Powering Canadian SMEs to scale up technology, expand digital operations, and excel in e-commerce!
About
The Boost Your Business Technology Grant is one of two grants available through the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP). The Boost Your Business Technology Grant offers Canadian-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) support to adopt new technologies that increase competitiveness and resilience. Eligible businesses can also receive a wage subsidy when they hire a youth job seeker to support the implementation of an approved Digital Adoption Plan.
Solution
Magnet is administering the wage subsidy component of the Boost Your Business Technology Grant, one of three distinct components of the grant. Once employers receive approval from ISED, they are eligible to receive $7,300 for hiring an eligible youth job seeker.
Magnet is supporting employers with access to a platform that enables them to use a single sign-on to access both the program application, and hiring tools like Outcome Campus Connect. Outcome Campus Connect gives employers the capacity to target job postings to students across 125+ post-secondary job boards across Canada.
Leveraging the Outcome Adjudicator tool, Magnet managed wage subsidy distribution, application management, and reporting for the funded work placement component of the grant.
In addition to deploying digital tools that support businesses in the grant application process, Magnet also launched Youth Boost, a separate community where youth job seekers can launch their careers with free courses to build digital and human skills. Businesses could target their job postings to this community, ensuring they were able to identify and hire youth with the skills to take on roles in digital marketing, brand management, customer support, SEO, public relations, and project management.
Strategic Alignment/Impact
Building on the success of the Student Work Placement Program (SWPP), Magnet was positioned to offer employers access to a nationwide pool of youth talent through Outcome Campus Connect, as well as job seekers active on the platform through other projects. This access helped drive the Government of Canada’s goal, which was to have grant recipients hire students and recent graduates to support the implementation of a Digital Adoption Plan.
Through previous and ongoing programs and partnerships–including those with the Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium, the Electricity Human Resources Council, and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce–Magnet also boasted a large network of SMEs eligible for the grant.
Finally, the development of the Outcome Adjudicator tool to support the management of wage subsidy applications for SWPP provided the technology infrastructure to manage applications for the Boost Your Business Technology Grant. The Outcome Adjudicator allows Magnet to efficiently assess applications, administer payments, and provide ISED with accurate and timely reporting data on key program metrics.
Canada’s government invests billions of dollars into efforts to train its current and future workforce, but a fragmented ecosystem often hinders the uptake of these programs.
As demonstrated with similar programs, like SWPP, Magnet was able to deploy a system architecture that seamlessly combined access to government funding programs and connections to key communities of job seekers, allowing businesses to build talent pipelines and access funding on one platform.
Youth job seekers could also access existing training offered by organizations such asPrepr and Eco Canada and apply for paid work placements within a single digital community.
Partners
Magnet also collaborated with partners from past initiatives on efforts to engage their networks of employers, build awareness of the grant, and provide support throughout the application process. These partners included:
- Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium (EMC)
- Environmental Careers Organization of Canada (ECO Canada)
- BioTalent Canada
- Food Processing Skills Canada (FPSC)
- Canadian Council of Aviation and Aerospace (CCAA)
- Food and Beverage Ontario (FBO)
- Ontario Tourism Education Corporation (OTEC)
- Electricity Human Resources Canada (EHRC)
- Ontario Chamber of Commerce
- Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC)
