Floral design is the only design specialty that does not require formal post-secondary training according to the 2008-09 Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the U.S. Department of Labor. Just about every other mainstream design career requires a licence or accreditation to become a member. To call yourself a florist in North America you just have to hang out a shingle.
When an industry has no requirement for post-secondary education, there’s no push for young people to choose it as a career and we end up with a lack of skilled labour. Where do you find skilled employees if your industry has no requirement for the skills?
The answer must come from within. Experience tells us that governments will only pour so much funding into job training that results in entry level retail wages. The programs that are currently funded at provincial and community colleges are precious to this industry, as are their counterpart private schools. We need to ensure that these grads find meaningful work in the biz. Once those grads are taken, we must start to develop our own prospects.
The federal government recognized the need to create pools of skilled labour and implemented Skills Canada, a not-for-profit organization that promotes careers in skilled trades and technologies to Canadian youth in 1989. There are now provincial branches across the country. The provincial mandate is to help elementary and high school students explore career opportunities in the skilled trades and technologies. The branches are governed by a board of directors made up of volunteers from industry partners, educators,
other volunteers and a number of paid program deliverers.
Skills Canada sponsors an annual national skills competition that allows high school and college students to demonstrate the skills they have learned in a competitive environment. Winners may advance to a world competition. While there were a few floristry students at the provincial level in Ontario and Quebec, none of the national winners in 2008 were from floristry programs. As an industry we need to take this as a challenge. Unless we believe that floristry is just as important as baking, hairdressing and fashion designing, no one else will.
The first step is to contact your local high school and find out if they have a floral design program as part of their co-operative education course selection. If they do, offer to take on a co-op student and hone their skills. This individual could be your next great employee. If they don’t currently have a program, offer to teach one. Contact other florists in your area for support in this endeavour.
Then get involved with the Skills Canada office for your region. Make sure the student you are working with has exposure to any and all opportunities they offer. And finally, get in contact with any college or design school in your area that may provide post-secondary training for your protege. By exposing more high school students to the challenges and rewards of floral design and sales we can help to steer them towards post-secondary options in floriculture.
The future of your business and our industry depends on skilled labour. Surely everyone in the floriculture biz knows a little bit about growing – even if we are talking about staff.
Happy Holidays!
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