Imagine being in a boat that's leaking and being unable to bail out water fast enough to keep it afloat. That is what Canadian businesses are experiencing right now and what is referred as a "productivity emergency". The efficiency or rate at which goods and services are produced and delivered is not keeping up with the rate needed to sustain and grow the economy.

Imagine two years ago your business generated $3,000,000 in revenue and it took employees 17,000 hours to produce the goods or services sold to your customers. Now imagine last year your business generated the same $3,000,000 in revenue but it took employees 19,000 hours to produce the results. Your payroll went up by 2,000 hours but your revenue stayed the same which means your "productivity rate" dropped. Two years ago each employee could generate $176 for every hour they worked and last year they generated $158 for every hour they worked. A drop of $18 per hour. In some companies that difference could provide work to another employee.

This is what is happening in Canada with even greater negative consequences. Canadian businesses are not able to keep up with current demand or grow. The productivity rate is dropping because it is taking more effort to produce the same result and the same result isn't enough to keep up with demand. There are many different reasons this is happening however small business owners would be wise to understand the trend and focus on building sustainable businesses.

How? By doing more with less and reimagining how they find workers.

There was a time when a business owner could rely on the market (career websites, job boards, recruiters, temp agencies) to provide the workers needed to help them deliver products and services to customers. For the past few years, the market has been experiencing a shortage of "skilled" workers and can no longer help a business owner find workers notwithstanding the voluminous amount of new migrants to Canada. So what does this mean? It means that business owners need to reimagine how they recruit, onboard and make new staff productive and profitable quickly. It means creating a process and an environment where someone with the right attitude and aptitude can succeed if they don't have the exact skills and experience a business needs.

At OndeWork, we believe the "try now hire later" model is the first step in a business rediscovering the opportunity that exists to find great people who want an opportunity to succeed. Evaluating someone on a 1-5 day job over a few weeks can help a company discover how well they fit into a company's culture which speeds up the probation period that companies currently use to complete the same evaluation. We believe that the gig economy was proof that work can change and the "try now hire later" model is a natural next step in the evolution of work. Like all change, nothing happens overnight but companies that understand the dynamics of the market are making steps towards improving their recruitment and onboarding experience which ultimately leads to a gain in productivity.

Don't let the slow decline of productivity shrink your profits. Use the trend to get ahead of your competitors by focusing on how well your business can recruit and onboard employees. By starting with your hiring process and incorporating improvements like on-the-job training, mentorship, and technology, your business will increase productivity and its bottom line.



* External Source: wealthprofessional.ca/news/industry-news/canada-faces-productivity-crisis-eyes-role-of-newcomers/385046