opi kappa win services in fort

william ontario so in partnership with independent electricity system operator this funding will be used to engage

indigenous youth from rural and remote northern ontario first nations to increase awareness of the energy

sector to plug them into avenues to participate in renewable and energy efficiency projects and to

give them the tools to become leaders in their communities second we are investing more than 260 thousand dollars

in the ma the matawa first nations communities to develop energy literacy among young

and elders alike and to encourage youth from these from these remote communities

to pursue careers in clean energy and the electricity sector in both cases these investments will

help build capacity and community leadership to reduce dependency on diesel and pave the way to clean our sources of energy

in a rural and remote indigenous communities so it’s an important day for these communities and an important day for the electricity

sector as a whole so congratulations again to ehrc and all those involved with this outstanding report i know it will make

an enormous contribution to our energy future and i’m pleased you will be hearing directly from youth panelists shortly today

on world youth skills day it’s important as ever that we look at how we can further support youth in reaching their

goals and learning skills they need to pursue the careers that will transform our future

mercy well thank you so much for taking the time out of your your busy schedule

to join us today i know firsthand how dedicated uh yourself and this government

and natural resources canada are to our electricity sector uh demonstrated by uh by those two very

exciting um initiatives that you have mentioned and your support is tremendously appreciated thank you so much

now um i am delighted to invite david coletto ceo of abacus data uh to

speak to the findings of the report uh so this is what you’re here for to get into the nuts and bolts uh david

and his team at abacus conducted the research and david is as a wealth of knowledge and insight on this topic uh and now following the the

presentation on the research and the recommendations there’s going to be time for audience questions so please have

your questions ready uh before we hear from a wonderful panel of young employees in the sector

uh so millennials and gen z about their experiences so i’m quite excited to for that part of

that of today’s event but with that i’m going to hand over the mic to david coletto of abacus for an overview over to you

david thank you so much michelle and mr lefebvre uh pleasure to to see you as

well um welcome everybody it’s very exciting day um we’ve been working on this project

uh for much of of the past uh number of months and it’s exciting that it’s it’s out in

the public realm i’m gonna share my screen so i can jump right into the the data um as michelle said this this

project really came out of a desire to better understand what young canadians are thinking about

not only their own career goals what are they looking for in a type of work but what are their perceptions and

understandings of the electricity sector and how can we better align the two so that um organizations across the

country can better recruit and retain young people into the sector so we can increase not only

uh youth participation but as well diversity in terms of gender and and and um other other categories so

um i’ll jump right into to the study and as michelle said i’m happy to take any questions at the end as

as they come up to you uh very briefly we we did this survey um as it happened right before

uh the pandemic really took so that’s a an asterisk to put on some of these results is that this

was done prior uh to the pandemic but in fact when you look at the results you’re to see that

many of the themes we saw what what young canadians are looking for in work i suspect will only be stronger today

as we head into a much more challenging economic situation and the idea that there are

going to be many jobs in this sector going forward will actually make

um work in in electricity more appealing going forward but we did a survey of

1500 canadians aged 18 to 36 it was represented the population by age

gender region official language and the type of um education they had whether

they had any post-secondary education or not and what type of post-secondary education so this is a large national survey that

gives us the ability to to dig a little deeper and look for differences across group

or region or even inclination to to join the sector as i mentioned we had a number of

objectives um just to be clear the you know the four that i think are most important was

for us to better profile and understand who are the key targets for the sector who are those

already saying that they would be open or interested in a career in the electricity sector

and how do they differ from those who might not and understanding those gaps so that if we wanted to attract those who may

not be inclined at this stage to think that a career in electricity is is right for them how do you do that

uh two is to to better understand what is appealing to millennials and to older

gen members of gen zed um in terms of a career there’s a lot of myths out there about

what millennials want or what young people want and what we wanted to do was bring some data

uh to either back up and confirm those myths or and as you’ll see in a moment bust some of them and demonstrate that at the

core millennials or young canadians are i think very similar to older ones in terms of what they seek

in work then we shifted gears and really wanted to understand how is the sector perceived both

overall in terms of its role in canada in terms of an energy producer the different sectors of energy

different types of energy but also perceptions around what are jobs in the sector like

um in terms of pay in terms of availability in terms of you know diversity and then we tested a

number of messages so that as you all are out there trying to recruit people um

you have almost a toolkit on the types of things you should be talking about and the ways to connect

um the interests of young people their desire to have a purpose um they’re because they’ve got choices

and one of the things we’re learning in the all the work that i’ve been doing in this uh in this field looking at at work

and and younger generations is that you have to sometimes throw some assumptions

away that we may not understand the types of jobs that exist the the titles that we might use to describe

them and so understanding that language and and the broader story is important

so let’s get right into it and and i think you know as a market researcher i’m always interested in slicing

and dicing up the the audience that we’re speaking to and what’s clear is there is a market there is an

audience for electricity when we ask people you know which of the following best describes

your thoughts about a career in the electricity sector you can see that um those that say they definitely would

consider it are a small minority 13 but if you think that there’s about you know about

a million um canadians um or sorry 10 million canadians in

the the group that we surveyed that’s not an insignificant number of people to start with so that is your core

audience if you extend that and you say oh those who say i’m open to it um you get to almost half of the

population so you’ve got a good size group and if we break it out throughout this presentation i’m going to speak

about those that i describe as most receptive to the sector those already i think listening and open

to exploring a career maybe they’re already in it maybe they’ve taken uh studies that that have them on the

