New Sault company can help your business be more inclusive

A local company that provides immigration consulting and intercultural training hosted its grand opening in person on Wednesday after months of providing services remotely due to the pandemic.

The company is called iCA, which stands for interCultural Avec Immigration, Inc. It currently operates out of the MillWorks Centre for Entrepreneurship in the same building as The Machine Shop.

Co-founder Jennifer Johnson said the company is providing much-needed consulting services for people seeking to immigrate to Canada, as well as offering intercultural anti-racism inclusion training to companies who want to hire people who are new to Canada.

“We see those two as really complementing each other,” said Johnson.

The company’s goal is to ensure that foreign nationals who come to Sault Ste. Marie end up staying, by connecting them to meaningful employment and creating a sense of belonging in the workplace.

“If that is there and the job is there, there’s a better chance of retaining these awesome people,” said Johnson.

The company was formed in November of 2021 and has been offering its services remotely up until recently because of the pandemic.

“Because we can go out in public now, it seemed like a really good time to announce our company in person,” said Johnson about Wednesday’s grand opening. The company invited foreign nationals who are seeking work, as well as employers who are seeking more information about hiring people who are new to Canada.

Johnson said Sault Ste. Marie has received a lot of international attention for its part in the Rural and Northern Immigration Pilot, which offers skilled foreign workers a path to permanent residency in Canada by connecting them with jobs in remote communities.

“We have noticed a lot more people from outside of the country who know about Sault Ste. Marie now because it was highlighted by this program,” said Johnson.

The idea of providing immigration consulting services came about when Johnson was working in another role a few years ago and noticed many people who were seeking such services were looking to companies in the Greater Toronto Area or other parts of Canada.

“At that time there was nobody locally who was offering that service. I think some things have sprung up since then, but that is where the idea came from originally,” said Johnson. “I get surprised sometimes by people who found us online from countries we are not targeting, necessarily, but they seem to know Sault Ste. Marie and they like that there is someone here who can help them.”

The corporate intercultural anti-racism inclusion training provided by iCA uses psychometric testing on current employees to determine where the focus of that training should be to be most effective. Johnson said the individual assessments are private, but when collected and analyzed they can help companies to gain valuable insights.

“We get a sense of how developed their intercultural communications skills are coming into a training session, so we can design that training session in a way which meets them where they are and helps them to know what the next thing is to do to advance their skills to be more confident, comfortable and effective,” said Johnson. “It’s basic communications skills, basically.”

Training existing employees to be more inclusive can help to retain the foreign workers that a company hopes to hire, she said.

“Communications skills when you bring in someone new — no matter where they are from — there is an adjustment that needs to happen. I think if you support the adjustment, it can go smoother for everybody,” said Johnson.