Description: Print leaders share their best practices and tips for recruiting and hiring the next generation Keywords: recruiting, hiring, personnel, printing industry, staffing, Victoria Gaitskell

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2. 18 PRINTACTION · December 2018 PRINTACTION.COM
Print leaders share their
strategies for recruiting and
hiring the next generation
By Victoria Gaitskell
G
eography has made
Friesens, one of North
America’s leading
book, yearbook and
packaging manufac-
turers, especially cre-
ative at recruiting new
candidates for the
printing workforce.
The company is situated in the town of
Altona, Man., (population 4,212), 100
km south of the provincial capital of
Winnipeg and 10 km north of the U.S.
border. Although this location helps fos-
ter the company’s cross-border trade
(about 50 percent of its book and 20
percent of its yearbook production enters
the U.S. market), it also creates challen-
ges for finding staff in the town and sur-
rounding rural municipality of Rhineland,
an area largely devoted to farming and
agriculture-based business.
Dana Bergman, Friesens’ Training
Coordinator, says the company’s local
staff totals about 500, not including the
100 sales representatives scattered across
North America. “Because of where we’re
located we struggle with getting skilled
workers, so we train up a lot of our own
workers who start in entry-level positions.
Right now, if the right individuals walked
through the door,we would probably hire
15 to 20 more people,” she says.
Hands-on experience
One way Friesens cultivates potential
new hires is by providing openings for the
local high school’s Career Internship
Program. This program helps Grade 11
and 12 students gain both academic
credit and employability by spending 75
hours in the workforce in a field of their
choice. Bergman explains these high
school internships are unpaid and at
REACHING OUR
YOUTH
RECRUITING
Last month Mi5
Print & Digital
hosted 75+ Humber
College students
for a tech tour of
its Mississauga,
Ont., facility.
PHOTO:
MI5
PRINT
&
DIGITAL

3. 20 PRINTACTION · December 2018 PRINTACTION.COM
Friesens occur mostly in production
areas in the pressroom or bindery. “We
work with the school to assess the stu-
dents’ interest and mechanical skills and
whether they are a good fit for our en-
vironment...and some we have been able
to give on-the-job technical training and
employment after graduation. One IT
student who went on to full-time employ-
ment here is now one of our intermediate
software developers.”
Friesens annually hires two to five
students on mandatory unpaid eight-
week practicums from the Manitoba In-
stitute of Trades and Technology
(MITT)’s Graphic and Print Technician
Program inWinnipeg, Man.
Kevin Gregg, Internship Coordinator
for Ryerson University’s Graphic Com-
munications Management (GCM) in
Toronto, Ont., oversees about 130 four-
month internships a year. The support
both Ryerson and MITT students receive
to find a job for their internship includes
a job fair where students attend a series
of 10-minute ‘get acquainted’ interviews
with a variety of prospective employers in
a process akin to speed dating.Gregg says
the job fair often leads to internships and
part-time jobs while in about 40 percent
of cases, students complete their remain-
ing studies and take on full-time jobs.
Gregg continues: “Although larger
printing companies may take three or
four interns at a time, we place no size
requirements for companies that provide
internships. One student from Graven-
hurst [Ontario],whose hometown printer
wasn’t hiring, successfully convinced the
owner to give him an internship and the
situation worked out really well on both
sides. If a smaller printer has difficulty
providing the prerequisite full job de-
scription for the intern,I have no problem
phoning the employer to clarify things.”
Based inToronto, Ont., Eva’s Phoenix
Print Shop – operated by Eva’s Initiatives
For Homeless Youth – is a commercial
printer and social enterprise that trains
young people experiencing and at risk of
homelessness. Through a seven/eight-
week training program, the students are
introduced to the pillars of the industry
and learn digital printing, bindery,
large-format printing, prepress and de-
sign fundamentals using Adobe Creative
Suite, as well as job readiness training
such as workplace expectations and ef-
fective communication skills.
To further the program, Eva’s Phoenix
Print Shop has announced that starting
next February, its eligible cohort of eight
graduates will be ready to fill work place-
ments and potential employers who take
on the job-ready candidates will be able
to receive up to 11 weeks of paid subsid-
ized work placement – equating to poten-
tially $5,000 in wage subsidies – from
Eva’s PrintTraining Program.
