Embedded Files
Note: This article will only be of interest to Canadian Controlled Private Corporations with 5-100 employees earning T4 income in Canada.
Many companies find themselves with a skilled workforce that spends a significant amount of time waiting for things to happen. Not concurrent downtime—it's rare for an entire workforce to sit idle at the same time. However, each worker likely has an hour or two (or more) in the day, perhaps ten hours a week, where they simply can't proceed to their next task until something else occurs. Almost every manager has noticed this, and many have wondered how they could leverage some of that downtime to the company's advantage.
It's a complicated problem. Workers need some downtime—almost no one can focus on work for eight hours straight. Everyone requires a bit of time between tasks to rest and recover mentally. However, too much downtime can lead to bad habits. If workers find themselves with two or three hours of idle time, they'll find ways to fill it, and those ways are rarely beneficial to the company. If they become addicted to these time-fillers (usually a social media app or a game), they may start compromising their high-demand work time with these electronic distractions. Striking a balance between too little and too much downtime is the challenge every manager faces.
The Government of Canada's SR&ED program offers one way of addressing this challenge. The Canadian government seeks to encourage innovation, research, technological advancement, and the development of competitive advantages among businesses in the country. To achieve this goal, they created the SR&ED program.
Through SR&ED, companies can undertake research projects during worker downtime and receive substantial wage subsidies from the government for doing so. It is not unusual for a company with ten employees to receive $200,000 or more per year, with no major cash outlay beyond what they were already spending on labor.
Dymergent can help these companies identify a research project that fits seamlessly into their workflow without disrupting the core business, ensure it is positively assessed by the CRA to avoid wasted effort, manage the project throughout the year, and prepare all necessary paperwork for the accountant at year-end. All of this is done on a pay-for-success basis, minimizing risk.
SR&ED is a highly effective tool available to Canadian-Controlled Private Corporations to help address the issue of workforce downtime.
Page updated
Report abuse