WITH A GOAL to better align educational offerings with labour market demands, Ivey Executive Education at Ivey Business School and the London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) are collaborating to enhance talent development opportunities for employees and businesses in London.
Access to talent is the number one constraint for employers in London, building internal capacity remains a top solution in addressing this challenge. Providing employees with more development and training options not only helps role evolution, but also with retaining current jobs. It attracts new workers that can see - through these employee investments - that they will have a supportive future ahead of them in their organizations.
Recently, Ivey Executive Education and the LEDC signed a partnership agreement that targets employees in management and leadership roles across sectors, within key industries such as manufacturing, food and beverage processing, and digital creative. The aim is to enhance leadership and strategic thinking through a series of professional development programs and events held throughout the year, historically only offered in Toronto over a number of days.
Developing leadership skills for mid-level managers and executives helps London companies grow and respond to changing markets. Offering career enrichment opportunities for these levels of talent can help improve a company’s turnover rate and lead to long standing employees. This in turn reduces the need for frequent recruitment of these in-demand roles, allowing the organization to focus more on developing strategies that will help the business grow.
The new partnership will address key strategies the two organizations share, such as business engagement, workforce development, talent retention, and raising visibility through marketing and promotion of Ivey and London.
On Wednesday, October 11th, the partnership between the LEDC and Ivey will formally launch at an exclusive session for the London Founder Network – a new program to support seasoned entrepreneurs – about Preparing for Disruption. This session will be a lively and thought-provoking opportunity to learn and interact with our community’s successful business leaders.
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"Through this new alliance, we’re building a stronger regional economy by improving connectivity between industry and academia,” says Kapil Lakhotia, President and CEO at the LEDC. "We are excited about the future potential of this collaboration, as it leverages the strengths of both organizations and translates into economic success for the community."
"London has been our home since 1922. We are proud to be part of this vibrant business community, and to invest in our backyard. We believe strongly in the work of LEDC, and we can help," added Mark Healy, Executive Director of Executive Education at Ivey.
Recently, the LEDC developed a similar relationship with Fanshawe College to create a Business Momentum series that helps provide human resource and communications best practices for small and medium-sized enterprises that may not have full capacities in-house. The workshops, focusing on performance management, full-cycle recruitment, digital marketing, and more, have been well-received and running since 2016. Over 50 London companies have attended these one-day workshops.
As workforce and talent development remain a top priority for the LEDC, more collaboration amongst industry and educational institutes will continue to emerge and develop as the labour market demands change. By enhancing career enrichment and skills-building opportunities for employees, these industry-tailored solutions are expected to better engage and invest in London’s talented and experienced workforce.
The London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) is the lead economic development agency for London, Canada. LEDC works with business, government and community partners to attract business investment, develop a connected and supportive business climate and grow London’s talented workforce. It’s our mission to develop a sustainable economic advantage through the growth of local business, attraction of new investment and the support of an entrepreneurial climate in London. Recognized as being one of the first economic development agencies in Canada with a dedicated workforce development focus, the LEDC matches employer needs to candidate pools as well as employment support agencies. New supports, such as job fairs, educational partnerships, and training opportunities have been development by the LEDC to ensure businesses have the talent they need, and London residents have the career and employment opportunities they seek.
Ivey Business School at Western University offers a range of executive education programs from its campuses in London and Toronto. Ivey’s custom and open-enrolment programs take an experiential learning approach. Our case-based, interactive learning experience is designed to make an immediate impact on the way you think, act and lead across an entire enterprise. The Ivey experience is built around each participant’s needs, experiences and aspirations, focusing heavily on behaviour change. Our approach to executive education is fed by real-world knowledge and best practices from around the world. Ivey Executive Education Programs consistently rank #1 in Canada and among the top 15 in the world, based on independent survey conducted by The Financial Times.
