In the war for talent, winning hearts may be harder than minds
When a team from Edmonton Economic Development put on a promotional event in Toronto last fall, one official admitted they came to Ontario because Alberta needs all the business talent and investment it can get – and it’s already hired every Newfoundlander who’ll come.
By Rick Spence
I recalled that comment the other day after talking with the contractor whose firm waterproofed the basement of my Toronto home. My ears perked up when he mentioned he’d just returned from working in Alberta.
“What?” I spluttered. With the current boom, workers are expected to run to Alberta, not back to Ontario. So I asked what brought him back. “Family, I guess,” he shrugged. “My roots were back here.” What about the mountains, lower taxes, Whyte Avenue? He shrugged and looked up at the towering oaks and maples in the backyard. “This is home,” he said.
His story reminded me of another Alberta emigrant, some twenty-fi… um, a few years ago. My first job after university in Ontario was working in Edmonton and then Calgary for Alberta Report magazine. It was hard work but fascinating (plus I was earning $15,000 a year!). But after 16 months of sweatshop conditions and non-stop nagging about my eastern bias from Ted Byfield’s Reformers-to-be Brigade, I hightailed it back to Ontario. It was home.
Talking to my contractor made me wonder how many Ontarians really are heading West. So I called the experts to find out what it takes to lure Ontario executives to the land of Klein and (wild) roses. The first search consultant I called in Calgary said they find all their talent at home. The next firm said they rarely hire from Ontario; their clients want people with oil-industry experience, and pumping your own gas doesn’t cut it.
Edmonton recruiter David Aplin, who does look east, confirmed that Alberta remains foreign territory for many eastern execs. “There seems to be a real reluctance on the part of professional candidates from Ontario to move to Alberta,” he says. “It’s a long way from home – unless they’re not working.”
Aplin, whose eponymous firm maintains offices across Canada, explains why Ontario’s best and brightest might be hard to dislodge: “The Ontario economy, while it has some pockets of challenges, is fundamentally strong.” And if a candidate is mulling an offer, family members may object. “Sometimes the spouse that isn’t going to the fancy new job gets cold feet.”
And even when a candidate decides to move, says Aplin, “when they go in to resign, they get a counter-offer.” That’s right: Alberta’s boom is not only raising rates for roofers across the country, it’s also a bonanza just to be offered a job in Alberta. Says Aplin: “People are starting to say that the way to get a 20% raise is to go in and resign.”
Don’t expect the situation to get better. With millions of baby boomers beginning to down-shift, Aplin says there won’t be enough workers to go around anywhere in Canada. “There’s a war for talent now,” he says, “but we’re just at the early stage. It’ll get even tougher.”
If you really need Eastern talent, forget about the late-30s/early-40s demographic. Young people who haven’t settled into a long-term housing situation are a better bet, as are “empty nesters” whose children have all moved out.
Still, things could be worse. Lynn Armstrong, a search consultant in Vancouver with Caldwell Partners International, says finding business people to move to Vancouver is even tougher, because of pricey real estate. The good news: business people tired of Vancouver traffic are often happy to move to Calgary, which offers similar quality of life at lower cost. She says they’re much more likely to move to Alberta than to Ontario, making B.C. one more part of the Alberta Advantage.
Rick Spence is a Toronto writer and consultant. You can read his blog, Canadian Entrepreneur,
at http://canentrepreneur.blogspot.com
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