Labour shortage: New technologies are your allies

Currently, more than half of Canadian entrepreneurs are struggling to hire the workers they need. To overcome this labour shortage and continue to grow your business, new technologies are important allies.

The BDC study titled How to Adapt to the Labour Shortage Situation presents the results of interviews conducted in the spring of 2021. The figures are unequivocal: 55% of Canadian entrepreneurs are struggling to recruit the labour they need for their operations. Due to an aging population, this problem will last well into the next decade.

This labour shortage has many consequences. The BDC survey of 1,251 Canadian entrepreneurs offers some telling statistics:

• 64% report that labour shortage limits their growth.
• 61% have increased their hours and/or their employees’ hours of work to make up for the shortfall.
• 49% had to increase their team’s wages and benefits, especially to retain their employees.
• 44% have delayed or are unable to deliver orders to their customers.

Increasing efficiency through the adoption of new technologies

In a context where workers are scarce, it’s to your advantage to optimize the work of each of your employees. And in this respect, new technologies can be a great help! Technologies are able to perform repetitive and easily reproducible tasks with little human intervention. Once these tasks are automated, your employees have more time to devote to value-added activities. These activities are more interesting and stimulating, and they contribute to the retention of your workforce.

As a result, the contribution of technology is not limited to the amount of work done. Companies that have adopted new technologies are twice as likely to find it easy to hire employees when compared to those that have not.

Of course, investing in technology has a positive impact on your company’s ability to recruit, but also on its overall performance. Businesses that have automated certain areas* are 1.9 times more likely to see sales growth above the industry average. As your output per hour worked increases, so does your company’ profit margin, as does your ability to increase your employees’ wages.

Where to start?

The BDC estimates that only a quarter of Canadian SMEs have fully automated one or more business functions.

We recommend that you first review your current processes to identify friction points and optimize your workflow. Process mapping helps tremendously in targeting waste, bottlenecks and activities that can be automated.

Once your processes have been analyzed and optimized, you can proceed with the choice of new technologies that are best suited to your reality. We suggest that you prioritize your needs and consider several possibilities in order to make an informed decision.

Would you like the help of an expert?

Contact us. Our experts will be happy to discuss your projects with you!

Sources :

(1) BDC

(2) BDC, How to Adapt to the Labour Shortage Situation

*In the context of the BDC study, “automated certain areas” means that the company has at least one function or business unit whose processes are fully automated.