Acadian and Charlottetown Chambers launch bilingual online PEI HR Toolkit

PEIHRToolkitenfrancaislowresCHARLOTTETOWN – May 1, 2014 – The Acadian and Francophone Chamber of Commerce of PEI (CCAFLIPE) has teamed up with the Greater Charlottetown Chamber of Commerce (GCCC) to translate the PEI HR Toolkit website into French so that this extremely useful toolkit can be accessible to a wider array of small and medium-sized Island businesses.

The GCCC had originally set up the www.peihrtoolkit.ca site a couple of years ago with assistance from SkillsPEI through the Canada-PEI Labour Market Development Agreement.

“Keeping up with the changing workplace environment can be challenging for small businesses. The PEI HR Toolkit provides links and resources to help business people understand and stay on top of current employment trends and legislation,” explains Keith O’Neill, president of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce.

“The Acadian Chamber realized that this site contained many valuable human resources tools that could be of great use to all business people on the Island, but we felt that it could have an even greater impact if it was bilingual,” notes CCAFLIPE spokesperson Jeannette Arsenault. “We therefore discussed the idea of getting the site translated with our friends and partners at the Charlottetown Chamber. They readily agreed that this would be a great joint initiative that would fall perfectly within the scope of the collaboration agreement we signed several years ago.”

SkillsPEI, through the Labour Market Development Agreement, again agreed to fund a portion of this project. Meanwhile, Alianco, the Atlantic Canadian translation service, covered another portion of the cost through its Translation Assistance Program.

The newly launched French site is now accessible at www.peihrtoolkit.ca/fr/.

The site is divided into several sections: Basics of HR, Legislation, Recruitment & Selection, Retention, Diverse Workplace, Compensation & Benefits and Employer Support. Each of those is comprised of several subsections full of handy details for those requiring information about human resources related issues.

The site allows visitors to download the entire toolkit in a zip file or to access each element individually. Some of these elements include examples of job offers, interview guides, interview rating forms, acceptance and rejection letters, and direct deposit forms.

Another section provides updated news about HR issues (such as minimum wage increases, new legislation, new rules and regulations, etc.) while another area provides links to a variety of other supports. While it is geared specifically to PEI businesses, namely in regards to provincial legislation, many other elements of the toolkit could be of use to businesses in other provinces.

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CUTLINE: Keith O’Neill, president of the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce, and Jeannette Arsenault, spokesperson for the Acadian and Francophone Chamber of Commerce, look over the newly translated version of the www.peihrtoolkit.ca site that is now accessible to both English-speaking and French-speaking entrepreneurs.

For more information:

Kathy Hambly
Executive director
Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce
(902) 628-2000
khambly@charlottetownchamber.com

Bonnie Gallant
Executive director
RDÉE PEI /Acadian and Francophone Chamber of Commerce of PEI
(902) 854-3439, Ext. 232
bonnie@rdeeipe.org