Fresh Eyes --> Fresh Insights Analysis

Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights Analysis

Fresh eyes can often bring new perspectives and discover fresh insights, identifying previously unnoticed opportunities, risks and issues.  A Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights analysis of your social responsibility and sustainability programs and projects can often identify opportunities and risks that may be unnoticeable by someone working closely with them every day.  The easiest way is to think of it as a quick CSR SWOT.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

This exercise isn’t about the effectiveness or efficiency of your team and their activities.  In fact, our fresh-eyes will see clearer and farther because of the effectiveness and efficiency of your team.  Their knowledge, experience and understanding of the issues and situation can help keep our fresh eyes on target at the same time as my fresh eyes help them to new insights and perspectives.

The Analysis

A Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights Analysis will poke, prod and peek into your CSR projects and initiatives, getting into the field and visiting sites and operations, interviewing key internal and external stakeholders, meeting with current partners and identifying potential new ones.

Our experienced fresh eyes will undertake a rapid, 360-degree review of what you are doing and how you are managing social license, CSR, sustainability and other key issues.  We will systematically identify opportunities, risks, and other issues and provide a clear value-focused go forward workplan for you and your team to work with.

We will also undertake an identification and analysis of potential partners and collaborators with a focus on expanding resources, strengthening capacity and enhancing impact.  Go forward plans will be developed for the most promising partnership opportunities.

The Process

We normally spend 2-3 days at each field/project site meeting key internal and external stakeholders and leaders, visiting project operations and other relevant areas.  We look at all relevant aspects including operations, metrics, partnerships, reporting and communications and other areas as appropriate.

We then meet relevant leaders in your country office and will spend 2-3 days meeting with potential donor and implementation partners.

We will deliver a debriefing report and a final report that will contain our detailed findings, insights, recommendations and go forward strategies and plans, including a detailed partnership development strategy complete with contact names and development plans.

Partnerships

Partnerships often represent an opportunity to both deliver and receive additional value from CSR and sustainability projects.  They can range from full on execution and resource contributing partners through to communication and socialization partners.  Partners can add diversity, perspective, communications reach, stakeholder impact and credibility and, of course human, financial and organizational resources and capacity.

While they won’t fit in every situation we often find that a systematic review and assessment of partnership priorities, coupled with the development of a structured means of identifying, assessing and development partnerships going forward can make a significant impact on the success and impact of CSR and sustainability projects and budgets.

Reporting and Communications

There are many (often too many) options for reporting and communications and they are key, even critical drivers of success and value in CSR and sustainability programs.  Yet, they are seldom looked at strategically in terms of how they can support the societal, corporate and development impact objectives of the program.

There is no one size fits all.  Some programs are best run in stealth mode, others can be enhanced with strategic one-on-one direct communicati

ons with key stakeholders, or even peripheral observers.  Others are best to leave one of the partners lead communications. 

The point is, seldom is communications and reporting approached and managed strategically.  And yet, when it is, it can be a critical component of success for the project and for the company sponsoring it.

Metrics

Metrics are another area that we often find where fresh eyes can spark a conversation leading project managers to identify additional or alternative metrics that can help them to better manage the project and maximize impacts.  We also spend time discussing the theory of metrics as it relates to CSR and sustainability projects, leaving them with tools for continuous improvement regarding metrics in

current and future projects.

Training

Our presence on site, coupled with our extensive training experience can provide a valuable opportunity for training and team-building, even helping to resolve long-standing issues with external stakeholders and partners.

Some clients have us organize training sessions and workshops for corporate staff and some opt to include external partners from the community, government and other stakeholders.  There can be value in all of these.

First, the training helps to bring a common understanding and awareness of CSR and sustainability that may not be present. It helps everyone to see things from different perspectives and understand issues differently.

Almost as important, it can help to build team and common ground between the CSR team and participants from other areas of the corporation.  And, finally, spending a day learning and working together with the dynamics of an ongoing project sitting in front of them can help corporate, community and government stakeholders to enhance their relationships and better understand their respective perspectives.  Role-playing scenarios are especially effective for this.

When we set up a Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights Analysis we provide the opportunity to deliver training on site if that is something the client wants.