right path towards certain types of jobs in the sector then there’s another group what i’m going to call the less receptive

they’re open to it they haven’t shut the door completely but they’ll probably need more convincing and more understanding

there’s a third group what i’m calling the inaccessibles they’re going to be the hardest to convince and convert and as i’ll show

you their perceptions are guided by two things one is their views are

quite different from the other two groups and how they feel about the industry but a second fact is they don’t know

very much and so that lack of knowledge the lack of understanding is a barrier for them to being open to

the sector going forward and so those two dynamics if you want to expand the tent

are things to think about now from a demographic perspective i don’t think it’s surprising given even

the labor market statistics that michelle mentioned earlier that men are more likely to be in either

the most receptive or less receptive groups than than women are so attracting women remains

in terms of just the base opportunity perhaps more difficult but don’t also

forget that about a third of of um a quarter story of those that

are most receptive are women are fema young women and so there’s an opportunity there to

to retract them the other good news in in some of this and i’ll and i’ll speak to both indigenous

uh respondents in our survey as well as those from racialized or visible minority communities they don’t they appear not less likely

to want to join the industry in fact some in some cases more interested and open to doing it so that

opportunity to increase diversity attract people from different types of communities

this survey points to that as being absolutely positive and possible

we also looked at sort of where from an educational perspective prospects um or different audiences are

coming from um what this basically shows is not surprising those in the most receptive or less receptive

groups already have or are taking training and education that

more align with some of the work engineering technology business

management computers what we see is that among those in social science and humanities

not surprising they represent the highest proportion of those in the inaccessible group but even in that

category someone like me who’s got a political science degree um there’s a sizable group who are open

and interested in a career in the sector so you know it it

my my recommendation is not to silo people based on their their education but to recognize that

across the entire sector there is a role for people um from all all walks of life but also

uh all all forms of of education and things that they studied

so the big question and if i had the exact answer on all of this

i might be doing something completely different but we’re all struggling with this right and i always get this i do a lot of

public speaking and workshops across the country with with different employers who are always wondering how do we get young people um

to to think about our company our organization our sector um it’s almost as if we’re somehow you

know and i put myself as young but i’m almost 40 so maybe i should stop saying me but you know you’re gonna have a

great panel in a moment and you can we can learn from them directly but there is no enigma

uh to what young people want and what our survey showed is they want pretty much what everybody wants out of

work um and this is a little bit of the myth busting right they do want good pay they want

job security um perhaps more than older generations when they were starting their careers

they are seeking work-life balance in the covid world that’s perhaps even more important today than

it was when we did this survey they are looking for interesting work and they want some flexibility in their

work so these are all things that if you asked my mom when she was you know in her 20s starting her career

she’d probably say the same thing in my mind the big fundamental difference between young generations today

and previous generations at the same age is their expectations are much higher about

what work should be about the kinds of jobs they’re looking for and they believe they have more control

over their own destiny and so being able to communicate and and align your own

priorities as an organization and the types of talent you seek with the actual market um i think is

particularly important and so from our survey when we asked uh young canadians how important

are these to your career choice i i focus your eye on the on the green bar

um and and that’s those that’s the percentage of people say these items are very important to me and if you go down

the list and you look at the order pay job security and lifestyle

get you close to half of young people overall saying these are very important to me and so

this points to again i think perhaps a surprising result in some ways because we always

hear it’s always about purpose it’s always about you know my values and um what it says about who i am which

are important but it still matters the table stakes are am i fairly paid

is there security in my work and do you give me the kind of lifestyle that i seek those three things are particularly

important if you go down the list then and you ask yourselves okay what else do i need to do

this is where storytelling matters and the work that you’re asking someone to do to

enter to to spend time investing not only their money in terms of potential tuition and

training but also you know their time and their commitment

is is this worth it why am i waking up every day to come into the office or to

the workplace is the work fulfilling is it interesting is it challenging these are all things

that you can see almost all young people say are at least somewhat important but more say uh are very important to

them now when we actually ask people let’s rank them rank these items from you know

most important to least important uh here’s what people say are in their top three so pay

by far uh ellipses everything else and that’s not surprising um people expect to be paid a certain

amount and they’re looking to be able to um you know cover their costs save for a down

payment on a home because that’s something that all young people seek and want to be able to do allows them to live the lifestyle they

want but there’s a second tier where job security lifestyle fulfilling

work and a flexible work schedule emerge and these five items from pay

all the way to flexible work are items that if you’re if they’re communicated clearly

in the description of the jobs that are available in the values that your workplace have are

going to think be more effective at attracting people at the starting point but it’s not enough and it’s not going to be the only thing that matters

then we get into the type of place and the type of work that young people want to do and so what

we did here is we ask people which of these two statements or words better describes how you like to work

and if you just take us like a snapshot of the screen the first thing is there’s no

one size fits all for everybody some people want to work in a term team some want to work alone more want

to be active than you know for example being sedentary for most of the day almost 50 50 split on

working with my hands or working at a desk um and and you can go down the list right and and the point here again is

that when we unpack this a little bit as i’ll show you in a minute those most receptive to the sector

they start to lean towards one area but you have an ability to speak to the

range of jobs that are available and how do you align what somebody wants and what they want to do with

the kind of work that you’re looking to fill now this chart shows those most receptive to electricity so

we filtered out everybody else and what it basically shows is there are some differences

among this particular group they are more inclined to want to work with the team they’re more

