When I started working at CKCA seven years ago I did not know this industry. The learning curve was steep to get up to speed, but the people were helpful, down to earth and the work was interesting and challenging.
From the get-go people would tell me that they loved the industry and I admit I didn’t understand why. But over time
I have grown to understand why people
do and now
I do too!
Not only do I have a great respect for what our industry does, as well as its complexities, and what they produce is impressive and can really transform any space. It’s clear that while we are the kitchen cabinetry industry, many companies are so much more than that.
When we started to think about ways to promote working in the industry it was easy to know that “love what you do,” would be one of the mantras. If you go to our website ckca.ca/careers you’ll find videos that promote that.
We can all agree there’s something to be said for a job or a career that you love. It holds value that goes beyond the paycheck. In an age where there’s a skilled labour shortage, being creative is key, but so is keeping it authentic and that’s what CKCA is working hard to do. Let’s face it, our industry is humble and while it promotes what it builds, it doesn’t talk much about the people behind it or career opportunities that exist.
But we have to because competition is steep with every industry suffering labour shortages. We need to promote and educate the positives about our industry. We need woodworkers, but we also need designers, engineers and technicians. Most people don’t realize that a lot of woodshops today use a lot of technology and wood manufacturing is automated.
Recently we saw a video created by one of our members, Netley Millwork based in Petersfield, Manitoba. They created a behind the scenes video showing how they build cabinets. The video had great visuals, awesome music and a great vibe. It surprised me and then I got excited about the possibility
of using this video to promote the industry. Netley agreed
to let us use whatever we needed (thank you so much Netley), so we’ve created a video that we hope will become a tool to promote working in our industry. We want it to change perceptions and get people excited about jobs in our sector.
In addition, we’ve partnered with WMC to build a series of career videos that profile specific jobs such as designer, panel processing manager, customer service rep and more. These will be launched in the coming weeks as part of our HR Suite of Tools and WMC is using them too. We also encourage you to use and share all these tools when you’re at career fairs, high school presentations or even from your website and social media channels.
We hope to build more career profiles in the future too. If we are going to move the dial on the skilled labour shortage in our industry, we need to change perceptions, so people who think they know what a woodshop looks like should think again.
Check out the video at
https://youtu.be/DYRzIFYS5XM
