White paper discussing Employer Engagement

1. Employment Agencies Engaging Small
and Medium Sized Enterprises
PROMISING PRACTICES CASE STUDY SERIES | CASE STUDY 1
E M P LOY E R E N G AG E M E N T F O R CO M M U N I T Y B E N E F I T

2. Through funding from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), First Work
researched and developed a series of case studies to represent the experiences of employers,
employment agencies and other organizations involved in employer engagement initiatives.
The case studies profile innovative examples of promising practices that are intended to promote
the hiring of individuals traditionally underrepresented in the workforce. The lessons learned
suggest strategies that will inform future work in this area.
Emerging from discussions at the Futures Conference,
Canada’s largest and longest running youth employment
networking event, this series highlights important
concepts in employer engagement.
Sponsored by
BACKGROUND
PROFILE OF FIRST WORK
Through supporting the work of local youth employment centres
across Ontario, First Work aims to help young people find and
maintain meaningful employment that will help improve the quality
of their lives.
Visit us at www.firstwork.org

3. PROM ISING PRACTIC ES CA SE STUDY SERIES | CA SE STUDY 1
This case study highlights the promising practices
employment service agencies use to engage
employers, thereby encouraging them to hire
their clients. We interviewed agencies that
have demonstrated success establishing strong
relationships with employers and maintaining
good job placement rates.
In sharing their success factors, other
agencies interested in refining their own
strategies can learn from what works well,
and can explore opportunities to enhance
employer engagement.
In addition, the perspectives of several
employers who feel they have benefited
from relationships with local employment
agencies are offered. Agencies looking to
foster stronger employer relationships can
use this insight to enhance their techniques
for addressing employer’s needs.
Overview

4. Hire Job Developers with
the Right Skills
Employer engagement is best achieved when skilled job developers are
on the frontlines of an agency, working to appeal to the needs of both
job-seekers and employers. An efficient job developer must have diverse
skills. He or she needs to address the social aspects of the job, such as
relationship-building and applying sensitivity when dealing with clients
that experience barriers to employment. In addition, he or she must be
able to manage the business-oriented aspects of the job, by understanding
the labour market, profit-making and recruitment. One agency noted that
the best job developers are those who have had personal experience in the
business world, perhaps as corporate recruiters.
Promising Practices
The following promising practices for employer
engagement were identified through discussions
with the stakeholders involved:
 Hire job developers with the right skills.
 Develop a mutually beneficial relationship.
 Maintain communication every step of the way.
 Use a solutions-focused approach.
 Resolve issues before they become problems.
“Job developers should have one foot in the
business world… to have the drive to go out
there and be competitive, to find jobs… yet to
still be like a social worker, to take care of the
relationships, create a bond with employers
and see the signals if there’s something they
need to do to repair a relationship.”
— Employment Agency

5. “When working together, your goals are not separate. Often, what is
good for one is good for the other. It is about growing together and
supporting a holistic relationship.”
— Employment Agency
PROM ISING PRACTIC ES CA SE STUDY SERIES | CA SE STUDY 1
Develop a Mutually Beneficial Relationship
To get employers engaged in and committed to a relationship with
employment agencies they must feel they can trust the employment
agency referring job candidates to them. Furthermore, they must feel
that the relationship with the agency benefits them.
The following are examples of specific strategies employment agencies
use to build trust and develop a mutually beneficial relationship with
employers.
Offer Tangible Human Resources (HR) Supports
Employment agencies generally work with small businesses which
typically lack human resource expertise and staff. Stepping in to offer
concrete HR supports is one way of adding value to the employer.
HR supports offered by agencies often include:
 Using social media and/or the agency’s own online job board to help
an employer advertise a job vacancy
 Crafting online client profiles so employers
can peruse them when hiring
 Hosting job fairs on behalf of employers
 Helping with paperwork, such as payroll
documentation, when a job placement
is made.
Offering HR or other external supports to
employers even when they are not hiring from
the agency’s client base is a way to demonstrate
thattheagencyreallycaresabouttheemployer’s
needs. For example, agencies might send out
an employer-targeted newsletter, or offer
professional development to an employer’s staff.

