The positive impact individuals have in shaping Canada’s bio-economy is evident. BioTalent Canada is sharing their stories to help others realize the benefits of adopting IDEA into their workplace.
The time frame to train new recruits is short for agricultural contract research firm Ag-Quest Inc., with only one field season a year for recent hires to learn new skills, it can take years to develop into fully productive researchers. The company has responded by pairing summer students with senior staff who can bring them up to speed more quickly.
Diversity hiring is on a lot of people’s minds these days. More and more businesses recognize it’s the right thing to do and good for the bottom line. For companies aiming at international markets — such as Fredericton-based anessa — diverse staffing can also be a powerful market wedge.
Immune Biosolutions aims to be Canada’s next anchor company in life sciences — and knows it needs a strong corporate culture to reach that goal. Success hinges on marrying the knowledge and expertise of its senior researchers with the capacity of next-generation recruits to fuel growth at high speed.
Since Resilience acquired its facility in Mississauga last year, the company has been busy expanding production and attracting new customers, including the Government of Canada. But the expansion has highlighted the need for more right-skilled talent to complete the work, an issue affecting all of Canada’s bio-pharmaceutical industry.
University of Toronto student Melissa Renn took part in the Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) when she was looking for an internship to complete her Master’s in Engineering. She had her eyes set on the medical device industry and Picomole piqued her interest. Since joining Picomole, Melissa has been instrumental in the implementation of a quality management system that enabled the company to seek ISO 13485 certification and to implement effective design controls, greatly improving the quality of its product design.
When COVID-19 struck, Ensero Solutions was in the middle of a massive remediation project at the former Mount Nansen gold and silver mine in the Yukon. With budgets constrained and the company needing more capacity in the field, Chief People Officer Mitch Strom leapt at the chance to bring on two skilled young workers through the BioTalent Canada Science and Technology Internship Program – Green Jobs.
Of all the places Kristofer Fequet thought he might find a job after graduating from university, back home in Quebec’s remote Lower North Shore wasn’t one of them. But the push to build a local bio-economy combined with a Career Starter wage subsidy paved the way for him to put his degree to work right where he grew up — and to contribute to the revitalization of his home town.
When hands-on summer programming got shut down by COVID-19 restrictions, Water Rangers’ new hire Juno Garrah took the outdoors online and helped the organization reach a wider audience than ever before. It was the first of many impacts she’s had since joining the non-profit with the help of BioTalent Canada’s Science Horizons Youth Internship Program.
Sometimes the benefits of a wage subsidy go far beyond what anyone imagined. Just ask Jasmine Sollen. Hired straight after graduating from the University of Guelph thanks to a BioTalent Canada Career Starter subsidy, she’s led the development of a potentially lifesaving technology: a COVID-19 antigen test that’s fuelled the growth of a Canadian bio-economy startup.
Montreal start-up LyonLeaf Cannabis Inc. (LyonLeaf) has grown a lot since originally applying to Health Canada for a standard cannabis cultivation and processing license in 2017, but COVID-19 threw some shade over the potential growth. LyonLeaf’s management team began to worry about the company’s ability to ramp-up operations. McGill University’s Career Centre advised them to reach out to BioTalent Canada and apply to its Career Starter program, through which LyonLeaf was able to welcome a quality hire: Cedric Hirou.