The Team

The project will be led by Wayne Dunn, President & Founder of the CSR Training Institute and Professor of Practice in Corporate Social Responsibility at McGill University.  He is a Stanford University Sloan Fellow with a M.Sc. in Management from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. 

He is a CSR and social license pioneer and a veteran of 25+ years and 70+ projects in the space where business meets society, including numerous Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights analysis in the mining and extractive sector..  His experience encompasses award winning global CSR and sustainability work including industry projects, CSR strategy and CSR Policy. 

He has hands-on industrial experience including in mineral exploration (diamond drilling, seismic, prospecting), heavy equipment, logging and commercial fishing.  He has also worked directly for and with local communities, NGOs, Governments and international organizations.  Combined, these experiences and skills enable him to absorb and understand various perspectives and engage effectively with an incredibly broad cross-section of project stakeholders.

Getting Started

If a Fresh Eyes à Fresh Insights analysis is something your operation might be interested in please contact Wayne Dunn (wayne@csrtraininginstitute.com) to begin discussing scope, timing, budget and logistics.

Middle East CSR: Zakat, Sadaqah and Ownership Structure

CSR is creating internal tensions in some Middle Eastern Businesses

Many traditional, family owned businesses in the Middle East are taking on external investors and partners and many are experiencing tension and conflict around Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and implementation.

External investors and partners are pushing for a more strategic, mutually beneficial approach to corporate social responsibility, societal and community engagement.

Islamic business has a long standing tradition of supporting people and communities that has evolved from the Islamic principles of Zakat and Sadaqah [while Zakat is obligatory, Sadaqah is voluntary]. 

CSR in the Middle East has traditionally taken more of a philanthropic or charitable approach; a transfer of money and resources from business to social needs and issues with limited attention to sustainable impact or business value. 

The philanthropic focus and recipients have generally been driven by the charitable interests of the families that own the business, rather than the strategic needs and opportunities of the business. 

For the ownership families there is often a close personal and family connection with the causes supported and the charities and organizations that are involved.  New partners and external investors seldom have the same connections with the charities and causes and look to see more strategic, mutually beneficial approaches to social responsibility and community engagement.

This is leading to internal tensions and putting managers and leaders in difficult positions.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to resolving these issues a systematic value-focused analysis [basically a CSR SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)] can provide a solid platform for developing effective go-forward strategies.

A CSR SWOT can help any company to be more effective at meeting societal obligations and expectations and, importantly, at integrating them with shareholder expectations and interests.  This applies to all businesses.

It isn’t just family owned Middle Eastern businesses that fall into a pattern of blindly supporting societal causes and issues without periodic review and assessment.  This happens to businesses of all sorts and from all over the world.

Executives and managers have elaborate systems in place to analyze business priorities, budgets and activities.  But, seldom does corporate social responsibility and sustainability get subjected to the same regular scrutiny and analysis.

A CSR SWOT can be a smart investment for most businesses, including Middle Eastern businesses where there is tension between founding families and external investors and partners over the focus and extent of CSR priorities, activities and budgets.

For more on CSR SWOTS see an earlier post CSR SWOT – discover risk, value and more or contact me directly (wayne at csrtraininginstitute dot com)

Thoughts on CSR and Value – a curious perspective

We need more strategic, value-creating focus and less focus on defensive, risk-mitigating compliance

Companies the world over are recognizing that there are growing societal expectations on the social value added aspects of business of all types.

Firms everywhere are adapting and evolving, searching for ways to meet societal expectations and meet shareholder expectations.  Some are finding value-creating synergies and ways to create more value for society and for shareholders at the same time.

Others end up in more of a zero-sum, value transfer type of approach (see the CSR Value Continuum for more on value-transfer/value-creation).

At the same time there is a rapidly growing and evolving set of global standards, reporting mechanisms and general compliance frameworks.

Many companies, far too many in my opinion, are paying inordinate amounts of attention to the compliance aspect of CSR and far too little to the value-creation potential that can come with creatively finding synergy and value-alignment.

This not only limits the value that can be created for society AND shareholders, but also serves to position CSR in a ghettoized corner, far removed from core value-creation functions and prone to be first in line when budget crunch happens (see CSR in Budget Crunch Times)

I just received an email from a friend who has developed a technology/system that has the potential to be transformative in terms of rural child education in remote and impoverished areas.

