SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The GNWT should provide skills training for front-line workers in the tourism and service industry in order to improve employee retention among small businesses, says the executive director of the Smart Communities Society.

Max Cimon, owner of CG Systems in Yellowknife, listens during a GNWT presentation on the territorial economy during a Small Business Week workshop at the office of the Conseil de développement économique des Territoires du Nord-Ouest on Monday. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

During a Small Business Week workshop on Monday - in which the GNWT gave an economic overview of the territory - Irene Vasa, a senior economist with the territorial government, presented, among many other statistics, the findings of a September 2009 survey highlighting the challenges facing small businesses operating in the NWT.

The biggest barrier - identified by 76 per cent of respondents - is the difficulty in attracting and retaining staff.

"It would be nice if the government had some kind of training opportunity for front-line people, to teach them good customer relations so that staying in the industry is more viable for them," said Cheryl Deforest, executive director of the Smart Communities Society, which provides IT equipment to 19 municipalities in the territory.

"I find there is lots of information and resources available for people with the mining industry, but what there is not a lot of resources available for is for our people who work on the front line in, say, the service industry: the people working hotels, the people working restaurants."

As a former staffer with the Tourism Association of Saskatchewan, Deforest had "a little route that I followed and I would give presentations on customer service skills to communities. People from McDonald's would be there. People from hotels would be there. People from the hospitals would be there. And it taught people how to courteously serve people.

"They were thinking down the road because they wanted people to stay in that industry, and the best way to keep people in the industry is to arm them with information so that they know how to handle a particular kind of situation.

"When I see that 76 per cent of the small businesses in the Northwest Territories are unable to find staff and retain them, that's a little bell and whistle that goes off in my head, saying, 'This is an area that needs to be addressed by the GNWT because tourism is a lot of money coming into our territory.'"

"If we did it better, it could be even higher," said Deforest.

Vasa pointed out tourism currently accounts for three per cent of the NWT's GDP. She also said the NWT is facing a looming shortage of young workers to replace the territory's aging working population.

"The young age group, from 0 to 15 years of age, is on the decline, and the one from 35-plus is on the increase," said Vasa. "There are several ways that you can read that, but you can say that the 45-plus people are getting close to retirement and people that should be replacing them are leaving the territory, so when it comes to trades, for example, it could be quite challenging in the near

future (to find those workers.)"

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