Scholarships and financial aid
Friesens provides post-secondary educa-
tion scholarships to children of staff
members as well as post-secondary stu-
dents who have returned to the company
after working at least one summer there.
Also in the works is a new plan for tuition
reimbursementto support post-secondary
learning for students in positions forwhich
they have a high need, including estimat-
ing, customer project management, and
press and bindery operators. “We’re
looking to engage with Grade 12 students
before they graduate by saying,‘If you are
interested in any of these fields, we will
support your education, build in paid
periods of work between school years and
enter into a post-graduation contract with
you,’” Bergman says. “Sponsoring stu-
dents while they work here helps us at-
tract and retain local talent.”
Hiring challenges
“Without printing there would be no food,
no soap, no shampoo, no toilet paper —
there’s nothing sold,” Warren Werbitt,
Founder of Pazazz in Montreal, Que.,
says. “Everybody in the world needs us
yet nobody likes us.The bottom line is the
industry is not a sexy business,so how are
we supposed to get young people in?”
Barry Miller is Executive Director of
the Manitoba Print Industry Association
(MPIA), an 85-percent provincially fund-
ed non-profit organization focused on
attracting and retaining individuals in the
industry. He recounts: “HistoricallyWin-
nipeg’s geographic location in the centre
of Canada has been favourable for print
and is home to companies like Pollard
Banknote,Duha and ColorAd Packaging.
Yet if I’m at a career fair and I ask students
to name one local company that prints,
most of them can’t even come up with the
Winnipeg Free Press.
“Often times employers can’t find a
bindery worker or press operator in Win-
nipeg because any who exist are already
working or retired. Especially with retire-
ment and people moving up in their
companies, who will fill those entry-level
jobs?We are trying to help people realize
the opportunities that are available.”
Besides public education, MPIA’s
other services include training opportun-
ities, professional awards, and a scholar-
ship program for printing and/or graphic
design students. Elisa Solomon, the asso-
ciation’s second staff person, serves as
Career and Human Resource Consultant,
primarily for small companies without a
human resources capacity, providing
such assistance as consultations, screen-
ing resumes, hiring interviews, policies,
records and performance management.
School tours and talks
Throughout the year, Friesens engages
youth and the public by hosting tours for
MITT and other organizations,including
schools that print their yearbooks with
Friesens. As well, high school electrical
technology and robotics classes from a
neighbouring town have also visited
Friesens to learn how their subjects apply
to the print industry.
For 25 years, Friesens has also held a
week-long summer day camp free of
charge for 9-to-11-year-old children of
staff members where the variety of activ-
ities offered to campers includes partici-
pating in the content creation,design and
production of a book.
Werbitt, who created Printing’s Alive
and other popular YouTube videos in
which he enthuses about print, says a
first-year Ryerson GCM student emailed
him in October to ask if she could visit his
plant. He invited her to come any time,
and when she arrived for a tour, he spent
an hour and a half showing her around.
She later toldWerbitt he was the only one
out of five printers who responded to her
request.“Oh my God, how wrong is that?
How do we not encourage the young
people?”
He continues:“In 2016 I was speaking
at an Idealliance conference, and when I
was up at the podium, I looked around
and said,‘Where are all the young people?
Why are all you old people here? Most of
you aren’t happy with the business.You’re
going to go back, and you’re not going to
bring any value. You can’t tell me you
can’t afford to bring some young people
to these shows.Enlighten them,empower
them, make them feel special.When they
get back, they’ll spread the word about
what they’ve heard.’”
Learn more about the Eva’s Phoenix Print
Shop placement program in our
January/February 2019 issue. Stay tuned!
First image: A
group shot of the
Humber College
students who
visited Mi5. The
tour included a
walk-through of the
litho, web, digital,
large-format and
in-house bindery
departments and a
look at file
preparation and
prepress planning
and proofing.
Second image:
Winnipeg’s
Westwood
Collegiate tours TC
Transcontinental
Printing.
PHOTOS:
MI5
PRINT
&
DIGITAL,
MANITOBA
PRINT
INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION