Find answers to common questions about using Employer Relationship Management (ERM) in WE Data Tools. These FAQs are based on questions raised by service provider staff during ERM training and will continue to be updated as new questions come up.
Use the topics below to learn more about employer visibility and privacy, employer records and CaMS, notes and staff coordination, search and reporting, and other common ERM workflows.
Employer Visibility & Privacy
Yes. ERM is designed around a shared employer record, allowing authorized service provider staff within the same network to access employer information and helping reduce duplicate employer outreach. What individual staff can see or manage will still depend on their ERM permissions.
Employer contacts have an additional visibility setting and can be made available either to My Service Provider or All Service Providers in the network.
Employer notes are staff-facing records and are not visible to clients.
Among staff, access to employer notes is controlled by ERM permissions. The access model is designed so staff with Service Provider Administration access can view employer notes belonging to their own service provider, while staff with Service Provider Group Administration access can view notes across the service provider network.
No. Employers are shared records, so archiving is intended to mark the employer as inactive rather than simply hiding it for one service provider. Archived employers are retained for historical reference and can still be found by enabling the Include Archived filter in the Employer Directory.
If you simply no longer need an employer in your personal My Employers list, you can remove your bookmark instead of archiving the employer. Bookmarks are specific to each staff member and do not affect anyone else.
ERM provides permissions and visibility controls to help organizations manage who can access employer information. For example, employer contacts can be restricted to your own service provider or shared with other service providers in the network.
ERM does not establish privacy or consent requirements or determine what language should be included in employer registration forms. Questions about whether additional employer consent is required should follow the policies and privacy requirements established by your organization and SSM.
Employer Records & CaMS
No. An employer can exist in the ERM system without having a CaMS profile.
Having employer profiles in CaMS and establishing that link in the Jobs Portal allows related Service Plan Cases to be visible in the ERM system. If an employer is not linked to CaMS, that information will not be available in the Jobs Portal.
Not necessarily. Employer records are primarily built from job posting data that WE Data Tools has collected over the past seven to eight years from the job boards we index.
If an employer has posted a job through one of those sources, there is a good chance they will already appear in the Employer Directory. However, employers that have not had a job posting captured by WE Data Tools may not yet exist in the ERM.
If an employer is not already listed, staff can manually add a new employer profile to the directory.
Historically, employer data in WE Data Tools has been built from job postings. Multi-location employers may appear in the Employer Directory under several different profiles depending on how they identify themselves when posting jobs. For example, an employer may recruit under its primary name, such as Tim Hortons, as well as location-specific names such as Tim Hortons – Essex or Tim Hortons – Aylmer.
ERM introduces the first step toward broader multi-location employer support by allowing a single employer profile to include a primary location and additional locations.
Service providers can decide whether it makes more sense to manage a multi-location employer under one employer profile or maintain separate profiles for individual locations. The best approach may vary depending on the employer, how its locations operate, and how your organization manages the relationship.
It’s important to keep in mind that all information in the employer profile’s Overview tab — including fields such as company size, general notes and other organization details — applies to that employer profile as a whole. If a separate employer profile represents a specific location, those details should reflect that location. If one profile represents the entire employer and all of its locations, the Overview information should reflect the employer organization as a whole.
There is also a current limitation related to job postings. The employer’s primary location determines where associated job postings appear on the Job Map. In situations where more precise control over job posting locations is needed, Job Board Administrators may still choose to maintain separate employer profiles.
Future ERM development will look at more closely integrating employer location data across WE Data Tools to provide stronger support for multi-location employers and job posting locations.
Bulk importing or adding employer records is not included in the initial ERM release. However, the Employer Directory has been built from approximately eight years of job posting data collected by WE Data Tools. This means that if an employer has posted a job during that time on one of the job boards we index, they will likely already have a profile in the system.
Before adding a new employer, staff should search the Employer Directory to see if a profile already exists. If the employer cannot be found, a new employer profile can be added manually.
