Today marks the sixteenth day since the launch of the Make Prince Rupert Home initiative, an online recruitment project to attract workers and new residents to the community.
The program which is a partnership of the City of Prince Rupert, Community Futures of the Pacific Northwest and the Port of Prince Rupert along with some of its industrial partners, has delivered an aggressive campaign through social media to highlight many of the assets that Prince Rupert has to offer.
As the campaign passed by the two week mark, the North Coast Review contact Monika Côté, Manager of Corporate Communications with the Prince Rupert Port Authority who provided for a quick snapshot of the program so far.
"PRPA and our partners at the City of Prince Rupert, Community Futures of the Pacific Northwest, and other port partners including DP World, Ridley Terminals Inc., and Ray-Mont Logistics have supported various Redesign Rupert initiatives, such as a labour market study, the development of a community recruitment initiative, and the Prince Rupert 2030 Vision.
The challenge many local employers are having recruiting and retaining employees has been a common theme in the engagement through the Redesign process.
There are significant recruitment challenges in not only port-related industry and the broader service/retail industry in Prince Rupert, but also with essential areas such as health care and education."
Towards those themes, as noted, much of the focus for the campaign is to attract skilled labour and professionals to the community, and that is an area where the region has struggled in recruiting talent, just last week we took note of the ongoing efforts towards filling health care positions by Northern Health which currently has a large volume of positions available.
That will no doubt also be a recurring theme for some of the larger industrial fixtures in the region as the port's footprint grows along the waterfront and the shift in the local economy continues to be seen.
As the campaign began to roll out, there was some feedback from the community that may have taken the program proponents aback just a bit, such was the forceful overview of the current state that the community finds itself in.
The commentary from many of the local population viewing the campaign in its first few days was quite vociferous and raised many of the issues currently of concern in the community, much of it focused on housing, current options for travel and some of the missing amenities that the city may have.
And for the most part, those are comments that City Council perhaps should be keeping note of, as many of the issues raised by the near 100 contributions that first week were areas where the City has an active role towards resolving.
While the partners involved are clearly aware of the local housing stock situation, Ms. Côté, provided for the focus for the recruitment campaign which is more towards those key shortfalls in the local workforce and how it is important to attract that level of worker to the community.
"While we all appreciate that related issues such as housing availability are a part of this challenge, PRPA’s agreement to launch and coordinate the management of this initiative right now is a reflection of the immediate need for critical positions in the delivery of services to the community (for example, nurses, teachers, chefs, tradespeople and other accredited professionals) and in some cases, even the survival of businesses in the short term.
The recruitment initiative is focused on positioning Prince Rupert as a great place to live and work, providing information and connections most relevant to people considering a move to Prince Rupert, and aggregating current job opportunities that local employers are actively trying to fill.
Local employers have been invited to engage in the process and continue to provide feedback. Nearly 60 employers participated in the initial webinar to learn more about the project and consider the value it may add to their existing recruitment efforts."
The housing issue is certainly one of much importance in the city and the immediate need for affordable housing for those in need of shelter and the longer term goal towards more market housing is one that is quite obvious.
That however is in the Wheelhouse of only one of the partners in the recruitment program, that being the City of Prince Rupert which has struggled in the past when it comes to having past projects that have been approved make it to the finish line, you can review some of the past themes on housing here.
Since the start of this year, the Mayor and Council declared that creation of housing stock was now one of their top priorities, and one they appear to be ready to take some steps towards.
How they succeed in those efforts will certainly be key towards ensuring that the employee recruitment campaign has success.
When it comes to the viewership so far, the project is seemingly off to a strong start, with Ms. Côté making note of over 150,000 views of the online material and more than 4,000 follow up clicks to other material that is available as part of the program
"The initiative targets potential employees from cities and regions outside of the community. In the first week alone, over 150,000 have seen the marketing material and 4,000 people have visited makeprinceruperthome.com, from areas such as Edmonton, Calgary, and Lower Mainland BC, which demonstrates that the targeting that has been established is working.
As the campaign is still in its early stage, we will have better grasp of the success in the coming months."
The online recruitment and information campaign will continue on through until May, when the partners will reassess how it evolved and if it met its goal of creating interest in Prince Rupert and delivered a volume of follow up inquiries.
The main portal for the program and its link to a number of categories is the Make Prince Rupert Home website
We can also follow along as the project continues forward with new material through a range of options.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
To follow the ongoing efforts towards this approach and other elements towards the new vision for the community see our archive page here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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