They reached out to the CSR Managers/Leaders of 500 companies working in this area to suggest that there could be some synergy with the social license/social value.

Not one responded!  Follow-up phone calls suggested that the many (they said most) saw CSR as a defence mechanism and that strategic, creative, value-creation types of approaches are last resorts, to be deployed in times of crisis.

Strategic, creative, value-creation types of approaches that seek to find and develop alignment between societal and shareholder interests, and involve other stakeholders and partners, have been proven to be doable, affordable and less difficult than most believe.

Yet so many still default to defensive, compliance-focused, value-transferring (value-draining) sorts of approaches.

If interested in more along these themes you can find a number of articles in the CSR Knowledge Centre. They are all free to read, download, print and share.

(these next sentences are going to seem like a commercial so feel free to stop reading here if you want)

We have developed training programs and consulting services that help companies and individuals to be more systematic and more successful at aligning societal and shareholder interest.

Upcoming programs include:

Advanced Masterclass in CSR Strategy & Management   Nov 1-6, Accra, Ghana

Register here

CSR Bootcamp for Executives & Leaders (2 days)   Oct 29-30, Accra, Ghana

Register here

Companies interested in consulting support and/or a combination of consulting and training or customized training can contact us for more information

How much water does that strawberry cost?

How much water does a strawberry cost?

Do you care?  Should you care?  Maybe it is kind of important to think about how much water, or clean air, or healthy ecosystem, things cost. 

Water is valuable.  It is important to make conscious choices about how we spend it.

Before you read further – if you are reading this to get an answer to that question you should stop now.  You won’t get it.  If you want to (maybe) get pushed to thinking about it a bit differently, then you might enjoy the next 500 words…

But, you won’t get an answer…  You may find a new way of thinking about cost though.

What do you think when you hear How much water does a strawberry cost?  Does it sound weird?

Wait, think about it.  Water is one of the most important things on this planet.  It is finite.  Shouldn’t we want to know how much water it takes to produce something?

If you think this irrelevant go to California’s Central Valley, indeed all of California and watch the struggles for the declining amount of available water. Almonds, strawberries, people, lawns, fish (yes, fish) and many more interests all ‘need’ water.  Some will get much less than they ‘need’.

Suddenly, strawberries that cost less water will have a competitive advantage, and consumers may become interested in how much water a strawberry costs.

It isn’t just water.  Our planet has a finite amount of a lot of things that our lives depend on.  And a finite amount of ecosystems and other resources that make our planet able to support so many billions of us.

We’ve proven remarkably incapable of managing them prudently.  Far beyond the California water situation.  Check out what Berkeley based Global Footprint has to say. 

Do we fit on the planet?

Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/

Not good management, especially if you think some of the other creatures on the planet deserve something too.

So, what does that all have to do with How much water does that strawberry cost?  If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

If you don’t pay for it you won’t manage it?

So, maybe we should know how much water something costs? 

How much water does your designer jacket cost?  How much carbon?

Your iPhone?  Your Xbox?  Your favourite TV show?

What about education?  How much water does a degree cost?   The list goes on.

Even to How much water does that beer cost?   Beer can cost a lot of water.  But, some companies are taking big steps to manage it.  Some aren’t.  Would you like to know How much water your beer costs?

Some companies are measuring things like this.  I was pleasantly surprised this week, while reading the sustainability report of Eldorado Gold, a Canadian gold mining company that is not recognized as a sustainability leader.  Yet, they tracked water usage around gold production, and have made impressive steps at managing it.

I’m sure other companies are doing similar, with water and other important natural capital inputs.

Wait, what is natural capital?  There are a few definitions that people use.  I like to think of natural capital as those resources the planet provides for us and which people and industry are not really paying the full price to use (or abuse).

Things like water, like clean air, like ecosystems.  For the most part we use and abuse water and air and such at the cost of acquiring them.  As water gets more scares it costs more to acquire but is the price really a market price?  Are we paying the full ecosystem cost of taking that water from nature?

Same with abusing air.  Industry (and individuals, for those of us who occasionally want to point at others as the problem) are starting to pay some cost for managing how much we mess up the air and the atmosphere.  But, not nearly the true cost.

This is a long debate and we won’t try to resolve it here, even though it is important.

Back to how much water that strawberry costs…

Do you think we should know how much?  Or should we even care?

