MGM364 - HireUp: Incentivizing Employers for Untapped Talent in Canada

This report examines HireUp's strategies for incentivizing Canadian employers to hire from untapped talent pools, particularly focusing on youth facing barriers to employment such as homelessness. It highlights the potential benefits for companies, including improved bottom lines and enhanced corporate social responsibility (CSR). The report identifies key employer types, such as large retailers, companies investing in training programs, and temporary agencies, and provides examples like Peak Products, which successfully hired youth experiencing homelessness. It emphasizes the importance of CSR-based incentives and the potential for social impact hiring to benefit both the youth and participating companies. The document also references statistics on disconnected youth in Canada and the potential of this labor pool. This student contributed assignment is available on Desklib, a platform providing study tools and resources for students.

LABOUR RELATIONS AND EMPLOYMENT LAW
In Canada unemployment rate for youth is nearly double of the working population,
hence for young people, who have had to experience homelessness, finding meaningful
work often becomes incredibly daunting. On the other hand, businesses are creating
values by optimizing their resources. We, at HireUp, believe that corporate houses have
the capability to help solve Canada’s social problems and this is what HireUp is aiming
at through implementing practices which can make these corporations to become
valuable in absolving issues which have become the highest priority to Canadians
(Hamel, 2012). Although education and training along with an effective immigration
policy combined with a strong environmental strategy are among the many issues which
need urgent attention, helping to end youth homelessness is equally important.
Social Impact Hiring
Data of various cities in Canada shows that more than 930,000 youth1 are disconnected
from work and school (See Appendix – 1). We assume this to be a huge labour pool for
large companies to tap into. Hiring of youth, who is facing barriers to employment, will
allow these large companies in not only improving their bottom line, it will also help
them in making a meaningful contribution to the community (Hamel, 2012). HireUp is
working towards creating meaningful experience for the employers in projecting their
company’s social responsibility. Through HireUp, companies can achieve diverse and
inclusive targets by promoting a diverse, yet direct, source of talent (Triadafilopoulos
(ed), 2013).
Types of Employers
Although HireUp intends to support homeless youth and disabled people it also realizes
that this ultimate target can only be achieved by involvement of:
1) Large number of employers who have increased potential of demand and supply
in low-skilled or entry-level jobs.
1 http://csrpulse.com/corporate-social-responsibility-central-to-improving-prospects-for-unemployed-
youth/

2) Employers investing in training and development programs of the workers, thus
increasing their human capital investment.
3) Employers investing heavily in CSR initiatives, thus providing backup to uplifting
the society.
4) Temporary Agencies, which enroll candidates in large numbers on behalf of their
reputable clients. Such agencies have been found to be willing in taking up
workers who have an unclear background-check or have slight disabilities which
do not risk their safety at work (Gloria & Patrick (ed), 2016).
In the table below are examples of such large retailers who have recorded top sales per
square foot as shown by a nationwide consensus2. It can be seen that Costco Canada is
earning $1,490 per sq ft and tops the table along with the per square foot earnings of
other retailers listed in Table - A.
Table A
Retailer Retail Sales per Sq ft
Costco Wholesale Corp. $1,490
Best Buy Co Inc. $800
Shoppers Drug Mart $790
NoFrills $615
Metro $530
Ikea $487
Rona $343
Canadian Tire $283
Source: Huffington Post Canada: These are the Retailers Making Most Money in Canada
Research has also shown that employers have started recognising that given a chance,
the youth of today, who has often been homeless, is becoming stronger by overcoming
the hardships (Gloria & Patrick (ed), 2016). These young people are focused and are
controlling their lives and progressing towards maintaining stability not only in their
own lives but also in the society as a whole. A worthy example is Peak Products, a
British-Columbia based company, which has become Canada's fastest-growing home
2 https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/17/retailers-most-money-canada_n_7812872.html

improvement company. The management of Peak Products found that by hiring young
people who had experienced homelessness, it made a smart business decision. By
applying this strategy, Peak Products has been able to hire young workers from a pool
of enthusiastic, dedicated employees who carry wider range of skills, experiences and
knowledge (Triadafilopoulos (ed), 2013).
This has also given impetus to HireUp’s thinking that social impact hiring is a beneficial
practice and empowers individuals facing barriers to employment. Although Canada has
shown a downward trend in unemployment levels in recent years, lowering the youth
unemployment rate to 10.3%, labour markets have remained tightened, making it harder
to find entry-level jobs (Triadafilopoulos (ed), 2013). Hence, the greatest impact which
a company can make on the community is by adopting social impact hiring and thus
targeting the unemployed youth. Social impact hiring has not only proven to create
significant benefits for the homeless youth and the society, it also benefits the company
which participate (Gloria & Patrick (ed), 2016).
As has been proven in question-1, incentives in financial terms have been
misappropriated by most managements. We, at HireUp strongly believe that
Incentivizing Employers in partnering with HireUp on the basis of their Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR) ethics shall not only allow a large unskilled talent-pool of
homeless youth to be employed, it will also allow them to gain experience in low-
skilled jobs(Hamel, 2012). We hope this initiative will inspire more companies to act,
collaborate, innovate and lead in promoting the youth of Canada.
APPENDIX – 1

LIST OF REFERENCES
Gloria O, P. and Patrick, L. (ed). (2016) Services In Global Value Chains:
Manufacturing-related Services. New Jersey: World Scientific.
Hamel, G. (2012) What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change,
Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation. San Francisco: John Wiley &
Sons.
Triadafilopoulos, T. (ed). (2013) Wanted and Welcome?: Policies for Highly Skilled
Immigrants in Comparative Perspective. New York: Springer Science & Business
Media.