I’m asked occasionally what the City of Guelph needs to do to better support Guelph technology. I’ve even tried to answer that the odd time. An idea I’ve considered often is how the city can help our companies both recruit new people to relocate to our city and help people already here stop commuting elsewhere to work. Over the years I’ve hired a fair number of people who have moved to Guelph. In that process, I’m forced to compete against larger companies in Toronto and Kitchener/Waterloo with significantly deeper pockets. Their job offers typically include significant reimbursements related to relocation costs. This can cover anything from the cost of movers to lawyer and real estate fees.

Smaller companies are rarely in the position to offer this as part of a job offer. How can the city help me with that? I’m helping to sell Guelph. I’m creating jobs in the city and then recruiting people to move to our city. Why can’t the city help me with some of this? Find a way to empower our smaller tech companies to recruit people to move to our city.

What if the city, or some other organization, offered a relocation package? If a person has a job offer in Guelph that requires them to move then they can apply for this package. That would be a powerful tool I could use today to attract talented people to our city. I’m sure the city could partner with local businesses to make this happen as it could represent a significant amount of work for a moving company or lawyer. I’m sure people in real estate or home builders would be interested in sponsoring a program like this and seeing it thrive.

Insane? Likely but you asked what you could do to help…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Guelph Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.