Articles

Hiring International Students Attending Canadian Post-Secondary Schools to Address Skills Shortages – Immigration Considerations

Employers in the bio-tech sector, like many Canadian employers, face skills shortages. Some of these skills shortages may be addressed through the hiring of international graduates or students attending Canadian post-secondary institutions. The number of international students attending school in Canada has grown significantly. Canada’s immigration policies have been designed to allow such foreign students…

Your biotech interview made easy

Using the Bio-economy Skills Profile or Skills At-a-Glance to prepare for your next interview The final story from our series on recruitment looks at how you can prepare for the big interview. A Bio-economy Skills Profile/Skills At-a-Glance outlines all of the requisite competencies for specific roles. Using this list as a foundation upon which to…

Compensation – It’s important to get it right

As lawyers, we know that compensation is heavily regulated. Employers need to understand the legal context before structuring compensation practices. This article provides a basic checklist of what employers should consider in creating a solid compensation model. It is simply not enough to be competitive. The Basics Every province has an extensive statutory regime that…

Trends with benefits – Tomorrow’s plan for today’s workforce

As the Canadian bio-economy competes on a global scale for talent, employers must move beyond traditional benefit plan management and instead of making price- focused decisions, shift their evaluation to enhance plan scope and its contribution to the total compensation package and employee well-being. An important aspect of this practice is remaining current with trends…

The Value of Workplace Coaching

Unlike mentoring, which relies on an individual’s specific knowledge and wisdom to help career development, coaching focuses on the facilitation and development of skills, and is more task or process oriented. With the help of a workplace coach, employees can achieve short-term goals such as acquiring small blocks of knowledge or developing and improving skills….

Breaking Barriers: Supporting the advancement of women in biotech

Earlier this year, BioTalent Canada announced a new project to help connect and advance women in biotech. The data presented in the 2013 labour market study – Sequencing the Data showed an alarming trend within Canada’s bio-economy; while over 60% of physical and life sciences post-secondary graduates in Canada are women, the number of companies…

Better benefits = better business – total rewards and your bottom-line

Introducing and maintaining an employee benefits plan can be a challenge for any business; and for small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the balance between employee satisfaction and bottom-line is only the tip of the iceberg. With a major and rapidly approaching demographic-shift, corresponding rise in healthcare costs, and employee absenteeism, presenteeism and happiness becoming prominent…

The Value of Ideas in Canada

Our country has a rich history of innovation. From peanut butter and paint rollers to advances in medical technologies and innovative therapies – Canada has its fair share of talented inventors and researchers. When it comes to pharmaceutical innovation, the list is impressive. Right now there are over 7,000 potential new therapies in development worldwide….

Transferable Skills – Your Best Strategy To Career Path Success

I tell my kids that under no circumstances should my obituary include the word ‘Lawyer.’ Instead, I prefer ‘Problem-solver,’ ‘Servant Leader’ as they are more accurate. Lawyer is a label and a very limiting one and I want my title to reflect the kinds of problems I solve – governance, operational, or stakeholder engagement issues….

Three Tips to Maximize Your Executive Announcement

Organizational announcements might not initially seem like it, but they serve as important messaging for both the news consuming public as well as the investor relations community. The key to maximizing the impact of an executive announcement is in the presentation of the information and the reasoning behind its issuance. Following are the top three…