Are you overwhelmed with the transition to a remote workplace and struggling to move your organization and business to a virtual platform?
Get creative – hire tech-savvy co-op students to support your organization.
We can help you get past two common challenges:
- Finding talent with the skills needed in today’s digital environment
- Funding your hire
1) Finding talent with the skills needed in today's digital environment
In response to the global pandemic and subsequent move to virtual workplaces, Waterloo students have access to a specialized Digital Skills Fundamentals courses.
These courses will introduce students to the concepts of:
- Digital marketing
- Web design
- Video marketing
- Problem-solving
- Sales skills
- e-commerce
The Digital Skills Fundamentals course has been generously provided by the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, Vidyard, Larry Smith (Director and Founder, The Problem Lab), Kiite Academy and Shopify.
They were created to help Waterloo students better support Canadian businesses during this time. Students are encouraged to sign up for these no-cost courses. If you hire students, you can request that they enrol in any of these courses as part of your onboarding process. These courses can be accessed by students through LEARN, Waterloo's web-based learning management system.
With the world's largest co-op talent pool, you'll be able to choose students from across 120+ accredited programs. To better fit your needs, we have increased the flexibility of our co-op program; students are now available for work terms from 8 to 16 weeks in length.
You can also consider hiring more than one student to help your organization go digital. By hiring a team of students to help you make the transition, you’ll have the support you need to adapt to the current environment.
2) Funding your student positions
Concerned about your hiring budget? With unprecedented federal funding, you can get up to 75% of a student wage subsidized. If you are facing financial challenges or budget cuts, there are several resources available for you.
Here are a few of the funding opportunities that you may qualify for:
Emergency Wage Subsidy Program
The Government of Canada recently released the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy to support small businesses. This program offers up to 75% wage coverage for up to 12 weeks, including new hires.
Government of Canada's Student Work Placement Program (SWPP)
Through the Student Work Placement Program (SWPP), a variety of funding opportunities are available for employers to hire students for the purposes of experiential learning. This funding is being administered by Employment and Social Development Canada through various partnering organizations.
Through SWPP, you can receive:
- Up to 50% of the wage cost for the placement (up to a maximum of $5,000 per placement) per student OR
- Up to 70% (up to a maximum of $7,000 per placement) for under-represented students including first-year students, women in STEM, Indigenous students, persons with disabilities and newcomers.
SWPP funding is now more flexible than ever before. If you didn’t previously qualify for SWPP funding, you may qualify under the new guidelines. You might even be eligible to receive a wage subsidy before the work term starts to reduce your up-front hiring costs.
Please note: any employer experiencing changes to a work term that's already been approved for SWPP funding should reach out directly to the appropriate SWPP funding partner immediately to communicate these changes.
Ontario Co-operative Education Tax Credit (OCETC)
The Co-operative Education Tax Credit is a refundable tax credit. It is available to employers who hire students enrolled in a co-operative education program at an Ontario university or college.
Large corporations can claim 25% of expenditures, up to $3,000 per work placement and small businesses can claim 30%, up to $3,000.
Each work placement needs to be a minimum of 10 weeks and maximum of 4 months. This tax credit is available for each eligible work placement and employers may have multiple work placements at the same time and throughout the year. The tax credit is per eligible work placement and there is no cap. If an organization decides to hire for an eight-month work term, or two students for four-month work terms, both would be considered as two work placements and would be eligible for a total tax credit of up to $6,000.
Similar tax credits and incentives are not just available in Ontario, but across Canada! Learn more about the various tax credits and incentives available to your organization.
This is just a highlight of a few opportunities that are available to you. There are a number of grants, tax credits and funding programs that subsidize, and sometimes completely cover the cost of your hire, regardless of your business size and where you're located in Canada.
We can help you get the funding you need. Get in touch with Carolyn!
Carolyn is a Co-op Specialist for the University of Waterloo's co-operative education program.
She can provide you with guidance and answer questions you may have about obtaining the funding you need to hire
Email: carolyn.lee@uwaterloo.ca
Power in numbers: hiring co-op for digital transformation
The University of Waterloo and other organizations across the globe have hired co-op to assist with large scale projects.
Learn about a few projects that our co-op students have helped with.
Case study #1: St. Joe's hires "co-op army" to become leader in digital healthcare
In 2018, co-op students helped launch a fully integrated, safe and secure information solution that housed patients' information in one digital location.
Using a paper-based system, a single hospital visit could result in over 180 pieces of paper, potentially creating errors and inefficiencies. This new digital platform prevented patients from retelling their story multiple times, and offered caregivers quicker and better access to that same information. Learn more.
Case study: 300+ co-op students help Waterloo transition to online courses
The University of Waterloo recruited, onboarded, and trained 300+ co-op students in less than a month. These students were hired to support the delivery of online academic courses during the Spring 2020 term.
The onboarding and training for these roles was facilitated in a week-long intensive digital training course by Waterloo Professional Development (WatPD).
Learn more about this unique approach to hiring, and think about how your organization can leverage this model to hire co-op talent!
