'Earn while you learn' language classes help Eastern Townships ski hill find staff for winter season
When 30-year-old Karen Rojas moved to the Eastern Townships from Venezuela eight months ago, she did not speak English nor French, and had no job prospects.
Now, she works in both languages in the kitchen at the Mont Sutton ski hill.
Rojas was one of 15 participants in the "earn while you learn" program, piloted by Mont Sutton, the employability organization CEDEC and the Eastern Townships School Board.
New hires at the ski hill were paid their salary during 10 weeks of intensive all-day French classes to get their language skills to a working level for the start of the winter tourism season.
The 300 class hours were specifically focused on learning words the employees would need on the job.
In Rojas' case, words like dishwasher, fryer and mop.
"Every day my team — my friends in the kitchen — teach me new words," Rojas said.
"It's good, because I can learn, I can work, I get paid," she said.
The program sprang from an idea by the human resources coordinator at Mont Sutton, Véronique Dumont.
When she started at the hill a year ago, there were 85 unfilled staff spots.
"Recruitment here, like everywhere else, is very difficult," she said.
Dumont partnered with CEDEC and the school board, and applied to Services Québec for funding. Then she set out recruiting.
"We are so lucky to have those first participants," Dumont said. "They are from different areas, some from the village here, from Venezuela, from England, someone who came out of retirement … it's a great group."
She explained the important thing for her — as opposed to just language skills — is the right attitude, and a willingness to learn.
"You have one idea one day that makes the project of your career, and this is mine," Dumont said.
Tiffany Monk, 30, was born in England and had been working in Vancouver for more than three years. But she moved to the Eastern Townships in July after her Quebec-born wife was recruited for a job in the region.
She said the 10 weeks of French classes were exactly what she needed to build a foundation with the language.
"I couldn't believe my luck, really, because I knew it was going to be a struggle not speaking French," Monk said.
She also said the experience gave participants the chance to bond before working together, to give them a sense of community for those who are not from the region, and they're now like a "little family."
Monk said she enjoys the atmosphere working at the hill.
"It's so Canadian to work on a ski mountain," she said.
For Nina Kim, a project manager at CEDEC, Mont Sutton was a "natural choice" as a partner in this project, because the tourism industry faces specific challenges recruiting staff.
She said that without the offer of year-round employment and a strong emphasis on soft skills and communication for customer service, it's difficult to find people willing to take a chance.
"With all that dynamic, it's generally hard for tourism industry to find the people they need," Kim said.
But she added the personal impact on participants was an unexpected benefit.
She said one of the program's graduates had once thought she would have to return home to Ontario unless she could find a way to improve her French.
"I think it was extremely meaningful and very touching for all of us," Kim said. "We could not have envisioned the depth and breadth of the impact this was going to make."
"We were hoping this would lead to incremental changes in the tourism industry and the labour market — and upscaling the workforce in Sutton — but we never knew how deep the impact would be for each individual, so it was extremely touching to see," she said.
Kim said she and her colleagues at CEDEC "definitely have a desire to see this approach scaled up," but that it would require the right actors at the table.
Phase two of the program will see an additional six weeks of language classes in the spring, to teach the 15 participants, like Rojas and Monk, the vocabulary to work the summer tourism season.
Rojas said she is starting to feel more relaxed speaking in her second and third languages, and she's looking forward to her first white Christmas.
