We again had the pleasure this year to welcome Hubert Makwanda as a speaker. Hubert led a session on conflict management where he presented to the participants a personality test called, “Insights Discovery”. With this test each participant could discover his/her own personality type in terms of relationship and communication with others, and in terms of decision-making abilities. 

Marc Larouche, L’Arche Canada Application Coordinator, led a session on the application process for candidates interested in coming to L’Arche as Assistants. Marc also shared some national statistics concerning candidate applicants for the year 2007-2008.
Bernard Lebleu, L’Arche Canada Development Web Coordinator, presented the new web-based database for the application process. The database was created this fall to facilitate the distribution of applications throughout Canada.
 
Jean-Emmanuel Allard, L’Arche Canada Social Marketing Manager, led a session on human resources recruitment strategies. He defined, with the group, human resources needs in terms of recruitment, and explored different communication strategies that we can use to do recruitment. At this session, the Human Resources Representatives were clearly able to outline the initial priorities of a Communication Plan for the National Attraction Campaign. 

I, Danielle Thibeault, led two sessions: One session was on a Core Curriculum of formation and training for Assistants 0 to 2 years in L’Arche. At the end of this session the participants identified 15 to 18 core formations and trainings that will be developed in the coming year. The other session was on Inter-Generational Gap and Employment. In this session, we explored the diversity of the four generations (Traditionalist Generation, Baby Boomers Generation, Generation X and Generation Y) that are part of the workforce today in the perspective of recruitment, retention and motivation. An interesting fact is that all the Human Resources Representatives in L’Arche today are either a part of the Baby Boomer Generation (born between 1946-1964), or Generation X (born between 1965-1980). 

At the end of our three days together, Zoel Breau, L’Arche Canada Zone Coordinator, spoke and shared about his personal L’Arche experiences, especially his recent experience in Calcutta. You may find the video about Zoel’s presentation on the Meeting Ground. 

When asked what the participants mostly appreciated about the HR Workshop 2008, the most common answers were: 

“Connecting with others from the regions and the Zone;
Information about conflict management, generational gap and recruitment strategies;
Work done in advance by the whole group of HRR’s;
The desire to be in unity and solidarity within L’Arche, and the feeling that we work together;
The atmosphere of openness and information sharing.”

Finally, I would like to say a big “thank you” to the L’Arche Canada team for all its work in developing, coordinating and leading these sessions, and to Hubert Makwanda for his always meaningful presentation to us.

To all of you I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Danielle Thibeault
Human Resources Director
L’Arche Canada