inclined to want to work with their hands they’re more open to traveling and for

them [Music] you know solving problems is is something that’s really important when you think about

the types of people that are naturally attracted to engineering the trades um that

that solving problems about you know not minding getting kind of dirty at work is a natural inclination but it doesn’t

mean that all jobs obviously are there and and are described that way but it’s important for this group

the second thing that we really wanted to understand in this study is how do young canadians feel about the electricity sector overall it’s gotten

lots of attention we live every day but sometimes and i’ve done this in

other work we’ve done in in natural resources we take for granted often

how the lights get turned on and the amount of work and investment in capital and human

capital it takes to keep the system running but the good news is unlike some of the other sectors i’ve

worked with you don’t have an image problem right so half of young canadians have a positive impression

of the electricity sector when we look break that down by the three key groups that we’re talking

about you can see that those most receptive to the sector are also much more likely

to have a positive view and as you go down sort of the receptiveness list you can see that that

positive number declines now it’s not because now you’re going to say well 38

among inaccessible that’s a pretty low positive number but it’s important to note that it’s not

because they all think that there’s a negative view but to some there’s some negativity attached

to it and so understanding why do they have negative views about the sector how can you improve the overall

image of the sector becomes important but the thing here is there’s a strong relationship between being open

to working in the sector and having a positive view on it and for me the reason that’s so important

and the image of your sector matters so much is because not only does my job and my career matter to me

personally but we increasingly live in a world where we’ve always cared what other people

think of us but we now live in a social media world where it matters even more i i call it almost like the era of

personal branding and so i always ask the question of sectors or of employers

what does it say about who i am that i work for you or i work in this sector and

it’s important to continually be telling the positive story about what the sector

is doing now the good news is as you shift can we continue to shift our energy and

electricity production to more renewable or green technologies

renewable energy has a more positive view among young canadians 61 percent have a positive impression and you can

see that it gets quite high among those more receptive to the sector

and i’ll say that very few canadians have a negative view of of uh renewable energy so continually

talking about it but the other important distinction about your sector versus others is how

do you compare and so what we did in this survey is we asked young canadians to also early on in the survey tell us how they

felt about a number of other sectors and so here you can see where renewable energy

and electricity fall in the ordering and as i said the good news is

these are relatively speaking more positive than some other sectors right if you look at mining oil and gas

much higher negatives among the entire cohort um manufacturing

construction less not so much negative as more neutral and then you’ve got electricity and

renewable energy quite high near the top and again i’ll keep in mind these are before covid if we ask today about health care

and other sectors they’d be a little bit higher because of the the profile that they’ve gotten we also

have done work in the trucking sector for example and prior to the pandemic the trucking sector had quite a

negative uh perception that’s improved given the focus that that has been on the importance of truck driving the

essential uh nature of that work in many of the same ways that your sector is also deemed so essential to uh

just life in general and and the economy more broadly when we look at all respondents and we

break out you know where uh how people feel about the sector i think the point of this slide is to

show while men and women do have a sizable difference there’s a gender gap in perceptions

that gender gap is not that women are have more negative views than men it’s that they have less of a well-defined understanding of the sector

but we don’t see a lot of differences by age within the cohort uh by urban or rural or even regional

that there’s a consistency in this and so not you know if you’re if you’re an organization in atlanta canada

you know you’re going to have as a same type of audience for those living in in your region than say those in bc or

ontario or quebec so not a big difference across these regional or so

or demographic groups we also obviously looked at different sources of energy and how

electricity is generated and not surprising renewable sources like solar renewable energy more generally and wind

elicit much more positive views than than other sources of electricity

natural gas generally has a positive view you can see coal at the bottom um not so positive

overall but i highlighted nuclear energy i work with the canadian nuclear association as well and this has been a constant

struggle is communicating nuclear and that’s obviously important in ontario and new brunswick where

so much of our electricity is generated from this source that managing that story is is a

separate uh story but even there you’ve got um

you know not as negative i think views of nuclear energy as perhaps you would have had in previous generations at the same age

so that’s a positive thing but something still uh to monitor giving how important that source of electricity is

and in my personal view more important it’s going to be going forward as we try to replace

um other forms of fossil fuel generation among the most receptive to the sector

you can see these green bars grow even larger and that’s under uh except expected

given their openness to working in the sector coal still has a negativity but not as much

but certainly renewables natural gas even nuclear energy finds almost 60 percent or more saying it has

a positive view so all sources of of of generation um are deemed pretty

positive now when we go a little deeper then so we’ve got broad perceptions of the

sector that are generally positive um and compare well to i would say

sectors you’re competing with people uh for people to to consider a career in

we wanted to go and understand perceptions around the type of work within the sector and so what i’m about

to show you are the good is the good news these are things that those both receptive and to some extent

those who even inaccessible to the sector believe are true and these are positive feelings so when

we ask people do you think for example electricity jobs and electricity provide good pay and benefits 82 percent of those

most receptive believe that’s true only 10 percent say it’s false and you can see even among those who

right now wouldn’t consider a job most say that’s true so that’s a good starting point because that

signals to those um interested or thinking about a work that you know i i believe i’m going to make a

good pay and and benefits which as i showed you earlier is the top consideration for more young

people than any other factor pension plans um again we often take for

granted that young people don’t want to you know save for retirement or think about their

retirement security um but a pension plan is something that would actually attract

and so given that many uh organizations in the sector are either public sector or have

