Jodi Kovitz is the chief executive officer of the Human Resources Professional Association (HRPA)
Canada’s business leaders are facing a profound workplace overhaul. Return-to-work mandates, hyper-advancement in artificial intelligence technology and global skills shortages are slamming against productivity and growth mandates.
In these uncertain, disruptive times, the need for organizations to deeply integrate their people and business strategies is more critical than ever. But for this to happen, HR professionals and business leaders need to ensure they are well-positioned for their people to play a central role in driving long-term growth.
Canadian companies are facing a workforce revolution. One where the skills we will need to prosper as a country are going to fundamentally change across all sectors. Human resources can no longer be treated as an administrative service. For Canada to prosper, it must be at the core of our strategic development.
Many leaders already support this idea. In a 2024 survey by PwC, 60 per cent of CEOs cited their chief human resource officer as a highly effective business partner in driving the company’s strategy. A 2023 Accenture survey yielded even higher numbers, with close to 90 per cent out of 570 CEOs across 12 countries stating the CHRO should have a central role in ensuring long-term profitable growth in their organization.
But what is said and done are two different things. While some companies have invited HR into their boardroom, there remains a massive disconnect between what leaders believe should be happening, and what they are actually doing. This is something that, as a country, we cannot afford. Among the CEOs who told Accenture they support CHROs taking on a central role in driving long-term growth, only 45 per cent reported creating the conditions that make this possible.
This discrepancy is a massive delta for any companies expecting to meet the shifting skills requirements and growth mandates needed to drive Canada’s prosperity. In a study from McKinsey & Co. when organizations connect their talent strategy to business outcomes they outperform their competition, yet only 5 per cent of companies have done so effectively.
This failure to act will only lead to greater barriers to our economic growth stemming from issues such as gaps in critical skills, transformation fatigue and organizational cultures that struggle to translate corporate values into everyday behaviour. When HR isn’t at the table to assess existing talent and map them to growth, organizations are bound to fall short of their business goals.
Preparing for the Workforce Revolution
Map skills and people to business outcomes
CEOs and boards need to treat HR as a growth engine and empower it accordingly. Create a skills-based workforce plan that clearly maps talent to the skills criteria of the work you have planned. Quickly identify core priorities for growth and understand the skills required today and in the future.
Upskill and create cross-functional talent
Technology trends such as AI mean every department will be transformed. They will be mandated to drive new efficiencies and growth metrics. Identify people with cross functional aptitude and develop training plans to generate outsized impact by embedding new technical skills across your organization.
Strategic culture development
Shift your thinking; culture is not an afterthought managed by HR. But HR should lead the development and implementation across your leadership team and it should be mapped to your company goals. This isn’t parties, this is about pace, resiliency, avoiding burnout and knowing how to leverage your workforce to drive a new level of economic performance for our economy.
Data driven decisions
Leverage a core set of talent indicators – including productivity capacity and skills maps against work plans – and report on these at least quarterly. Correlate your core talent management and employee net promoter scores (NPS) against the performance and productivity reports to identify trends across teams and programs.
The payoff to investing in your workforce and aligning talent to business strategy will drive performance. According to McKinsey, companies that make this investment are 1.3 times more likely to outperform their competition. In a world where our country is racing to not just keep up, but to accelerate and lead on a global stage, our business community has a responsibility to adapt faster to new innovations and changing market conditions. This mandates that we connect our workforces and talent management to skills and attitudes needed for our economy to thrive. This fundamental system shift is here at our doorstep and we need our people to be able to rise to the occasion.
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab and guidelines for how to contribute to the column here.