Do you think it important to know how much of our earth’s ecosystem resource are used by the different things in your life?

Do you trust industry and governments to manage these resources without measuring them in relation to outputs?

If you answered these questions like I do then you may want to ask How much water does that strawberry cost?   

And keep asking until it becomes not weird to ask because everyone knows that we should know how much of our planet’s ecosystem is used for the products and services that we buy.

How many planets do we have?

…remember… How much water does that strawberry cost?   

Dirty, ugly mining has lessons for Hi Tech!

Dirty, ugly mining has lessons for Hi Tech!

And Hi Tech should pay attention or it could feel the pain that mining felt when it started getting slammed by a rising tidal wave of social performance expectations.

The mining industry has become relatively good at figuring out how to organize itself to create local benefits and value as a by-product of its core business operations. 

In general mining goes beyond simply meeting regulatory requirements on environment, labour, safety, etc. and is actually creating additional value for local communities through targeted development programs and efforts.

From working with local agricultural producers, to supporting alternative economic opportunities for women to general education and health programming and across a wide-range of other social value areas, the mining industry is reaching out to support people and families in the communities near its operations.

Of course, it is far from perfect and one doesn’t have to look far to find where it has come up short.  But, what is important here is that there are many places where it is succeeding and having meaningful impacts on people, families and communities.

What does this have to do with hi tech?  Lots.

In general the hi tech industry has been paying increasing attention to its supply chain.  To materials sourcing and to the labour, environmental and human rights practices in its supply chain.

This isn’t easy with supply chains spread throughout developed and developing economies and across a range of national regulatory frameworks. 

In many countries the national regulations governing environment, labour standards, health, safety and human rights are below what the hi tech industry’s consumers would consider appropriate.

Many companies have acted to set their own standards in these areas to guide their employees, contractors, sub-contractors and others in their supply chain, essentially establishing a private regulatory framework.

Managing compliance throughout this diffuse network and across its linguistic, cultural and economic diversity is challenging to say the least.  Often the marketplace expectations that drive this private regulatory framework are totally foreign to the people and organizations being asked to apply them.

And now, in the midst of this challenge, more is coming!

Soon companies will be held accountable for a broader social performance expectation.  In addition to meeting global expectations on materials sourcing, health, safety, labour standards, environment and human rights companies will be expected to create social value in the communities in which their supply chain activities take place.

This is where mining has lessons that can be helpful.  Those companies that want to lead, rather than be driven to meet these emerging social value creation expectations should take a close look at what happened in the mining industry. 

The mining industry’s movement to support social value and development was often driven by painful pressures from NGOs, communities and the global public.

As society became more focused on social and environmental performance (starting roughly in the 1990s) the mining industry was an early and relatively easy target.  It had:

·         Large, highly visible and concentrated environmental footprint

·         Legacy of less than stellar environmental performance (some would say terrible)

·         Legacy of social disruption

And the industry wasn’t really prepared to handle the pressure for increased social performance. 

Some balked and resisted.  Many of those lost market cap and even valuable projects as that elusive ‘social license’ evaporated when they were unable to effectively deal with growing social demands on their projects and activities.

But some have thrived.  Some adapted well and have learned to integrate local value creation into their projects and activities.

Today leading mining companies are routinely involved in a wide-ranging suite of social, economic and environmental activities aimed at making life better in the communities in which they operate.

These activities go far beyond mining and encompass a range of health, education, economic/poverty alleviation, agriculture, environment, gender and other activities. 

The major themes of the mining industry’s social value added activities are nearly perfectly aligned with the global development community’s focus areas as defined by the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Hi tech companies have two choices in the face of the emerging expectations to create social value as a result of its supply chain activities.

They can sit back and wait for the pressures to develop further and respond later as pressures build.

Or, they can be proactive and get out ahead of the curve.

For those wanting to get out ahead of the curve the lessons learned in the mining industry can be valuable.

Internal CSR Communications Suck

Let's be honest:  Internal CSR Communications Suck

CSR Mumbley Gook communications need to stop. Until us CSR Professionals get better at internal communications and engagement we will stay in an irrelevant sandbox away from core business activities and decisions.

CEOs, because of the broad and diverse constituents they deal with, generally get the relevance of CSR.