um pre-existing workplace pension plans that’s an attractive uh feature for for

young people particularly now particularly when the world seems uncertain uh the future is unsure that

that is a a nice benefit that that comes with it and for the most part those most receptive

and even those inaccessible believe that’s true of the sector so that’s another strength to reinforce

also good news is you know this is not a sector that most many people think the work isn’t

fulfilling or interesting so if you go again back to that list of items that i showed you earlier what

matters the top two three are pretty strong places for your sector to be in there’s

no big gap there and so that’s a a solid foundation in which to build the affinity

similarly there’s pretty extensive belief that where people live there are

opportunities so i don’t need to travel outside of my home community i don’t need to go somewhere i don’t want to be

that’s a big challenge for young people and trying to get them to come to work they believe they can find

opportunities in your sector where they live and so another uh important

uh foundation going forward um the last item that’s important to

reinforce is most uh young people who are receptive to the sector

and by a two to one margin those inaccessible believe they can find good work-life balance

within the sector and so there’s no perception uh or or high level of view that

this is a career that’s going to limit my ability to balance my work in life that’s not going to give me the

opportunities to do some of the other things i want to do and that’s a solid position so again all

of these are strong positions of strength to go on the last thing that i think is most important

is in a world where we talk all the time about displacement

right and jobs being eliminated because of technology

understanding perceptions around your sector in the future is important and what we

find is that most uh almost all of those most receptive to the sector

believe that the number of jobs in the sector over the next 10 years will increase so that’s a signal that um

there’s going to be opportunities that my job won’t disappear that i invest the time and the money in a career that i won’t be displaced

down the road one of the other things i always uh caution sectors and org

and um and employers to talk about is not to

double down almost on the idea that there are a lot of jobs in my sector and the reason i say that is people

don’t instinctively want to work in a place where they will feel nobody else wants to work there

so while you want to signal there are opportunities and the the sector is going to continue to grow

because of electrification because of um turnover in terms of generational change

that if you appear desperate for people um they might then ask the question why is it that nobody wants to work in your

sector so balancing those two i think is really important when connecting and speaking about your

sector going forward we also looked at some things you you have to change and and some perceptual

barriers uh that might prevent some people from considering a career one of them

being people like me work in the sector now that’s not a problem for those open

and most receptive to working in electricity almost all of them say i see people like me in this sector but

look among those who say they’re inaccessible or they don’t they wouldn’t consider a career in electricity

more of them believe this is false they don’t see themselves and so you know why is it so important to

continue to increase diversity continue to attract women because it has a domino effect in that the more i see

people like me in these industries doing this kind of work the more i’m going to feel that it’s

right for me um and that identity piece is is particularly important

perhaps the the greatest barrier and i don’t think this comes as a surprise is perceptions

around safety and the gap between the most receptive and the inaccessible here

is something that’s really important um and and again i don’t think surprising but

confirms i think a lot of what a lot of us believe now most people most receptive to the

sector believe that it’s safe um about one out of four say maybe it’s not the safest work out there

but among those inaccessible you have a much higher level of both uncertainty about the safety of

the of the sector and a profession within it and a high level of those who say no

outright it’s not safe and so that matters not just to the young person you’re trying to

communicate with it matters to their uh influencers their parents their

guidance counselors those in their life that are going to be sounding boards and influencers in their decisions

continually talk about and i know it’s a top priority of your sector but continuing to do that is is really

important in talking about safety and the safety culture uh that that your organizations each

have but also as a sector overall um

another key question that the survey tried to explore is what sectors are you or we

competing with and understanding that competition because we don’t operate in a vacuum and you are

competing consistently with other sectors who i have worked with some of them who are just as keen

and just as motivated to get young people to reconsider and to consider a career in those sectors and the good

news among the most receptive and that’s why and i’m looking at that group because

they as you see here in this first bar almost all of them say they would be

open uh or might consider a career in electricity when we ask this question in

a comparative sense they’re also open to a number of other sectors

and much more likely than others to be looking at for example construction

mining manufacturing but even among those that you would think are

probably more in line with more types of work in your sector they’re also open to

health care financial services and tourism and the point of this is

and it’s part of the storytelling we tested is as your sector moves more and more towards

big data blockchain uh technology based you’re competing for people who

may not have historically thought of themselves as wanting to work in the sector but have far more options that every

sector now is moving in that direction and so if you’re trying to compete for

that some that that person who studied computer science or engineering um they probably have opportunities in

all of these sectors even in hospitality and tourism which you may not think of but as those sectors move towards big

data and other types of of innovation there’s going to be a lot of competition there

among those least recep less receptive not least receptive to working in the sector you can see

electricity still higher than some of these others but they’re also open to these other sectors as well and so

that’s just a again confirmation that

very few people these days pigeonhole themselves into one sector it’s much more um if you can think of

like the the equation of how somebody decides what to do

the type of work the functional role of work is one aspect and then what does that what does the

sector uh me working in a particular sector matter um those two i think work together in

producing a decision um that people are thinking about the last section i want to talk about is

the story um we i guess you can’t go anywhere these days and not hear somebody say

tell a better story right but it’s so important because stories are how we connect

emotionally um and logically to whatever it is we’re going to do and

and a career the thing we’re going to do and spend most of our time doing in in a large part of our life is an

important decision and so feeling a connection understanding what the sector’s about and why i

fit in it is really important so we wanted to test a number of messages and what we did is

we asked respondents whether and i’m simplifying it here but we provided people a little

