CONEXUS recognized with award

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The Saskatchewan Labour Force Development Board handed out their annual Training for Excellence Awards on June 8, recognizing organizations for their outstanding achievements in the area of training and employee development.

This year's award recipient in the Promotion of Aboriginal Participation category was the CONEXUS credit union, which earned the award for its Finding the Key initiative.

Realizing that finding and keeping Aboriginal employees requires much more than just job training, CONEXUS developed Finding the Key to provide Aboriginal candidates with the supports they might need in a variety of areas, including basic literacy, life skills, and financial and computer literacy. The program was created in partnership with a number of Aboriginal organizations, including Piapot First Nation, Regina Treaty Status Indian Services Inc. and Treaty Four.

Saskatchewan Highways and Transportation also received a Training for Excellence Award, this one in the Human Resource Planning/Succession Planning category.

With almost 80 per cent of its current fleet services mechanical staff having retired by 2011, the department is working to tap into the Aboriginal labour pool. Sask. Highways has entered into a cost sharing partnership with the Prince Albert Grand Council, Opaskwayak Cree Nation, Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, the Metis Nation-Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan government and the General Employees Union to develop the Aboriginal Heavy Duty Mechanic Apprenticeship program to assist Aboriginal people in becoming journeyman mechanics.

Among the other award recipients was the Saskatchewan Tourism Education Council, which was given the Workplace Essential Skills Development Award in recognition of its Ready To Work program.