Too often the Finance, Operations, Engineering, Production and other functions don’t get it. They may make the right noises (because it is expected of them) but at a fundamental level they don't get the core relevance of CSR to their role and their career.

Part of the reason they don’t get it is because the CSR Pros (myself included) can’t or won’t spend the time making focused internal business cases.

The “What’s in it for me?” case must be developed and communicated across the entire organization.

It is the CSR team's responsibility to help EVERY leader and their team understand the relevance of CSR for their role and work.

There is a strong What's in it for me? for Finance, Operations, Engineering, Production, R & D and other areas of the business. If they don't know it then it is up to the CSR team to develop and communicate it so they can hear it.

Until they do, CSR will remain an outsider to the inside of the business.

·         CSR is important for Shareholders AND for all functions and divisions inside a company.

·         It is CSR’s responsibility to help those functions and divisions to understand why.

·         If they don’t, then the CSR team has failed.

If CSR is on the outside looking in at company operations then the CSR team has to take the lead to change that.  By making it clearly understood how and why CSR is directly relevant to the organization's Departments and Units, Leaders and Workers.

Some thoughts on how to do this are in Engaging Internal Stakeholders in our CSR Knowledge Centre. But don't expect all the answers there. They aren't.

Many of the answers are in your experience and insights. Look there for the stories and the business case that can help your colleagues to understand the importance of CSR for all functions and departments in your organization.

Remember, if you are not creating value with CSR then you will have a tough time to communicate value.  But, when you do create value with CSR, be sure to communicate it.

Not communicate in a Socialwash sort of way, but it a way that can be heard and accepted.

CSR is about value.  Figure out the value for them and communicate it clearly to your internal stakeholders.

When we get the internal CSR communications right not only will our work be easier and our external CSR projects work better and have more societal impact.  Our company and our shareholders will capture more value too.

Get CSR value right AND get the internal and external communications right and get ready for an exciting ride.

Four Strategies for Local Content Success

Local content has emerged as one of the most pressing issues facing business in emerging markets. 

Rightfully so.

Planned and executed properly, local content is the most sustainable and the most cost-effective mechanism for delivering value into local communities and economies.

It has the best local value to investment ratio (ROI) and even when done poorly it can have significant positive impacts.

Effective local content strategies have two focus areas that are common across industries and geographies.  These are employment and procurement. 

Get them right and your project has the foundation for a strong and resilient social license.  Local employment and procurement can also be a key component of your project’s overall economic viability. 

Get them wrong and your project will struggle with social and community issues and, quite often, overall project viability.

Developing local employment and local procurement is one of the best leveraged CSR investments that a company can make.  Think about it.

The jobs have to be filled.  The goods and services have to be procured.  If they aren’t procured locally then very little of the money from them will circulate in the local economy. 

If they are procured locally then virtually all of the money circulates in the local economy and has a significant multiplier effect.

Even if local content creates additional costs the socio-economic impact derived from those extra costs represent a significant return on that investment because they are leveraged by the overall employment and procurement spending.   

And, often there aren’t extra costs or the additional costs are front-loaded and the benefits last over the life of the project.

If a project isn’t maximizing local employment and procurement then it will be bringing in more outsiders.  This costs extra and can increase community tension beyond the lost employment and contracts.  (Think of an influx of single young men coming to work at a project site and the impact on local families and communities).

Successful local content strategies can not only result in strong local relationships, they can also help with a project and company’s relationship with local and national governments and regulators as well as with developmental and advocacy NGOs.

But, success is not easy 

Common constraints that must be overcome to have success with local content include:

·         Projects are often based in remote locations with little or no experience with industrial employment or even salaried employment of any kind. 

·         Levels of literacy are low and household economies are often subsistence based.

·         There is little or no effective infrastructure to provide training and support to assist potential workers with the transition to industrial employment.

Local residents desperately want opportunities to participate in the project's economic activity through jobs or contracts.

·         Local businesses and prospective entrepreneurs lack the skills and experience to be effective providers of goods and services.  This includes both technical skills and business management skills.

·         There are no economic vehicles in the local economy that can enable effective participation in the larger contracts and opportunities. 

Locally owned businesses lack the financial, operational and management capacity to compete for larger contracts, even with extensive support and assistance from the project/company.

