Newly Trained Indigenous Workers are Driving PLATO’s Expansion
FREDERICTON – PLATO founder Keith McIntosh claims 2023 will be the company’s best year yet. He says PLATO is poised to hire hundreds of new employees this year as it expands into new markets.
That expansion is possible thanks in large part to the company’s commitment to training Indigenous workers and bringing them into the company’s workforce.
PLATO is a software testing company based in Fredericton. It’s been around since 2015 but has been growing quickly over the last few years thanks in part to its unique training program.
The company’s Software Tester Training program is an eight-month course (including a paid internship) that aims to help Indigenous people find work in the tech industry.
This month, a new round of graduates was honoured at a ceremony in Fredericton. McIntosh says the program has already helped hundreds of people find full-time work in the industry (most at PLATO).
McIntosh explains that breaking into an industry like tech can be especially difficult for Indigenous folks.
“One of the things that Indigenous kids [face as] roadblocks is that training is not enough. If you train, how do you then get a job? How do you actually get a job?” he asks.
People who want to break into the industry can get whatever training they need, he explains, but then must compete with university and college graduates with better connections.
“And if I don’t know anybody in the industry, and there’s nobody else that looks like me, nobody has my history, it can be really tough,” he says.
PLATO’s “secret sauce,” he explains, is that it offers full-time work to every graduate of its software tester training program. That means they get the training they need but also a good job with a respectable company to beef up their resumes.
Student testimonies subhead
Alisha Paul-Turgeon is a recent software tester training program grad who now works at the company.
She trained as a mobile app developer but says she had a hard time finding a job in the industry.
“I was like kind of bouncing around in my career. At that time as a mobile app developer, it was very difficult for me trying to find a job,” she says.
After going through some shorter-term jobs she eventually took PLATO’s training and says it feels great to now have steady, full-time work.
Reyna Ferris is another recent graduate of PLATO’s software tester training program who now works out of the company’s Fredericton office.
She tells Huddle she went through the training because she “wasn’t thriving in a traditional corporate environment.”
Ferris worked for years as a data analyst in the public sector. She says she felt like an outsider and often had to field “insensitive questions” from her colleagues, or deal with indignities like people inappropriately touching her hair.
She says she hasn’t faced that kind of thing at PLATO and can’t imagine it happening. It’s incredibly refreshing.
“I’m so used to being the minority in the group and it’s nice to be just part of the mix,” she says. “It’s nice to not stick out just for a second.”
Unlike her old job, Ferris says she looks around her team at PLATO and sees all kinds of different people.
“There’s not too much of, like, one demographic. My manager is from the Philippines, there’s lots of women that work here,” she says.
McIntosh says approximately 35 percent of PLATO’s workforce identifies as Indigenous. Another approximately 35 percent come from a “visible minority.” Forty-four percent of the company’s employees are also women, which is orders of magnitude higher than most tech companies.
He says that mix happened without the company “really trying.” If someone asked what PLATO’s strategy has been, he says, he wouldn’t be able to tell them because “we didn’t do it on purpose.”
“It wasn’t a plan to do that, it just happened,” he says. “We’re trying to do the right thing and if you’re doing the right thing for the right reasons sometimes the right thing just happens.”
Majority indigenous owned subhead
Whatever claims McIntosh makes about the company’s hiring strategy, he does admit the goal has always been for PLATO to be an Indigenous company.
“When I started the company, the goal was we were going to be staffed, led, and owned by indigenous people,” he explains.
As of January 1, he says that goal has been realized and the company is officially 51 percent Indigenous-owned.
McIntosh says PLATO’s major investor is Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership, which is the economic development arm of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band
Another big partner is Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, which previously came on board with millions in early-stage funding. He says some of PLATO’s employees also have a stake in the company.
Expansion plans subhead
McIntosh says PLATO’s Indigenous ownership has opened significant new doors. He claims the company could nearly double in size by this time next year.
“It has always looked a little bit like a for-profit business — unfortunately, it doesn’t make as much profit as some people might think – but we’ve always been a little bit like a for-profit business doing a good thing. Now, we’re a for-profit, Indigenous-owned business doing a good thing, which seems to have opened up a whole lot more doors,” he says.
He says PLATO plans to scale up its training programs into “something much more significant” and expand its business into new areas. He envisions getting into help desk services or partnering with a few enterprise-level software vendors to become their exclusive testing company.
Right now, PLATO has about 300 employees. McIntosh claims it could be 500 in a year.
“And if we’re not, it’s not because the opportunity isn’t there, or because people didn’t want it to happen, it’s because I wasn’t good enough.”
Trevor Nichols is Huddle’s editor, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].