Salary Subsidies Available For New Hires - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

Are you a start-up or small to medium sized business in southern Ontario?

Would you like to take advantage of a $10,000 or $15,000 salary subsidy over 6 months for a new hire?  

Would you consider hiring a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduate?

The University of Toronto, in partnership with FedDev, has initiated the Graduate Enterprise Internship (GEI) program where eligible businesses can receive a significant dollar subsidy towards the salary of a newly hired graduate.

“The salary subsidy can be for the first 6 months of a new hires’ employment,” noted Chioma Ekpo, Assistant Director, University of Toronto Graduate Enterprise Internship Program. “Businesses can take advantage of the academic and project experience of our Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) graduates. The industry targets of this program are southern Ontario start-ups and small to medium size businesses in the STEM sector. This program will inject the skills, knowledge and training that the graduates offer which will in turn spur creativity, innovation and new ideas in the firms in which they are hired.’

The subsidy amount is based on the degree of the hired graduate: $10,000 for an undergraduate or $15,000 for a Masters or PhD, paid out over the six month period. The business is to match the subsidy. There is no fee for businesses to register in the program.

“The salary over the 6 months for a graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree /Advanced Diploma would be a minimum $20,000, for which the business would receive the $10,000 subsidy. For a Master’s/Doctoral/Post-Doctoral, the salary would be a minimum $30,000 for which the business would receive the $15,000 subsidy,” said Ekpo. She went on to say that anyone who graduated from the Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics field in the past five (5) is included in the program.

Fast Facts

Program Name	Graduate Enterprise Internship
Website	www.graduateinternships.utoronto.ca
Target Businesses	Start-ups Small to Medium-sized businesses (fewer than 1,000 employees)
Business Location	Southern Ontario
Business Commitment	6 mos. of full-time employment Contribute a minimum of 50% of the intern’s salary / benefits
Subsidy Available	$10,000 - Bachelor’s Degree /Advanced Diploma graduate $15,000 - Master’s/Doctoral/Post-Doctoral graduate
Academic Focus	Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
Graduates Registered To-date	500+ All meet individually with Career Employment Consultants to understand the opportunities presented by the program and to focus on the significant return on investment they will produce for employers
Program Timeline	Now to March 2014

Contact:

Chioma Ekpo, Assistant Director 

University of Toronto Graduate Enterprise Internship Program (GEI)

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM)

Tel: 416 978-8601  |  chioma@ecf.utoronto.ca  |  www.graduateinternships.utoronto.ca

An Introduction to The Lean Enterprise

When people hear the term ‘Lean’ in the business sense, they think of Lean Operations or Lean Supply Chain and most commonly relate ‘Lean’ as something that only manufacturing companies can utilize. Indeed, the initial application of what we know as Lean was in manufacturing production, with the basic goal of reducing all wasted time, movement and overhead costs.  Our thinking has come a long way since then and in the series of articles that are planned over the next twelve months, we’ll explore how the principles of Lean can be applied to virtually all types and sizes of business (even government…but let’s not get too hopeful).

In this article, I’ll lay the groundwork for the series and provide some differentiation of Lean at the Enterprise level versus Lean implementation in operations management.  In future articles, we will discuss some of the over 30 methodologies that can be applied in becoming a Lean Enterprise.

The Five Principles of Lean

The goal of becoming a Lean Enterprise is to reduce non-value-added (NVA) time, cost and effort in everything that your organization does. There are five basic principles that we will relate back to over the course of the articles.  However, there’s also my own principle that runs in parallel to these: “If you don’t measure it, you cannot manage it.  If you don’t manage it, you cannot control it.”  In everything you do to become a Lean Enterprise, there must be the understanding that there will be an upfront investment in ensuring that you understand what you should measure, how you should measure and when you should measure the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) related to the Lean initiatives.

Understand Your Value Proposition

In order to determine what is and is not value adding to your customer, you first need to quantitatively and qualitatively determine and document what your customer considers in terms of the value in conducting business with you.  Therefore, the first step in the journey is to assess your current value proposition by listening to both positive and negative information from your current customers.  Later in the journey, you would then determine the value proposition of future product or service offerings.

Value Stream Mapping (VSM)

Once you understand your value proposition, an assessment of the processes that directly contribute to your value proposition needs to be done.  While VSM was developed to determine where NVA time, human effort and overhead cost was present in manufacturing operations, the methodology can be applied to any type of process whether it’s operational or a business process.  However, when we are utilizing VSM at the Enterprise level, we need to add the element of assessing and quantifying risk.

There are now tools on the market that are affordable to all sizes of businesses that assist with VSM.  That’s a topic for a future article.

Uninterrupted Flow

The goal is to not have any process, operational or non-operational, stall at any stage.  Achieving the goal of uninterrupted flow will result in the reduction of NVA time and overhead cost which, in turn, strengthens your value proposition.

Customer Pull

The principle of ‘Customer Pull’ is that your organization does not start any process unless it has some sort of customer demand.  At the Enterprise level, we adjust the focus to ‘stakeholder’ demand to this principle as stakeholders such as regulatory bodies can create risk situations that would adversely affect your value proposition.

The Pursuit of Perfection

Becoming a completely Lean Enterprise is not possible until a culture of ‘impatience with imperfection’ is achieved.  Essentially, this principle is used to reinforce the first four principles to drive out wasted time, effort and cost, minimize the risk factors and to drive a higher value proposition to your current and future customers.  The trick is to ensure that you don’t spend more time, effort and money than the value added.

The Three Components

There are three primary components that require assessment, planning and potential improvement in becoming a Lean Enterprise:  Your People; Your Processes; and, Your Technology. 

People

If you do not have the right people taking the right action at the right time, there will be issues in achieving the end result expected.  In a future set of articles, I’ll be exploring methods to assess this critical component of becoming Lean and methods of correcting deficiencies and risks.  We will also dive into the topics of how to attract, hire and retain the right person for your organization for the long term.

Processes

This is where ‘the rubber hits the road’ in terms of reducing elapsed time, human effort, overhead costs and controlling risks to your business.  In future articles we will discuss various methodologies that can be employed to identify waste and increase the effectiveness and efficiencies of processes within the business.

Technology

This is the double-edged sword of business today.  From determining what you need to managing the cost to deciding whether keeping it in house or ‘up in the cloud’, we’ll need to put forth some information so that you can make wise decisions and make good use of technology to support your people and your processes and, ultimately, drive up your value proposition.

Summary

I trust that you will find good value-added information in the articles that come your way over the next year.  Should I fail to explain an issue clearly, or you have a topic that you’d like explored further, please don’t hesitate to provide feedback.  After all, if I can’t determine what is and what is not value adding to the readership, then this column will not be very Lean.

About the author

Ken Cowman is Managing Director of Emercomm Business Consultants Inc. of Mississauga, Ontario ( www.emercomm.com ) .  Ken has over 40 years of business experience with over 25 years in C-level positions.  He can be reached via email kcowman@emercomm.com and his career profile can be found on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=13440900&trk=tab_pro