The bulk of the overall value of contracts for goods and services cannot be broken down to a size that can be digested by local businesses and entrepreneurs. 

This means that by default the local economy is effectively prohibited from participating in the lion’s share of opportunities other than as sub-contractors.

·         Programs to facilitate local content development are under-resourced and focus on short-term impacts rather than the structural issues that inhibit optimization of local content.

Below are four strategies that can help achieve local content success. 

They probably won’t all work all of the time.  And some may have no applicability to your particular project or venture. 

But, you may find some useful, or they may stimulate you to think of other strategies and approaches for optimizing local content.

1.       Think Cap Ex when budgeting

Developing and implementing successful local content programs isn’t cheap.  Getting to success often means overcoming significant gaps in skills and capacity, and sometimes requires development of organizational and institutional infrastructure.  This can be costly and time-consuming, yet can provide valuable long-term results.

Investments in local content development pay back over the life of the project.  Yet most budgets treat them as operating expenses, not capital expenses.  Why?

In my experience it is mostly because nobody has challenged finance and accounting on how they are treated.  But, it does make a difference.  And it should be treated as a capital expense.  The payback is over time, generally over life of project.

Local content investment contributes value over the life of the project. Yet, it is seldom budgeted as a capital expense.  This results in chronic under-funding.

When local content development is treated as an operating expense it is generally under-resourced and focused too much on short-term rather than life of project impacts.

There is a strong case to be made for including local content development budgets early on in a project’s overall capital budget.  This can provide the resources and the time-frame to make it work effectively and will pay off handsomely over the life of the project.

2.       Development Corporations

The scale of most procurement opportunities is simply beyond the financial, operational and organizational capacity of local businesses and economic institutions.

Local businesses are simply unable to scale so as to take advantage of the opportunities the project presents.  And, if they were given them they would not have the capacity to manage them effectively.

This was a challenge faced by many Indigenous communities in Canada. 

Development of major industries and projects on their traditional lands meant that there were large contracting and business development opportunities available to them.  But, their local businesses and economic structures did not have the scale to take advantage of them.  The opportunities and benefits went to outside providers.

A development corporation model evolved over time and proved to be very successful at enabling local capacity to bid on major contracts and activities. 

In the development corporation model geographic or tribal based populations come together and form for profit development corporations that are collectively owned.  They are able to operate at a scale whereby they can engage professional management and be better able to meet the needs of modern industry.

In many cases development corporations would recognize that the scale of the contracting opportunity was so large that they needed to bring in additional operational and financial expertise.  This was often accomplished via joint-venturing with firms that could bring the missing pieces to the opportunity and supplement the strategic local content advantage that development corporations had.

Kitsaki Development Corporation – Local Content Success Story

An early example of using a development corporation approach is the Kitsaki Development Corporation, a business development vehicle created by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.

Kitsaki Development Corporation is an successful example of a development corporation being used to overcome gaps and issues that inhibit local content success

The regulatory structure that was put in place to enable the development of the Uranium industry in northern Saskatchewan sought to facilitate local content development.  One of the ways it did this was to put in place a requirement that local content providers be given a specific bid preference.

Kitsaki used this preference, along with a well-executed joint-venture strategy to secure an initial contract.  It has used that strategy across a range of focused opportunities and created a venture with annual turnover in the ½ billion dollar range (see details on their website here.

The Lac La Ronge Indian Band used a Development Corporation (Kitsaki) and a strategic partnership approach to create NRT Trucking and capture a major transportation contract from a local mine.  Using the same tactics they have grown Kitsaki into a substantial economic force, generating many hundreds of jobs and contract opportunities for band members and significant revenues and profit

In the mid-1980s the bulk transportation contract was coming up for Key Lake Mine.  Kitsaki recognized the opportunity and also recognized that while it had a local content advantage, it did not have operational experience in the bulk transport business.

Kitsaki, which had astute professional management, sought out a partner that could bring the missing pieces to the venture.  It partnered with Trimac Transportation, the largest bulk transport firm in North America. 

The Jt Venture that was created, Northern Resource Trucking, which was 51% owned by Kitsaki, went on to become the largest bulk transport business in Northern Saskatchewan and today provides services to industry and communities across the region.

Kitsaki used a similar approach to take advantage of other strategic opportunities in the local and regional economy.  See more here.