bit of text and and we asked them does this message does this story pull you uh make you

more likely to want to work in the sector does it make you less likely or have no impact so i call this

a pull and push does it pull me in or does it push me away and we tested a whole number of

different frames for example we told respondents that the sector is moving heavily towards renewable

energy going green it’s critically important as uh mr lefeb mentioned earlier that

the sector moves in this direction of canada and the world in fact are going to meet uh the climate crisis head on

and you can see that is a big pull for those most receptive already um it has no real impact on the

inaccessible but one out of five who said i’m not interested actually then says well wait a second maybe that’s a reason

i should consider it right so my advice is don’t focus on this number

being too high or it not being as high as you want if you’re able to attract even a small portion of those

inaccessible that is broadening the tent and expanding it when we tell people that for example

electric vehicles and the growing and the need for more people to convert to those over time will create new demands on the

system on the grid will create new opportunities for research and development

that’s a very strong pull for those already receptive and a substantially higher

pull for those inaccessible right that’s an important story people often don’t realize

how much work and effort it’s going to take to improve our grid to innovate our system in order to meet

the demand that increased electrification is going to bring that’s a story

that can both tell people there’s value you have purpose but also that this is

going to be a long-term sector that’s going to continue to grow when we tell people there’s growing need

for for skills and and those that understand how to use blockchain and big data

and the growing technological data-driven side of the sector that too pulls quite a bit of those

receptive to the sector already and a sizable number of those who were inaccessible to it

again re-framing getting people to think about this sector away from likely the image they have

which is that and i live in ottawa so auto a high you know hydro ottawa truck that drives

by near power lines to something that is much bigger than that and they can imagine themselves being

part of it and it’s not to say those jobs aren’t important and you shouldn’t be you need to recruit for them but that

you can get more people interested in understanding the opportunities we tested things like the need for smart

grids um and the role that technology and advanced skills and different skill sets are

going to require you can see there not as strong a pull for those most receptive but still

over three out of four say that’s important when we tell people that canada’s energy

and electricity grids are the cleanest in the world that’s a huge pull particularly for those inaccessible

right it allows them to i think overcome potential barrier where they feel they’re working in a sector that

doesn’t align with their values or doesn’t align with um you know their desire to see um to work

in a sector that’s doing good that’s making a difference that helps reinforce um their their storyline when we

speak specifically about the need for skilled labor in ontario to help refurbish the ontario

nuclear uh plants um that too has some pull as you would expect not as

strong given some people’s hesitation around nuclear energy but even among those most receptive you

see a pretty high number there meaning that story isn’t going to send people you know away but probably

wouldn’t be the one i put front and center but once you have them in the conversation it’s going to confirm that

there’s going to be a lot of well-paid jobs going forward last point i’ll make

and i and both michelle and uh mr lefab mentioned the need to increase

diversity in the sector uh we were able to have you know

fairly large samples certainly of women young women but also of indigenous members of that community

as well as racialized groups and just two points about this because it shows the opportunity

first is when we ask people as i said earlier do you see people like

me working in the sector true or false and you can see among those who were most inclined to want to

work in the sector upwards of 80 percent said i see people like me there but among these three groups they’re

it’s it’s lower um it’s particularly low among women so the the gender gap that exists in the

sector is well understood outside of it and so continually demonstrating the role that women are

playing in the sector the the desire and the interest that the sector has in attracting women

is going to be important because unless this perception is is increased or improved

that’s going to continue to be a barrier but those in racialized communities those indigenous young

indigenous communities they are almost as likely to say they see

themselves and the indigenous numbers i think very promising and it aligns with this is some of the

good news when we ask again in this survey we ask people how what’s the likelihood that you would consider working in

electricity um indigenous canadians or indigenous people are more likely

than others to say they are open to working in the sector those in racialized from racialized

communities are just as likely so that’s a signal here that um race ethnicity

doesn’t necess isn’t isn’t necessarily a perceptual barrier um and that if there’s an interest

and a desire to continue to increase diversity um it will be there the bigger challenge

likely will be young women and um that’s that’s not unique to your sector

uh but there’s still i would say one out of three is a good number to build off of and

there’s opportunities there going forward so to wrap up i know there’s lots of

data and i appreciate you taking the time to sit through it i come back to what i started with and

that is i’ve been doing these kinds of studies for for a number of years now

and i’m continually trying to break perceptions and stereotypes about the generation that this is a

generation whether you’re talking about millennials or gen zed of people who don’t want to work hard that they’re entitled

um i don’t i don’t believe that’s true um i think that’s true of some people in

every generation but to to paint uh an entire generation with that brush

is is not helpful first of all and likely not going to win you uh supporters among those that

you’re trying to recruit but if you understand what matters and i think in a post-covered world

the fact that salary and security were high up on that list will be even more important and so here

you are as a sector that is not going anywhere in fact demand is going to go up um you have a compelling story that

aligns with the things people are looking for the most but that’s often not enough and so

what do you then say to people when when they ask but what does it say about who i am

because i can get a pretty good salary and good security and other in other professions or other sectors

and that’s where the storytelling comes in the third point i’ll say is

you know the safety question is something to to to be continually mindful of um and to to confront head-on and to to

talk about the success and the diligence that your sector has in creating safe workplaces for

for people and finally um what what this study clearly

demonstrated is you have a story you should all be proud to tell that it is compelling that it’s positive

and that it aligns with particularly young people their deep concern about climate change