6. Anticipate and Respond to Specific Employer Needs
The best supports are often those that respond to an employer’s individual
needs. For instance, one agency submits customized employment
proposals to employers when requesting they take on a client for a job trial.
In one case, the agency discovered that a retail employer was struggling
to find staff willing to work weekends. One of the agency’s clients actively
did want to work weekends, so the agency wrote a tailored employment
proposal stressing to the employer that hiring this individual would be
beneficial in this regard.
Another agency spoke about the importance of anticipating employers’
peak hiring seasons and helping to save the employer time by screening
applicants on their behalf before the company had even started to
advertise the vacancy. One of the employers interviewed noted that they
appreciate how their agency partner advertises jobs on their behalf to
the general public, focusing on helping them find the best person for the
position, rather than favouring their own client base.
Another employer said they appreciated that the employment agency
they work with understood that they were an atypical company and were
looking to hire people capable of “out-of-the-box thinking”—something
they prioritized over certain hard skills.
Know When — and When Not — to Use Financial
Incentives
Effective employment agencies don’t use financial incentives to “sell”
their clients, but instead focus on service and helping employers meet
their particular hiring needs. They understand that employers cannot be
“bought” with wage subsidies. Rather, employers must get on board with
the idea that hiring employment agency clients can actually benefit them,
helping them to achieve their bottom line.
Of course, financial incentives don’t need to be dismissed altogether.
Subsidies should be used while a client is undergoing a learning curve or
is catching up on certain technical skills. Ultimately, an employer must be
engaged to hire an agency client because they need a good employee, not
because they want to make some extra money off a short-term job trial.
“A financial incentive is appropriate if, say, it takes a little longer
to [orient] a person to the job than it would normally.”
— Employment Agency
“I’ve come to trust this agency
because they’re genuinely interested
in where we’re going. After ten
years [of working together], they
know exactly who we are and the
kind of staff we need.”
— Employer

7. PROM ISING PRACTIC ES CA SE STUDY SERIES | CA SE STUDY 1
Maintain Communication
Every Step of the Way
“If a job developer goes too long without contacting
an employer to check in, the relationship could be
damaged.”
— Employment Agency
Once an agency has placed a client in a job trial, it’s important to support
the employer by calling and paying visits periodically. Particularly in the
case of clients that experience multiple barriers to employment, a job
developer’s physical presence at the job site can make an important
difference. One employer noted that when she hired a client with severe
anxiety issues, the agency’s job developer accompanied that client to work
for the first week, helping her to acclimatize to the new environment. The
employer sincerely valued this extra effort on the part of the agency.
Post-employment communication is also critical. Employment agencies
that follow up with employers at regular intervals after a completed job
trial report having more frequent success placing another client with the
same employer.

8. Use a Solutions-Focused Approach
“Most at-risk youth are just as successful as others.
If you treat youth as at-risk, then that’s what you get.
If you treat them as successful individuals, then that’s
what you get.”
— Employment Agency
A solutions-focused approach means focusing on job seekers strengths versus their weaknesses.
Agencies should present job-seekers to employers in a positive light, regardless of any
employment barriers. This doesn’t mean overselling an individual or being unrealistic about his
or her capabilities. It’s about focusing on the things he or she can do, rather than highlighting
their issues and pigeonholing them as “at-risk.” This approach encourages employers to engage
in social hiring. Instead of precipitating a negative stigma by suggesting that an employer hire
an individual out of pity or duty, the client’s strengths are underscored. Successful agencies
emphasize how the employer will benefit from hiring this individual.
“We’re not going around begging for these clients, (saying), ‘oh please, look into
your heart and see if you can hire this person’. If the employer is told that a client
comes in on time, has a great attitude, and really wants the job, then that’s what
they’ll see, and that’s how they will treat them.”
— Employment Agency
Successful agencies understand that a client’s lack of certain technical skills, particularly in
entry-level positions, are often less important to employers than soft skills such as a good
attitude and a willingness to learn. Sometimes, simply finding a placement that really excites a
client and stressing to an employer how enthusiastic the candidate is is an effective engagement
tool.

