Champion: Mary Walsh

"Personally, I've always been an active learner and I love a challenge," says Mary Walsh. She sees her role on the Workplace Self Improvement Program as a "natural progression" of her work in the Department of Human Resources with the City of St. John's. As Manager of Employee Development, Mary has been the management rep on the joint committee since 2004. St. John's was one of CAMA's pilot sites for this type of program. In 2009, the committee will celebrate its 10th anniversary.

When the committee began its work in 1997, employees were facing the effects of municipal cutbacks, downsizing, and early retirements. Workers were being given extra duties and more responsibilities, many involving more paperwork. In the first needs assessment the following year, employees said they wanted to improve their writing and computer skills. To help people overcome any fears of returning to a learning environment, the committee ensured that programs would be voluntary, non-threatening, held in comfortable settings, and would follow a strict policy of confidentiality. As a CAMA pilot project, these features of the program help to set national standards for municipal workplace education.

Successful programs

The committee's first program, in 1999, was Writing in the Workplace. It attracted about 60 people and ran for two years. Later courses in computers, keyboarding, and GED kept the committee busy during the seasons when programs were offered. About 160 people have come to computer courses, showing how hungry people were to learn and update these types of skills. "Even though there are still employees who do not use computers at work," Mary says, "they use them at home and they felt computer skills were needed for self improvement." While the city's overall training mandate is work-related, Mary stresses that "the municipality recognizes that factors outside work can impact work life." For example, the committee extended the GED program to the families of employees. "People appreciated that inclusion ... because of their concern about young people in their families."