their deep concern about a transition away from fossil fuels towards

renewables and you are at the cutting edge of not just doing research and developing new technologies

but actually putting it into place and without more people doing it it’s never

going to happen that’s a powerful call to action that i think you can you can repeat so

i i encourage you to think about these three groups and the report goes into much more

detail about each of them but as i will end with i think you have

a lot of opportunity i think your position your sector is well positioned um strong reputation

good outlook and now it’s just about converting that into more young people applying for jobs

and feeling good about that decision so michelle i will uh stop there and um

we can answer some questions

thank you david i i think and of course i’ve seen the report many times at this stage but it’s i always think it’s it’s

fascinating how um some of those as you say those misperceptions and those myths are out there in the industry and

you talk about values and i think a lot of people have thought about millennials in gen z generation that you know

value supersedes everything else including good pay and good salary and at the end of the day everybody is

trying to you know have a roof over their head and perhaps have a family and as you say

want the same things that generation after generation has traditionally wanted so it is so important to to bear that in

mind and of course you know we need to make sure that we continue to to look after those and ensure that if we

have interns and co-ops that we are paying them for the work that they are doing as well too and and remember that that whole

that the whole storytelling that you talk about that piece and how you represent your organization that starts even when you have those young

people looking to work in your your company right even if it’s at for a three-month co-op placement um because that’s an experience that

they have that’s an impression that they have of your company and the industry overall so we can’t start that conversation uh

too early absolutely and it’s it’s really important you know you’re a sector that doesn’t

get a lot of coverage in pop culture right you’re not on people’s radar on in a natural easy way

and it’s hard it’s it’s going to be very difficult to get into that mix so you have to instead um you know be

strategic and thinking about that story and and who you tell it to and making sure that universe around that person

that you are interested in and recruiting um you know we we did an interesting exercise in this survey where we asked

people if you were to go home i didn’t show you the results and tell your mom or dad that you’re gonna join the sector

how would they react and we used all these different emojis some of those reactions um in thinking about that how would a

parent react to their kids saying i want to work for you know hydro ottawa

um how would they react and i think you know it’s probably positive but you need to

reinforce that and give them evidence i do see one question here and and for those who are least

least receptive that category was there any indication that they were aware at

all of the variety of jobs in the electricity sector i would um it appears no um

and and i think that’s something that’s important right we didn’t talk a lot about in the presentation but it’s it’s it’s always you know as i said

there’s a there’s an image that that people will naturally have when i say electricity sector and they will instantly say well that’s

not for me so you have to constantly be reminding them and showing them about the range of jobs

and i think you know someone just commented on on on our on our chat here that the competition with you know high tech

and and social media uh kinds of work means that people will eventually

realize i can do certain functions certain types of tasks

in most sectors um but the job titles are not necessarily clear and that’s i

think how a lot of young people think about work is like what’s my title going to be and so thinking creatively about that i

think in the sector might might also help get people to to differentiate between the range of jobs that might exist

i have loads of questions i’d love but i know we’re short on time and we better keep on track because we have a great uh great panel

coming up um but i know we’ll we look forward to continuing this uh this discussion david

and particularly i think the impact of cobit as well too is going to be interesting to see what impact that that has had on

perceptions of the jobs um i know that in some uh countries um in the post-secondary education

programming um the applications for essential worker type programs like the medical field for

example has actually gone up it has actually increased and i wonder will we see something like that as well

too as we move forward so lots to move on so thank you thank you so much um i’d

like to to now welcome uh our guest today so we have with us matthew d and shannon

i’m looking forward to a good conversation here your views and your perspectives of both your careers and the industry of

course and also many anything that may have surprised you or jumped out at you in the report so

i’m going to let you introduce yourselves so dee why don’t we start off with you

all right uh hi everyone my name is dee i am a gen zed so i’m i’m 20 years old

and i am a student who is going through the electrical engineering technician

industrial program so basically i’m just learning all the different types of electricians

and and being able to practice with multiple different materials and i’m

just getting started in the trade and i’m also an ambassador with kick ass crews

thank you d matthew i’ll jump over to you okay hello everyone i’m matthew meyer

i’m a millennial i’m 29 years old and i’m a nuclear engineer working at the darlington nuclear power plant for ontario power

generation i’ve been in the electricity sector for seven years now and i’m also the canadian operations

officer at north american young generation nuclear a board member with the canadian nuclear association and a young professional

member with the energy council of canada you can tell matthew’s a high achiever right

[Laughter] shannon over to yourself

my name is sharon tamasco apparently i’m still a youth so thank you very much i’m

31 years of age and i fall into that millennial category i’m a first year electrical apprentice

with the international brotherhood electrical workers in hamilton local 105 and i’m an

ambassador for kick-ass careers fantastic shannon sticking with you do you want to sort of

just fill us in a little bit on how you actually got started in your career path here in the electricity um i was actually on

a job that i i disliked i was really looking for job satisfaction you spend more time at

work than you do at home um and my friend purchased a home we you know one day just started renovating

and pulling things apart and i didn’t realize you know until i was in my late 20s that this was something that i was passionate

and enjoyed um based on you know those kind of experiences that i had i started

looking for other options um and and i found a pre-apprenticeship program with the ywca here in hamilton

and that’s how i started my journey so i completed that process and now i’m working away fantastic

dee what’s your story how did you get started i i started quite late in high school

i was all lined up to go to university for the study of meteorology

up until grade 12 where i did a complete 180 and tried out a trade class i come from a

