BY: Peter Reeve
Director, Line of Business Sales
SAP Canada

Canada has a productivity problem. Whether you use statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Conference Board of Canada, or the Centre for the Study of Living Standards it’s the same result over and over: our lack of lack of investment in technology, relative to our peer countries, is putting us behind globally. As of 2007, we rank 12th out of 17th countries in an OECD study of research and development expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product. As a result, Canada loses high paying tech jobs, skilled workers take their training elsewhere, and foreign investment bypasses Canada for friendlier business climates.

To avoid further slippage on the world stage, Canadian business leaders should consult the people they know best: their employees. Such is the message that comes from “Shifting Perspectives of Canadian Organizations,” an SAP Canada commissioned survey by Info-Tech’s Indaba group.

The survey highlights three distinct generations of workers: Boomers (born between 1946 and 1966), Generation X (born 1967 to 1982) and Generation Y (born since 1983). Rather than act as three distinct silos within an organization, what we found was it is more an overlay of skills, each group can contribute their unique view of technology to make business better.

Disconnect? Or Matter of Opinion?
A company's consumer base, and workers, are now fully surrounded by technology, but is the HR industry ready to take advantage of that? Canadian companies must become technology enthusiasts in order to catch up and keep up with the real time expectations of their customers and staff. Only 53% of front-line employees felt they were given adequate training, and only 49% think that knowledge is effectively transferred to new employees. On top of that, only 20% of respondents use social media to recruit talent. In other words, many employees feel that they have to self-learn their jobs, and staff changes slow business capacity.

Keep in mind your workforce is also one of your audiences. What attitudes do they take home about their work? Do you know what their personal and corporate expectations are? Are those goals compatible? Do good people leave because dated technology holds them back? Treat your people as an honest resource to highlight possible improvements.

How about your systems? Are they nimble enough to easily manage Generation Y employees who work non-traditional hours or work from a home office? What we found was that these are serious recruitment and retention tools.

We all want Canadian companies to be more competitive. Canadian companies believe we are: 73 per cent of business leaders said they believe their competitors do not out-innovate them. However, 55 per cent of those who are not in leadership roles feel that the companies they work for are being out-innovated.

What do we mean by innovation? Managing information about your company, whether a bakery or a railway. The key to improving productivity is understanding the variables that drive your company, and focus your questions and decisions about them faster than ever.

However much the three generations overlap, there are differences: Younger employees see the workplace as a social location, while older employees prefer the concept of teamwork, which could be mistaken for the same thing. Generation Y seeks to innovate and be in a position to advance quickly. Generation X wants vision and achievable goals. Boomers want their skills and decisions respected, and to share their experience. The common thread being all employees want rewarding, secure jobs that allow them to do their best work, and help them grow as people.

How the Generations are Using Technology and Being Influenced
As one would expect, when it comes to technology adoption and how technology is being used, age matters. A majority of Generation Y uses their work phone for personal purposes. Gen X almost universally uses mobile technology and is most likely to use online services for many personal tasks, and to use their own personal equipment for work purposes as well.

Technology we use at work influences what we buy for ourselves, especially younger employees. It is a case of ‘trying before buying’. When it comes to new technology purchases, Generation Y is more comfortable with quickly adopting new technology (40 per cent to 21 per cent Boomers); older employees are more hesitant (57 per cent to 44 per cent (Generation Y) to 38 per cent (Generation X). The common thread? No generation rejects innovation.

In order to enable Canadian innovation and productivity improvements, vendors must make sure they demonstrate how their products improve both their customers’ bottom line, and meet the expectations of their own people.

Being a true business leader means sometimes having to make decisions that require a little courage. Progress comes from diagnosing problems and dealing with them. Our global competitors already understand that a technology-based information strategy enables businesses to compete better. Canada must now play catch-up. By getting to know the tendencies of your people regardless of age, and better understanding what technology can do for your company and customers, Canada can improve its productivity relative to other countries.