SIIT career centre introduces students to mining industry
- Judy Bird | March 03, 2014
Ashley Banks-Lavallee knew she wanted a career in the mining industry. Burton Thomas knew he wanted a career, something different that the construction jobs he'd had. Construction Careers Regina, a career centre of the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology, introduced them and other students to the Mining Industry Pre-employment Program (MIPP), which is funded by the Ministry of the Economy.
MIPP includes a 40-hour practicum, and the students completed it at Mosaic's Belle Plaine site in November. It was a valuable part of the program, but if offered just a glimpse into the expansive operation.
"There's only so much you can see in a week in a site that's 52-square kilometres," said Ashley Banks-Lavallee, one of the MIPP graduates.
"MIPP deserves a lot of credit. They really prepared these students for coming to an industrial site and setting these expectations up with the students what it would be like to work in a larger industrial setting," said Nevin Maga, Site Manager of the mine at Belle Plaine.
But like many students completing programs, they were faced with the issue of needing a job to gain experience, and couldn't get experience because they didn't have a job. As good as the program is in preparing the students, a 40 hour practicum just wasn't enough to provide necessary experience to help the grads secure a job. That's when Mosaic stepped in.
"That really put the light bulb on. If the MIPP program is so good, and the 40 hour practicum isn't enough, it's up to the companies to step up and say how can we facilitate this? Everybody wants a representative workforce. The companies will have to step up and figure out how we can remove the roadblock of increasing the four day practicum."
Students and Mosaic officials met to discuss their interests.
"From that point, we thought why don't we take some people out of this 40 hour practicum and see if they're interested in coming on for a three month work term. We had some selection criteria, and the students set out criteria whether they'd like to work for us or not," said Maga.
Five students, including Banks-Lavallee and Thomson, were successful in the selection process, and are now working at the Belle Plaine location.
"People here at Mosaic, they're so safety-conscious. They want you to do things the right way, the safe way, and to do well and succeed," Banks-Lavallee said.
"Everybody's been good to me, willing to show me everything, so it's been good so far," said Thomson. "I still have quite a few things to learn yet but I'm just glad to be there. I'm glad how everyone's showing me what to do."
They now have jobs and will gain experience, and Mosaic has potential workers for their site.
"We have a lot more First Nations and Métis people working at our other sites, Esterhazy for example, but Belle Plaine has been a tougher site to make progress," said Marshall Hamilton, VP of Human Resources, Potash Business Unit at Mosaic. "I have been super impressed that the site has been open to take these five students. That's our ultimate goal, to have First Nation and Métis candidates who have the skills, to come forward work in our workplace."