Skills Bridge Preliminary Evaluation: Capacity-Building for Canadian Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises

Canada | 2024

Defined as enterprises with fewer than 500 employees, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99.7% of employer businesses and employ 7.8 million people in Canada. They are the backbone of the economy. Despite this, they face significant challenges, like labour and skills shortages, and limited access to expertise and resources for upskilling. Many SMEs lack the capacity to develop and deliver training due to workplace responsibilities and prefer to recruit new talent; however, they also lack HR resources to recruit highly skilled workers. All of these challenges affect SMES’ ability to innovate, grow and compete.

In response to these challenges, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Diversity Institute and Magnet launched the Skills Bridge project in 2021, funded by the Future Skills Centre. The project aimed to develop and test a platform tailored to the upskilling needs of SMEs and addressing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). The Skills Bridge platform developed a fully integrated learning management system to provide SMEs with access to customized training content. The objectives of the Skills Bridge platform were to do as follows:

• Understand the skill and training needs of SMEs and entrepreneurs
• Identify barriers to accessing skills and talent
• Develop, test and iterate a national platform to support SMEs' recruitment and skill development needs
• Advance EDI skills and capacity for SMEs
• Develop a sustainability plan for the platform.

The project used a standard prototyping approach (build, test and iterate) to develop the platform. It focused on five areas: skills for success, specialized programming, EDI programming, digital skills and management skills. The iterative process involved engaging directly with stakeholders, developing and testing LMS prototypes, curating evidence-based content, and building the fully integrated Skills Bridge platform, the beta version of which launched in June 2023.

Results

The project engaged 55 chambers of commerce, 861 SMEs and 691 employee-learners in courses on digital and management skills. Key findings:

• 77% of learners rated the course quality as high.
• 96% believed learning objectives were clear.
• 69% found the course content useful.
• 83% achieved learning objectives.
• 83% were likely to recommend the course.

No significant barriers to course participation were reported, though suggestions for improvement included course length adjustments and more specific content.

Further, training in EDI engaged 1,021 learners across 666 SMEs, with significant improvement in skills areas like management, numeracy, innovation, problem-solving, adaptability, entrepreneurship, digital skills and writing.

As this preliminary evaluation shows, the Skills Bridge project highlighted the need for accessible, diverse and scalable training for SMEs that accounts for their resource constraints. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction and significant skill improvements, with a strong preference for shorter courses and formal credentials. The project provided valuable feedback for developing a user-friendly, shared LMS platform and showed the feasibility of such a platform. Further research is needed on user needs, competencies, impacts and economic feasibility to ensure the platform's sustainability.

June 2024