The Squamish Chamber of Commerce has been awarded $56,000 from a new one-time Rural Community Development Grant to deliver Workforce Development and Business Sector Promotion programs.
The first component of the grant – workforce development – will convert the Chamber’s popular face-to-face customer service program, Squamish Excellence, into an online format.
Squamish Excellence was created to offer affordable training to help businesses grow and to provide businesses with strong recruitment and retention strategies by investing in their staff.
The online format will ensure the chamber can continue to deliver training while maintaining social distancing and provide additional flexibility for participants to access the course, according to Louise Walker, the Executive Director of the chamber.
To help build workforce skills, complimentary customer service training will be offered to anyone who has been impacted by recent events.
The second component is to create marketing and communication content, including video overview, blogs and social media, to raise awareness of business sectors and services available in Squamish.
Focus groups will be held to provide a forum for strategic discussions on the sectors impacted and help design the chamber’s program to ensure it supports the local economic eco-system.
Those wanting to join this focus group can email Louise Walker at louise@squamishchamber.com.
“The Squamish Chamber is very grateful to receive funding from the Province of BC that will help us deliver valuable training and promotional tools,” Walker said. “With recent events, the timing could not be better for the chamber to provide additional support for our business community and the Squamish workforce.”
Ihor Zalubniak says
Very interested in how this will be applied and the metrics for measurement of success.