CONSULTATION 1
TheServiceSector
The first of the consultations involved employers and community members from private sector service industries,
including lawyers, accountants, and professionals in banking, specialized retail, human resources, and other fields.
Fifty-five people attended.
Participants in this consultation saw partnership, talent development and attraction, and community engagement
in support of growth as key roles the University does and should play inWindsor. They most commonly identified
flexibility, sales, problem-solving, and ethics as the most important skills people should acquire from a university
education.
Technological change has been significantly impacting the service sector. Those in the banking industry, for
example, noted a steady decline in “walk-in” bank traffic, as well as the development of online automated
investment planning, as factors in the industry’s shift towards hiring more financial advisors, noting that the
capacity todevelop andmanage professional digital relationships hadbecome critical to success in these roles.
While generally speaking participants were satisfiedwith the skill base of graduating students, shifting demands of
the industry were noted at a number of tables, with a sense that in some fields, employability will require deep
specialization: positions for generalists are becoming less common. In other fields, such as law, however, the need
for practical awareness of others and their needs, and the reality of how the law is applied, remain critical.
The ability for students to acquire recognizable industry designations as part of their education is critical: in some
fields, there is an aging workforce with designations that have become more difficult to achieve. Those who do
acquire those designations are often in demand, and therefore highly mobile. Participants in the fields of
accounting and lawboth noted that recent graduates are often hired away to either Toronto or theU.S.
Specific research, curricular, andprogram suggestions (other than the soft skills described above):
•
Greater focus on information technology and
technological tools
•
Increasedmath literacy
•
Entrepreneurial and sales skills
•
Hospitality and hotel management
•
Ability to acquire recognized industry designations
•
Agri-science and agri-business programs
•
Greater promotionof science, technology,
engineering, andmathematics programs
•
Urbanplanning
•
Applied ethics
•
Training for workingwith agingpopulations (within
specific fields)
Report onCommunityConsultations:Winter 2017