This development corporation and joint venture model has proven very successful for many Indigenous communities and tribal organizations across Canada and the United States.

A key to the sustainable success of development corporations is a strategic approach that leverages local content advantages and meets the needs of industry and other markets, often through partnerships and joint ventures.

An equally important key is effective governance and political management that give the development corporation operational space and keeps it free from political interference and manipulation.

3.       Pre-employment training

Advertise for entry level workers at a remote project and you are overwhelmed with applications.  And, the process of sifting through them is inefficient, often bringing in poorly suited applicants and leaving better suited ones off the list.

Some applicants find that the structure of industrial employment and its impact on family and life simply doesn’t fit for them.  In other cases, immersion in a structured institutional setting can bring out traits that were not evident during the screening and hiring process

Too often the end result is high turnover of employees and frustration on the part of employees, managers and the company. 

A well-structured pre-employment training program can address these issues.  It can dramatically reduce turnover and provide the broader community with enhanced life-skills and livelihood potential.

It works by establishing a short-term program (typically 6-12 weeks) where a pool of prospective employees are brought into a program that prepares them for industrial employment and helps them to determine if industrial employment is for them.

The program typically consists of a range of components that are directly and indirectly related to the anticipated employment.  

They include elements related to the lifestyle transition that often accompanies a move from a subsistence lifestyle to salaried industrial employment.  Some of the programming, such as household financial literacy and household economic transition involve spouses and sometimes children.

At the end of the pre-employment training the trainees have a much better sense of what all is involved in industrial employment and whether that is a fit for them and their families.

Pre-employment training helps companies to know prospective employees better and to make smarter hiring decisions.  It also helps prospective employees to understand whether industrial employment is a fit for them.  Even those that don’t move into industrial employment leave the program with valuable life and livelihood skills.

Pre-employment training gives employers the opportunity to know prospective employees over a much longer time-frame and across broader range of situations. 

At the conclusion of the program those deemed the most suitable for industrial employment go into a pre-screened pool that the company can select from when it next needs to hire new workers.  This pool can also be made available to contractors and others, helping to improve secondary and tertiary level local content success.

The end result is that those who are hired and brought on board are much more likely to stay and succeed.  A big cost saving for the company, big value for the local economy and a big frustration avoider for all!

Even those that are not brought into the pre-screened pool benefit. They have learned new skills and are better positioned to secure other employment or develop alternative livelihoods.

In many cases pre-employment training can be undertaken by more than one project.

4.       Invest in education and training institutions

The skills, attitude and expertise gap between where local workers are at and where they need to be can be huge.

Especially when the local content strategy is focused beyond simply bringing in entry level workers and instead has a target of seeing local employees at all levels and across all functions in the organization.

There is a need for effective education and training programs to systematically bridge gaps and help both employees and employers.

While it may seem simpler to either do the training in-house or bring in outside experts to do the training, this can be a short-sighted approach with longer term costs.

Most times there are local polytechnics and other local training institutions.  And often they don’t have the capacity to develop and deliver the type of training needed and at the quality level required. 

 

Investing in creating the local capacity to develop and deliver effective skills training can pay dividends over the life of a project. Partnerships between local skills training institutions and their more developed international counterparts can help ensure a steady supply of local workers with the required skills AND develop the capacity for the local institution to provide a range of other pragmatic skills and livelihood related programming.

Local training institutions are local content too.

Rather than simply pass by the local institutions in favour of bringing in a qualified institution or instructor, or even doing it in-house, companies should carefully consider investing in developing local training capacity.

This would include facilitating partnerships between local training institutions and international partners who can help them to both develop and deliver effective programming to meet current requirements, and develop the institutional capacity to do so in the future.

 

Facilitating partnerships between local training and educational institutions and highly experienced international counterparts can help create short term solutions AND put in place longer-term local skills training capacity

While this may be slightly slower and more expensive in the short term, the improved local capacity will pay many dividends, including lower costs later on and an improved local capacity to train people for a range of livelihoods and skills (thus reducing dependency on the dominant industrial employer in a region).

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These four strategies are no guarantee of success.  Local content is not an easy puzzle to solve.  But, following those strategies that can apply effectively to your project can help improve your chances of success, and can make a huge difference for local families and communities and, ultimately, your shareholders.