Tech forcing societal changes by outpacing ability to adapt
Simon Chan, a vice-president with the Kitchener innovation hub Communitech, told a Windsor audience Thursday the ability of companies to anticipate technological trends and meet the needs of the workforce are going to be the keys to determining survival in the modern economy.
“The traditional models for business and career pathways is outdated,” said Chan, who oversees talent, academy and future work for Communitech and the 1,500 businesses it supports.
“An early sense of trends allows industry to adapt to different technology. It creates flexibility within organizations and a better flow of information that allows for decisions to be made at the right level.
“It makes organizations more agile.”
While such flexibility, nimbleness and creative relationships with employees is associated with technology companies, Chan said legacy industries such as financial institutions, automakers and advanced manufacturers are also seeing the old models crumble.
Chan said the changes are particularly challenging for manufacturing centres like Windsor, where the automotive industry itself is undergoing massive upheaval at the same time.
“The closer you are to your customer, the earlier these changes are impacting you,” Chan said. “That’s why the retail has been hit so hard first.
“It’s happening in advanced manufacturing. Technology is forcing them to create new cultures and a lifelong learning mindset to mitigate the effects of such a fluid environment.
“Technology isn’t just an industry anymore. It’s a societal change.”
Chan said the scale of the change requires community collaboration between educators, government, private- and public-sector institutions.
“The pace of technological change has surpassed humans’ ability to adjust,” Chan said.
“The companies that can collaborate and adapt are the ones that are going to survive in the eye of the storm.”
Chan said the mobile workforce requires companies to view employees as an alumni network. Good branding and experiences will be shared making it easier to recruit talent.
“Re-skilling and up-skilling of talent and micro-credentialing is required,” Chan said.
He said the shift of power in favour of top talent is one of the greatest adjustments employers will face. Companies will also have to deal with the reality they can’t necessarily buy the talent they require, either.
“Generation Z and millennials will take less money to work at companies that match their values, are mission-driven and focus on employees,” Chan said.
The generational change in the workforce is going to occur quickly. It’s expected that 75 per cent of the Canadian workforce will be composed of millennials by 2025.
With the change will come greater demands for more flexible worklife integration.
It will also be an extended relationship. The average life span is expected to surpass 90 years by 2050.
“The days of mass retirement at 65 are over,” said Chan, who also pointed out the exiting of the Baby Boom generation from the workforce requires a massive knowledge transfer.
Chan said the most important first step the Windsor region can take is finding companies that will champion community collaboration, professional development and are willing to provide resources to attempt pilot projects.
Windsor Economic Development Corp. CEO Stephen Mackenzie said Chan’s presentation was confirmation of the direction many local organizations are going in.
“We (partners in the Windsor region) are doing many of these things individually, but this presentation was really helpful in giving us the strategy to do it in a broader, more formal structure,” Mackenzie said. “If we can formalize this, we can make it more impactful.”