very academic high school so the only trade class we had was a custom woodworking

so i took that and i really loved it and i met jamie mcmillan who really kind of when you go back

to what you’re saying about seeing people like me in the trade that was my that was my position where i

saw jamie and that was really amazing um so i then went to

conestoga for the powerline technician program

i didn’t quite love it um so i switched to the program i’m currently

in and i’m loving every second of it matthew over to you yeah so i really

wanted to get involved with engineering i wanted something that was stable that had a pension

but i also wanted to make a difference as well so in high school i started to research pollution research how we could

combat climate change and nuclear really intrigued me so went to uoit

i did my nuclear engineering degree there and then really the internship program at opg was a great way to transition

from engineering and school to the real world and uh luckily through that i

i’ve been working in the nuclear sector for opg ever since so and it’s so it’s interesting uh

listening to you so the the idea of seeing somebody actually um in the sector and getting to meet those

people and talk to them and really really um influence your your thought process as you as you

thought about a career possible career in the industry right that’s uh i always think that’s so interesting

because we always gravitate to a sector or job sometimes based on the people that we know that are working

that we are working in it shannon once you started working in the sector was there was there anything that surprised

you um i have a background originally in

social work management customer service very business background and so

um i found a lot of the leadership styles previous employments was about growth development

um you know of your staff and it was a lot of it was a lot of you know development of people um so it is a very

different world working in the construction world the leadership is is most certainly different in how you motivate and

inspire people and i find that the process people procedures are just really

hesitant to change you know even if it is you can explain that this is the best of the business this is the best cost decision

all of those things i do find that um they’re very hesitant for change and so

that was something that was a bit of a surprise matthew yourself yeah it’s just

shocked at how many people worked in nuclear i i imagine kind of a nuclear station would only have a couple people

in it uh but for example here at darlington we almost have uh 3 000 people

and there’s trades there’s lawyers there’s communications officers there’s procedure writers there’s

marketers there’s all these different people and that really surprised me i i don’t

know i just had a limited kind of opinion going through nuclear engineering in school that you know you just need a couple

people to uh to design it and then it’d run itself and uh but i

just shocked how many people worked in the electricity sector and that’s very relevant of course to

the conversation that we’ve just heard today and and there is the research findings where

it’s it’s the lack of awareness about the depth and breadth of career career

opportunities or job types that are actually available in the sector right everyone thinks of the iconic

power line worker or lots of folks even if they don’t work in the electricity industry think of electricians they

don’t necessarily even understand the difference between a construction or a residential electrician and all those nuances right

so um again that’s that’s where part of the big communications piece is going to be so important

see any surprises for you early in well actually uh i would like to echo

uh matthew quite a bit though when i started i um i had a very

uh i was very short-sighted with seeing everything um i thought your classic electrician

was the big guy that came into your house and fits your light um so i was really really shocked

uh to see all the different types of electricians from working on big big um

solar panels to little tiny uh chips to put in your phone like it’s it was really shocking to me to see

that and all of the different types of materials that um electricians use

now we heard in the in the report and and uh david’s presentation about the the

things that millennials and uh and the gen zed uh generation value

the things that they were you know we talked about values pay salary all those other things work life balance those types of things opportunities did

that resonate with you what sort of things that in the report resonated you uh in regards to that component

matthew you want to start yeah and this is the thing i think there’s a misconception with millennials

and gen z is we still want a house we still want to be able to pay rent we still want to have a pension

we want to have the job security you know we’re not risk seekers a lot of us that want to start in a startup

basement internet type of startup company a lot of us want to be connected with

our co-workers and we want that fulfilling satisfaction that story that we can tell others

how we’re making a difference why our job matters and how we’re giving back so i i think

the the top four that were highlighted pay job security lifestyle and

fulfilling uh really resonates and uh really that’s been the big thing i’ve noted that i

really like is you know pay and job security are huge but does your company have a culture that allows you to to

give back is it something you’re proud of and uh i think that that’s that’s really

what the millennials and gen z are looking for i feel like they’re making making a contribution right to the to

the organization shanna the same question to yourself um i agree with everything matthew just

said about um you know resonated with the article especially with the top you know four ones and security

and pay um what i do find interesting that wasn’t highlighted and i think is really

important for millennials you know um it was talked about earlier about how millennials have really high

expectations these days and one of the things not discussed in the report was work environment um i can’t help but again i talk about

you know construction maybe a little bit few steps behind you know these big corporate companies like google and

you know where their focus is really on on their their team their their people um and so

culture is something that i think is something that really needs to be trickled down right down to you know the construction site where

it’s maybe not necessarily something that’s you know changed yet or is you know

needs to make a slow change to something yeah yeah i think it’s really important

we’re trying to to attract and recruit people to the to the industry um organizations need to look at their

their culture right they need to take a sort of that self-assessment and and and try and look at it from an outside perspective

what is that you know if i was to ask my our employees to talk about our culture and our organization and our values

wouldn’t would that be good would that be a good thing because that’s what what young people i think yeah pay attention to dee what about yourself

well i’ve always been striving for a career with good pay pension

job security um i’ve i’ve my parents have always stressed the

importance of that so i think that there is a high expectation

for millennials and gen zeds to find that because that is what has been preached to us um

which is really important get good benefits um and and all of that so that’s something

that i really resonated with um with the statistics um

so yeah i just think a lot of a lot of young people are really looking for that and expecting it