Bulk actions are available for employers already in the directory, including adding notes, emailing employer contacts, and archiving multiple employers at once.
No. ERM is designed as a staff-facing tool for employment service providers, and there are currently no plans to provide employers with direct access to ERM.
Building and supporting a separate employer-facing ERM experience would require significant development, while employers may be unlikely to adopt another recruitment platform in addition to the systems and services they already use. For now, ERM is focused on helping employment service staff better coordinate and manage employer relationships within WE Data Tools.
Employers can, however, create an Employer account in the Jobs Portal. Depending on the local WDT site, they may be able to self-register directly through their SSM’s website, or through the WDT local workforce board website.
The Employer Portal provides employers with a personalized dashboard, including labour market insights relevant to their industry. It is separate from ERM and does not give employers access to staff-facing ERM records, notes, or activities.
Notes, Flags & Staff Coordination
When creating a note directly from an employer profile, ERM currently supports selecting one related client per note.
If the same note needs to be recorded for multiple clients, staff can instead use the bulk notes feature from the People screen. From there, multiple clients can be selected and a related employer can be added to the note. The note will then be recorded on each selected client’s profile as well as the related employer’s profile.
This can be useful for activities involving several clients and the same employer, such as referring multiple candidates for an employment opportunity.
Yes. Employer profile flags are included in ERM and use the same general workflow as client safety flags. Access to flags is controlled through staff permissions.
ERM does not assign an employer to a single staff member as its “owner.” Employer relationships are intended to be shared across the organization so that staff can coordinate their work, maintain continuity and avoid duplicate or conflicting outreach.
Individual staff may still take the lead in building or maintaining a relationship with an employer. Staff can bookmark employers they regularly work with to create a personalized My Employers list, and tasks related to an employer can be assigned to a specific staff member when clear responsibility for a follow-up is needed.
Keeping the overall employer record shared means that important contacts, notes and relationship history remain available to the team if responsibilities change or another staff member needs to work with the same employer. It also allows one employer relationship to support opportunities for multiple clients rather than being tied to a single staff member.
The goal is not to replace the strong, trust-based relationships staff build with employers, but to make those relationships more coordinated and sustainable across the organization.
Task visibility is controlled by each staff member’s task permissions, not by whether an employer has been added to the task.
- Staff who can manage their own tasks will only see tasks they created or tasks assigned to them.
- Staff who can manage tasks across their service provider will see tasks created by or assigned to staff within their organization, including tasks related to employers.
- SSM staff who can manage tasks across the entire service network will see all tasks, including those related to specific employers.
Adding an employer to a task does not make that task automatically visible to everyone who can access the employer profile.
Documentation, Search & Reporting
A shared repository for employer documentation — such as business number, health and safety, or other annual placement documentation — is not part of the current ERM release. ERM therefore does not replace any documentation or verification processes required by an organization or SSM.
The Employer Directory already provides several ways to narrow the employer list. Staff can filter employers by criteria including sector, location, Service Plan Cases and status, and can combine filters to identify specific groups of employers. For example, these filters can help identify employers in particular industries or geographic areas.
City and postal code filters currently support one value at a time. To search another location, update the applicable filter and run a new search.
A filtered Excel export and dedicated ERM reporting tools are not included in the initial release. More advanced reporting and employer intelligence were identified as possible areas for future development, but future enhancements will be considered based on real-world use, feedback and broader WDT product priorities rather than as committed features.
No. Selecting the checkbox next to an employer will not persist if you perform another search.
If you need to build a list of employers across multiple searches, use bookmarks instead. Bookmark the employers you want to include, perform additional searches, and continue bookmarking employers as needed. Bookmarks will remain saved across searches.
Once you have bookmarked all of the employers you want to work with, enable the My Employers toggle, select the applicable checkboxes, and perform a bulk action such as adding a note or emailing selected employer contacts.