Access Funding to Nurture New Talent for Tech Adoption & Succession Planning
Canada’s food and beverage manufacturers are modernizing – whether those innovations are motivated by vision or heightening regulatory compliance that emphasizes modern technologies – and that process involves the pains of transition. We’ve profiled some of the national and provincial funding programs to ease adoption of new and improved systems before on this blog, but did you know that manufacturers can apply for hiring and wage subsidies to support new staff and succession planning too?
Any transition requires planning plus the necessary employee competence and skills to achieve its desired outcomes. Filling that gap can be a challenge when your employees lack the skills or opportunities for skill development to use the technologies you are adopting in the first place. In fact, an influential report from RBC found that in the next decade, new technologies will demand an “overhaul” of the skills required for fully half of Canadian jobs.
Source: RBC Report, “The Coming Skills Revolution” (2018)
On top of existing grants for modernizing and enhancing food safety and traceability systems (largely through the Canada Agricultural Partnership), grants are also available to upgrade employee skills and to subsidize employee salaries so your business can stay competitive. We’ve listed a few of them below, plus some tips for succession planning and making smooth transitions to the new era of smart food safety.
Grants for Workforce Skill Development Help Overcome Succession Planning Challenges
First, we want to hand it over to our friends at the Canadian Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) for their incredible Boost Your Business Technology Grant, which is targeted to Canadian-owned, small and medium-sized companies looking to improve their businesses with digital transformation. Digitization effectively attracts and engages your workforce to encourage retention of the talent needed for workforce succession planning.
Companies receiving the Boost Your Business Technology Grant can receive 5-year, 0% financing for software upgrades, which also includes up to $7,300 in hiring subsidies to hire talent through a work placement. Your business is eligible if you meet any of the criteria below:
- You are a for-profit business (including for-profit social enterprises and co-operatives)
- You are registered or incorporated
- You are consumer-facing (sells goods and services directly to end consumers)
- You have at least one employee (other than the owner) OR had at least $30,000 in annual revenue in the most recent tax year
- You commit to maintaining a digital adoption strategy for six months and agree to participate in follow-up surveys, share data about the experience, and have its name published as a grant recipient
Similar funding is available from Food Processing Skills Canada’s Student Work Placement Program, which provides up to $7,000 to Canadian food and beverage manufacturers to hire postsecondary students “across all educational categories from food science to business, engineering and quality assurance.” Their work placement program connects businesses with talented university and college students looking to enter into the industry.
If you are looking to hire someone under 30 years old, you also have a short window left to apply for the Digital Skills for Youth program (DS4Y) before March 10 2023. The program, aimed at equipping youth with the skills they need to succeed in the modern, digital economy, offers up to $30,000 to cover salary, training and professional development, and administrative costs like overhead, office space, materials and supplies, professional fees, and more.
If you are interested in applying for these programs, note that innovation grants (including the Boost Your Business Technology Grant from CDAP) also cover the purchase and implementation of software solutions like Icicle ERP.
Icicle ERP Delivers Training and Support for Innovation Success
When it comes to getting new employees on board, or providing skill development or competency training to existing staff, Icicle ERP provides a solution that expands your capacity to succeed. Our solution doesn’t just deliver the technological ability to meet your innovation goals; it also gives you the human support you need to build your competency framework and move forward with confidence.
Icicle’s task management features make it easy to train new staff and ensure all compliance documentation is captured in day to day operations. This reinforces the necessary compliance training to mitigate risk and ensure employee competence to keep food manufacturers agile.
We’re proud to be sharing the recent reviews from Icicle users collected by the software marketplace giant G2, which highlighted Icicle’s excellence in customer support and training (you can view all the reviews and our rankings from the source at our G2 profile page). When the G2 team asked Icicle user Jules what he liked best about Icicle ERP, he replied: “The training! Was planned out and made sure we understood and knew that we have support after.”
Or take this excerpt from Icicle user Hanif M:
“The support from the Icicle team during implementation was exceptional. I have never had this level of support with any other MRP implementation. During the implementation many nuances related to the company came up and Icicle created new processes to support them. This was unexpected but very much appreciated.”
While we do love flattery, we love how Hanif captured our approach to technology adoption more. We know how crucial it is to evaluate and plan for changes – minor and major – and how big a difference it makes to have expert help. We also know how challenging it can be to make resources available for that process.
Don’t miss out on hiring and wage subsidies that can ease your transition to a more efficient, modern food industry. With Icicle ERP as your backbone, you can build a strong foundation that will stand the test of time, as the co-founder and president of TMRW Foods Dean Blignaut explained in a recent case study:
“We have a really high standard here, and we wanted to ensure that that standard was set and that it was nurtured and fostered while the team was still small. Now, whenever we add people to the team, they’re basically perpetuating a really good system, because they’re learning from the others who have gone through this process.”
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