so i guess my next question and david had referenced it in just at the tail end there we didn’t

have time to get really in detail there’s more detail of course in the report but it you know you go home and you talk to

your to your parents um we have sort of a icons like emojis um you know would your

parents be crying or would they be excited and delighted and all that sort of thing um and i think that’s really important

um because we also need to consider the influences are in our life right whether it’s a high school teacher

it’s somebody like jamie that you’ve met it’s uh it’s a parent and so that’s important so so what do

your friends and family think about your career deal go back over to you um well

my friends and family are actually quite proud of me um i’m the first person in my family to

enter the trades so it’s all a big learning experience and everything is new to us but the support that my family

gives me is incredible and it was actually my dad’s idea to look into the trades and

specifically electricity

um well my biggest fan is my four-year-old nephew tyson he wants to grow up to be a construction

worker just like auntie shannon um but overall my friends and family are quite supportive of me

i don’t really know if they quite know what i do on a day-to-day basis i know i can hear my mom’s voice she’s

got a little bit of concern for my safety but i like to remind her every day at work i’m in control of my safety

there’s tons of jobs out there um like i said social workers teachers these guys experience unsafe situations

too um not always within their control i’m in control of my safety at work and so um my family friends very

supportive about my new journey matthew so in the nuclear industry we

saw that the impression was largely not as supportive as with renewables and this is what i’ve seen is when the

friends and the family understand what nuclear does how we use isotopes for cancer research how we use

it for sterilizing food how we’re one of the cleanest for fighting climate change and reducing

pollution and really selling that story they become much more supportive so i think

that’s another thing that david uh highlighted is it’s that storytelling and then

you know getting your job to how it helps impact the community so they started out

not too sure but they’ve become much much more supportive as we’ve as we’ve learned more i’ll stay with you

matthew just um and i know we have about five minutes left what would you want other people um including students

who are perhaps in high school right now um who are starting to think about their careers

uh what would you like them to think about working in the industry

so i would just say that there’s so many job offerings out there to really not be discouraged to really

look into it if you’re an animator if you’re a communications expert if you’re a twitter expert

like there’s so many different jobs and careers don’t be discouraged by the the lack of

diversity be the one to change it and really start to change this industry and start to look

at how we can combat those long-term goals of fighting pollution energy security especially we see it for

covet everyone started to panic that they were going to run out of toilet paper but no one really started to panic that

they needed a generator because without electricity the grocery stores would not have enough food

hospitals would not be able to treat people so i’d say start to look at how important

electricity is and start to consider a role in that in the future

same question um just to continue on i i was going to say endless opportunities in the electrical

field you know there’s travel there’s chances to travel um there’s you know different avenues

you can take renewable energy you can work in transportation you can work in single signals there’s so many different avenues

that you know it really is an open door for you and the other thing that i

really think is great for high schoolers is um you can get an education without accumulating a bunch of debt

this is like a nice way to start your life opposed to the other alternative maybe ways to go um there’s programs

that you can start in high school ontario youth apprenticeship program you can start your career dreams

in high school um and i’m very envious when i see those young 20 year olds on my job site and they’re

already you know they’ve got a down payment for a house because they you know found their passion kind of young and so

if there’s something i’d say go go try different things and and you know see if electricity is for you

because there are so many opportunities dee what would you want to tell other

young people again it’s starting out i’m gonna sound like a broken record um because we’re all basically saying

the same thing which is try it you just there are shop classes

there are co-ops there there are so many things in high school that uh kids or students young adults don’t

understand that they’re given a great opportunity to try things without spending thousands of dollars

so i would also say specifically for the electricity trade there are so so many different paths um

if you like working outside there’s something for you if you like working inside there’s something for you if you like sitting around we could probably find

something for you as well so um there’s there’s so many different type of

electricians and jobs and careers that you can find almost anything you’re looking for in

the electricity sector and i think a thing to remind people as well is is that all of those things are

fabulous and the different types of careers and you may have different jobs within the sector you can you can move

you can have different career paths over your career right it’s you don’t necessarily have to do the one thing for the 30

years you can actually move around and i think that’s that that’s exciting in and of itself to know

that you can have that different type of career path as you as you move through your career and and hopefully pay it forward and you

know and train and train and uh inspire other people well this is almost time to wrap up i

want to thank all three of you i have to say um i’m very inspired listening to your stories thank you so much for sharing i

think you’re fantastic advocates and and leaders in our industry so thank you so much for your for your time today um

we are going to to wrap up uh we just got a couple of minutes left i do want to thank um everybody i think

i speak for everybody and i know especially at ehrc when we say that we really value your your

contributions and and the perspective that you’ve all brought to the table thank you to david coletto from abacus

data of course we’re doing a great job um with the presentation and and taking those questions

and uh many thanks of course as well too to our parliamentary sector secretary to the minister of natural

resources canada for joining us today i’m excited to hear more about those uh those two

initiatives uh again i just want to thank the sponsors of the report uh the aso elektra skills canada and the

society of united professionals again all organizations who are so committed uh to

supporting uh the next generation of youth who are looking to work in this industry and to everybody who’s been with us

today i hope it’s given you something to think about it certainly has for us as we work um a

move forward uh to build that sort of resilient workforce of the future

you can visit electricityhr.ca to get a copy of the report it has just been downloaded right now and of course we

will share a copy of this recording should you wish to share that um amongst your peers

um and with other folks so thank you everybody and enjoy the rest of the summer and uh