9. Resolve Issues Before They Become
Problems
“We try to teach the employers and the youth we place to call us before
quitting or before firing. We tell them to think of us a sort of an
emergency clinic—to call us if there’s an issue before they do anything.
That way, we can talk about the issue together and solve it together”
— Employment Agency
In any work situation, regardless of whether an employee faces barriers,
conflicts inevitably arise. A successful agency must be proficient both at
doing damage control and at working to quell issues before they become
full-blown problems. Staying in regular contact with both clients and
employers is one way for a job developer to detect, mediate and resolve
problems early on. Another is encouraging both employers and clients
to call the agency as soon as an issue arises, rather than waiting until a
problem escalates.
When an employer does call with a complaint,
an effective job developer will go to the site
and manage the conflict or situation in a direct
and timely manner. After getting a sense of
the problem, the job developer will convene a
conversation about what has been working and
what the client has been doing well. Ensuring all
parties remain focused on strengthening what is
working can help deescalate an issue.
PROM ISING PRACTIC ES CA SE STUDY SERIES | CA SE STUDY 1

10. Employment agencies occupy a unique and sometimes difficult
position in the Employment Ontario service network. Because their
main priority is to find secure, meaningful employment for their clients
— typically, individuals that have been excluded from the workforce —
agencies must appeal to employers to take a chance on candidates they
might not otherwise consider.
Inaddition,becauseastrongrelationshipwithemployersisthecornerstone
of employer engagement, agencies must deal with the added challenge of
ensuring the business needs of employers are understood and addressed.
To achieve this our case study recommends that agencies be committed
to getting to know employers — to understand their personalities and the
types of personalities that would work well with them — as well as their
individual hiring needs, challenges and the company culture they have
cultivated. Agencies must be ready to offer support, such as coordinating
a job fair on an employer’s behalf or knowing when it’s appropriate to
provide a wage subsidy.
Once trust has been established, the agency must work to maintain the
relationship by showing a genuine interest in the employer. This means
checking in with them regularly, regardless of whether the employer has
hired the agency’s particular clients. This case study recommends that
agencies play a “long game” when it comes to employer engagement,
allowing trust to develop over time and valuing high-quality matches over
quick, one-off job trials. For social hiring to continue as both a viable and
sustainable practice, the long game approach is the only option. 
This publication is one in a series of case studies addressing issues surrounding employer
engagement for community benefit. Please visit www.firstwork.org for more information
about the series and our organization.
Concluding Comments

11. Contributing Stakeholders
Employment Agencies
 KEYS Job Centre is a community-based centre that provides
employment-related services to Kingston and communities in eastern
Ontario. Their client base includes mature workers, persons with
disabilities, youth, students and newcomers to Canada.
 Youth Employment Service, YES is an employment services centre
focused on helping vulnerable and disadvantaged youth in the Greater
Toronto Area find jobs or start businesses.
 YES North Bay is a community-based, nonprofit organization
whose mandate is to help individuals—both those with and without
employment barriers—find meaningful employment, return to school,
access training and become productive members of the community.
 FOCUS is a community-based, nonprofit organization whose purpose
is to enhance employment opportunities in the South Simcoe area.
All implement Employment Ontario Employment Services and have been
identified by the Province as peer leaders for their outstanding outcomes
achievement.
PROM ISING PRACTIC ES CA SE STUDY SERIES | CA SE STUDY 1

12. FIR ST WO RK
Th e O n tar io Associa t ion of
Yo u th Em ployment Cent re s
CO MMU N ITY INSIGHTS ADVANCING YOUTH EMPLOYMENT
Suite 350 – 215 Spadina Ave.
Toronto, Ontario
M5T 2C7
(416) 323-9557
info@firstwork.org
www.firstwork.org