YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE 2023

This put a fire in my belly for so many reasons, the main one being that there are so many career opportunities out there, yet as a society we try to channel our children at a young age to go down the path of university when there are so many other options for learning opportunities and career paths. (No disrespect is intended here but I think you know me well enough by now to understand the bigger meaning here).

As an organization we are inspired to change the conversation surrounding this and are working hard on ways to change the discourse.

So what’s up next?

Let’s Go Build (launching in April) will start off as a public awareness campaign for the industry; however, the campaign will be a catalyst for all future opportunities for WRLA over the next five to ten years. Our members need our support as they navigate the best way to attract, retain, and upskill talent.

While this opportunity will increase the awareness of the industry and opportunities within, it will not be a standalone program as we will be layering in professional development and education through our WRLA Academy to help ensure that your staff and prospective hires have foundational knowledge to help them launch a successful career. Connecting members to internship opportunities will connect students to opportunities that otherwise would not exist and will help provide warm leads on candidates for members to choose from.

We are committed to the long term success of this industry, of the independent dealers and we look forward to the support from our members and buying group partners as we develop and deploy the layers of member benefits with these new programs and initiatives.

Never before has there been a commitment to this extent by the WRLA and we look forward to your participation and engagement with these programs designed to support our members through some of their challenges.

While it seems like a distant memory, I would be remiss to not extend a huge thank you to everyone that joined us the WRLA Building & Hardware Showcase. This is the largest gathering for our members in Canada and we want to ensure that this continues to be a must attend event every year!

Liz Kovach PRESIDENT, WRLA