The Career Foundation

Developing Human Potential

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The Career Foundation Launches Its Online Workforce Development Centre

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The Career Foundation's Online Workforce Development Centre: Creating opportunities to build prosperity for all!

With a successful history of operating and delivering sector-focused workforce development projects, The Career Foundation is pleased to share a new innovation to our service model. We are excited to announce the launch of The Career Foundation’s Online Workforce Development Centre!

This centre is currently an online platform that highlights sector-specific initiatives that we are continuously developing. We invite employers to partner with us in a new way: to design sector-based workforce innovations that will continuously respond to changing industry needs and create new opportunities for employers and job seekers, while rebuilding the Canadian economy.

Faced with unprecedented disruption, we are dealing with great uncertainty. While some employers were experiencing losses before COVID-19, they now need to hire extensively. On the other hand, employers who were poised to scale-up their businesses have unfortunately had to lay off many employees. This Workforce Development Centre is needed now, more than ever, to help make sense of our disrupted labour market. It will help to explore, design, and test agile workforce strategies to meet the quickly evolving needs of employers. Finally, the centre will create opportunities for all job seekers.

As we begin, our Workforce Development Centre will focus on three priorities:

Online Workforce Development Centre: The Career Foundation will focus on three primary strategies as we continuously build our platform: Inform, Collaborate, and Co-Create.

The Workforce Development Centre will monitor trends emerging in various industries. We will work closely with employers to co-create solutions that will help them meet the evolving needs of their sector. These solutions will also help employers access diverse, traditionally untapped talent pools.

We invite you to view the additions to our website here, and to check out our new Future@Work podcast.

More on the Workforce Development Centre

The Career Foundation identified the top six industries that are currently experiencing high growth, skills mismatches and/or talent shortages. Those include technology, finance, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, sales & service, and the skilled trades. Our in-house Sector Experts (Employer Services Consultants) have worked closely with hundreds of employers in these six sectors.

The long-term goal of the Workforce Development Centre is to become a trusted source of industry intelligence, sector-based partnerships, and workforce innovations that support labour market and economic resiliency.

We look forward to working with you to advance the priorities of the Workforce Development Centre — creating opportunities and prosperity for all Canadians.

Online Workforce Development Centre URL:
https://careerfoundation.com/workforce-development-centre

Mental Wellness Week: The Effects of Mental Stress & How to Master It

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Mental Wellness Week Banner

You may have heard the term mental wellness a lot lately, but why? Why does it seem to be newsworthy? What has changed? Is it a change in society’s values, maybe? Or perhaps it’s a change in society’s perception of the mind-body-connection. 

With new scientific studies there is now a much clearer link between brain development and music, or artistic practices and the ability to process pain, or meditation in the regulation of moods. It’s no wonder our viewpoint on mental wellness is beginning to shift, with an increase in acceptance of a more holistic view of health.

In the overwhelming, social media-driven world we currently reside in, it’s difficult to maintain good mental health. Combine this with the frustrations of job searching and job loss, which, next to losing a loved one, is within the top 10 events in a person’s life that contributes to a loss of mental wellness. On top of this, one in three Canadians will struggle with mental health issues in their lifetime, which can make job searching even more daunting.

Mental Health Week: The silhouette of a woman as she rests her head on her knees while sitting on a dock.

The Career Foundation is excited to designate this week as Mental Wellness Week, with the launch of our new Wellness Room to complement the services offered through our Empowering Abilities Program at our Hamilton location. In this relaxing space, we will be teaching stress management techniques, methods for reducing anxiety and many other activities in preparation for staying healthy while juggling work and other life commitments.

Each day this week, we will be sharing activities from our Wellness Room as well as tips and tricks to maintain your mental wellness. Stay tuned!

The Effects of Mental Stress

Mental Wellness Week: Staff making use of the Mental Wellness room by meditating on yoga mats.
Mindfulness exercises taking place in the wellness room at our Hamilton office.

As Mental Wellness Week is upon us, it’s important to talk about the effects that stress can have on our body and mind. We may experience stress daily in a multitude of scenarios: job searching, writing the perfect résumé, preparing for an interview with a future employer, and so on. Although stress is a common feeling, it can affect all of us in different ways. As you read this, take a moment to notice your posture. Do you feel like your shoulders are raised up towards your ears?

In addition to tense muscles, stress can also cause:

  • feelings of exhaustion;
  • increased appetite for greasy and sweet foods;
  • mood swings;
  • poor sleep;
  • lapses in memory.

Although there are many moments throughout the day that may lead to feelings of stress, there are also ways in which we can help control our responses to them. Over the next few days we will touch on each one of these methods!

Stress Relief Technique # 1: Deep Breathing

Mental Wellness Week: The team practising some deep breathing and relaxation exercises to calm the nerves.
The team practising some deep breathing and relaxation exercises to calm the nerves.

Deep, controlled breathing may seem like an easy task, but when we are feeling stressed our body automatically starts to breathe shallower. Taking control of your breathing. Here’s how:

  1. Breathe in slowly through your nose, allowing your chest and lower belly to rise as you fill your lungs.
  2. Let your abdomen expand fully.
  3. Now breathe out slowly through your mouth (or your nose, if that feels more natural).
  4. You can also try sitting comfortably with your eyes loosely focused, blending deep breathing with helpful imagery and perhaps a focus word or phrase that helps you relax.

Stress Relief Technique # 2: Practising Gratitude

Creating a "vision board" is also a good way to set positive, forward-thinking goals for yourself.
Creating a “vision board” is also a good way to set positive, forward-thinking goals for yourself.

Taking time to appreciate what’s good in your life can help to alleviate stress. 

Feelings of gratitude flood our brains with a chemical called dopamine. When we are truly grateful for something (or someone) our brains reward us by giving us a natural boost of happiness, which can help buffer the effects of stress.

Try practising gratitude through the following ways:

  1. Keep a gratitude journal (e.g., each day adding to a list of things you are thankful for)
  2. Tell people that you are thankful for them, and give them reasons why. They may return the favour!
  3. Notice the beauty in nature and the little moments around you, and say “thank you” to the universe for providing them to you each day.

Taking Care of What You Can

A young woman is shown colouring in a wall mural, meant as a therapeutic tool for stress.
We’ve started a wall mural at our Hamilton office, which clients will slowly colour in over time as they navigate each cycle of our Completing the Circle program.

Many things happen in life that we can’t control, and this causes stress. We can help to decrease our emotional vulnerability by keeping on top of a few things:

  1. Eat: Try to eat whole foods as much as possible, as they provide the most nutrients and help keep our emotions balanced. 
  2. Sleep: Getting regular sleep decreases stress, improves concentration and can increase problem-solving abilities. Try to aim for 7-8 hours of sleep per night if possible. 
  3. Exercise:  Exercise has been shown to decrease overall levels of tension, elevate and stabilize mood, improve sleep, and improve self-esteem. Even five minutes of aerobic exercise can stimulate anti-stress effects in the body. 

These are just a few strategies among many that can help us keep our stress under control. There are many helpful online resources that offer a wide variety of ways to buffer the effects of stress, such as Skills You Need: Stress Tips and Very Well Mind: Tips to Reduce Stress.

There are many things that happen in life that are out of our control; what we can help control are the ways in which we respond to them. Taking the time to care for your mental wellness can really go a long way the next time you encounter a tough situation!