By Sheldon Spackman

Valuable Feedback

Survey says higher satisfaction levels among Sylvan Lake businesses

Feb 16, 2020 | 10:23 AM

Most businesses in Sylvan Lake appear to be satisfied or very satisfied with doing business in the community, according to the results of a new survey.

The 2019 Business Satisfaction Survey results show 82 per cent of respondents were either satisfied or very satisfied with doing business in Sylvan Lake.

Joanne Gaudet, communications officer with the Town of Sylvan Lake, says the report will help them determine the needs of the local business community.

“That’s with respects to current and future operations, local workforce challenges, training requirements, any municipal and other kind of support services that ultimately help measure the overall level of satisfaction in doing business in Sylvan Lake,” says Gaudet. “That helps us also plan and prepare and strategize our own economic development initiatives.”

Prepared by the Sylvan Lake Chamber of Commerce, some of the survey’s highlights include the identification of the top three provincial challenges, top three local challenges and 2020 hiring intentions.

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The top three provincial challenges identified include the economy, taxes, and labour costs.

The top three local challenges noted were policies and procedures, cost of business space, and competition.

Hiring intentions reveal that 50 per cent of the survey’s 100 respondents are not currently hiring, while 26.6 per cent are hiring, 13.8 per cent unsure, and 9.6 per cent downsizing.

Gaudet says she’s pleased to see 2019 survey results are better in some areas than what’s been seen in the past.

“We didn’t necessarily get an outstanding result to experiences or satisfaction levels with our business licensing process,” admits Gaudet. “We did see that a majority of respondents are satisfied now with how we provide business licensing services. So that was a bit of a win for us that we were happy to see improvement on.”

Denise Williams, executive director at the Sylvan Lake Chamber of Commerce, says they didn’t find any surprises in the results and are pleased to see the overall level of satisfaction from local businesses was high.

“With the high cost of labour and a challenging economy, it was great to note that while half of the businesses surveyed were not planning on hiring, more businesses planned on adding to their workforce than downsizing,” says Williams. “That said, in the recent Alberta Perspectives Survey by the Alberta Chambers of Commerce they found that 49% of businesses have challenges finding people with the skills they need. It’s also incredibly positive to see that people rate the quality of life in Sylvan Lake so high!”

Williams admits there are some areas of concern.

“The economy,” she explains. “The high cost of labour, the high cost of available space to run a business, policies and procedures at a local level, competition. These have been consistently sited as challenges in past surveys.”

Moving forward, Williams says the Chamber is encouraged about the Town’s responsiveness to challenges identified in past surveys and they have no reason to believe they wouldn’t put the information to good use.

From a local perspective, Gaudet acknowledges there can sometimes be challenges when working with the Town and its policies and procedures.

The Town of Sylvan Lake is hosting its annual procurement presentation on Feb. 26. It’s an open house for business operators wanting to gain a better understanding of how to do business with the Town of Sylvan Lake.