On September 30th, Workforce Development Board (WDB) is celebrating 30 years of building resilient communities through partnerships, resources, and programming that strengthens the local workforce.
The milestone for the Lindsay-based not-for-profit organization celebrates three decades of growth and opportunities, along with the work of dedicated teams who support employers, job seekers, educators, economic developers, and community leaders across Northumberland, Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes, and Haliburton.
“It’s important for us to celebrate the accomplishments of WDB, but I think it’s also an opportunity to recognize the hundreds of people over those years that made those accomplishments possible,” says WDB CEO Jennifer Lamantia.
“From the people who work directly as organization staff, to the volunteer board of directors over the years, to the amazing and wonderful community partners that we have worked with, they have all contributed lots of time and expertise and leadership to the organization. It’s all of those people that we really want to recognize and thank because without them, none of that would have ever been possible.”
Three decades of local workforce planning
Funded by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, WDB is one of 24 workforce planning boards in Ontario. The organization provides local labour market research, workforce planning support, employment initiatives, recruitment and retention resources, and tools that help job seekers and businesses make informed decisions.
“We work at a local level to improve the conditions of the local labour market by working with community partners,” says Lamantia. “We meet with employers, employment service providers, and economic developers to collect that information. We then share that back out with the communities we serve, so that ideally, we can help to coordinate some effective responses to some of the challenges or skills gaps that we’re hearing about.”
That’s not far from the original mission that WDB began with on September 30, 1996, when it was incorporated as Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland, Haliburton Training Board. At the time, it was the first local workforce planning board in the province to receive official designation and incorporation.
With 22 directors on its board, half of whom were women, WDB’s first staff member was Tammy Robinson. Gilles Charbonneau came soon after, hired first as a board administrator with his title later changed to executive director.
Over its first several years, the organization developed relationships with employers, educators, community agencies, municipalities, and training providers throughout the four counties. In 2002, it began operating as “Workforce Development Board” while maintaining the legal corporate name.
Under the leadership of executive director Gord Evans in 2002, WDB began focusing more on apprenticeship promotion, skilled trades development, tourism workforce initiatives, and regional labour market planning activities.
The following year, WDB opened an office at 159 King Street in Peterborough, where the organization remained until this past March, when it relocated to an office space in Lindsay’s Launch Kawartha.
In 2007, WDB helped support the evolution of the Community Employment Resource Partnership (CERP), a network established in 2002, by expanding its membership to include representatives from other employment and community organizations. This is one of several ways WDB has maintained local partnerships over three decades to better advocate for the needs of the community and to share best practices.
“For 30 years, we’ve been able to continue to play an important role as a trusted partner and it’s because we have evolved with the labour market,” Lamantia says. “The partnerships are critical, and the interesting part of the work that we do is that it’s a region of four different areas and they all have their own unique characteristics and strengths that are driving their own local economies.”
Evolving to meet regional needs with new tools and resources
Over the subsequent years, WDB started the Bear’s Lair Entrepreneurial Competition, which went on to be one of the region’s best known entrepreneurship events, and further fostered efforts to emphasize labour market intelligence and establish workforce intelligence and planning activities.
In 2013, Joe Celestini joined WDB as its new Chief Executive Officer, where he remained in the position until 2017 when he was succeeded by Jennifer Lamantia. He was leading the organization when WDB launched the instrumental Labour Market Gateway, an interactive component of the website that allows users to find information on occupational demand projections and sector demand projections.
In 2015, WDB hit a major milestone when it was selected as one of the Government of Ontario’s eight pilot sites as a Local Employment Planning Council (LEPC) for the communities of Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland, and Haliburton. Operating as one of two pilot sites in Eastern Ontario, this was crucial to positioning WDB as a provincial leader.
Dawn McColl, who sat on the executive board for WDB from 2012 to 2023 and is currently the assistant executive director of the Victoria County Career Services (VCCS), says being selected as one of the deliverers of the project was “phenomenal, a true testament to WDB’s potential.” The organization completed 24 projects throughout the pilot as well as a Community Labour Market Plan, a Labour Market Information Strategy Report that was a collaborative project of all eight LEPCs, and released a Local Jobs Hub Tool.
“The pilot highlighted WDB’s ability not only to collect labour market data from a variety of sources, but to analyze and report current and relevant labour market information which is used by community partners, businesses, and municipalities for planning, growth, and development,” McColl says. “The project was larger and broader in scope. From that, it just spurred on further research projects and innovation and helped with planning and best practices and set the foundation to move forward.”
Throughout the pilot, WDB also launched its monthly Community Connections Newsletter — which just saw its 100th edition in August — and released the Eye on the Labour Market digital career planning resource, which continues to be updated monthly.
WDB also launched the Labour Market Information (LMI) Help Desk, which processed over 300 requests throughout the pilot and later became the model for a project led by WDB that expanded the scope of services delivered by each of the workforce planning boards in Eastern Ontario. Today, WDB’s LMI Help Desk service continues to operate as a co-branded service with support from five economic development partners and Muskoka-Kawarthas Employment Services and has tripled the number of requests processed since the launch.
When the LEPC pilot ended in 2020, WDB reverted back to the structure of a local board and a budget set at the same level as in 2014 — the level where it remains to this day.
Despite evolving budgetary challenges, throughout the last nine years with Lamantia at the helm, WDB has continued to adapt to meet the needs of the local community, such as establishing the Labour Force Advisory Group, which initially brought together community stakeholders to identify workforce challenges and labour market information as a COVID-19 pandemic response and now continues to meet quarterly to engage, share, and identify opportunities to address workforce needs.
WDB has also continued to introduce many job search and career planning resources like web-based career ladders and update toolkits and webinars to meet the changing landscape, including a continued focus on mental health in the workplace and responding to changes with AI in the workplace.
“WDB is recognized as experts in their field,” McColl points out. “They’re the go-to and they’ve built that over time and they’ve refined it over time, and they need to continue to be supported in that as a strong leader and community partner.”
Thirty years of impact and a future of possibility
This proactive and consistent response to the changing landscape of the local labour market is, according to McColl, one of the reasons WDB has had such a significant impact on the community over the past 30 years.
The organization’s recent move to Launch Kawartha in Lindsay after 30 years of being rooted in Peterborough begins a new journey with new opportunities for collaborations and partnerships.
Not only is Launch Kawartha centrally located within WDB’s catchment area, the innovation and entrepreneurship centre houses business partners and service providers in the local entrepreneurial and economic development ecosystem.
“WDB has continually responded in a manner that is based on communication, collaboration, and community partnerships,” McColl says. “WDB has an apt ear for labour market information, representing a broad and diverse scope of business, education, jobseekers, and other community stakeholders. WDB understands the job market and presents that information and insight to support informed decisions within this community.”
For more information about Workforce Development Board, visit www.wdb.ca.
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