Enabling a more resilient Canadian supply chain workforce

At the start of 2023, the Canadian economy finds itself in a different situation than in 2020 when supply chains across the country were disrupted by COVID-19. The future resilience of supply chains, that is the capability to restore the availability of goods and services after being disrupted, remains important. The conversation, though, has moved on from worrying only about the capacity of physical infrastructure to considering the availability and capabilities of the talent to operate this infrastructure. Increasingly, my conversations with employers are about finding enough people with the right skills to fill positions in distribution, transportation, and the many analytical and clerical jobs required to co-ordinate all the buying, making, selling, and shipping. What can the federal government do to build a capable pool of talent that increases the resilience of the Canadian economy in the face of future disruptions? First let’s acknowledge the reality of work in our economy: Our economy will continue to increasingly experience supply chain disruptions, often simultaneously, from climate change, domestic and international security threats and/or labour shortages;Canada will continue to grow in population, as will the required diversity of new entrants to the supply side workforce;Technologies such as advanced automation and artificial intelligence will continue to transform the nature of blue collar, white collar, and knowledge work;Canadian society will increasingly demand accountability from its elected officials and business for tangible progress on achieving environmental and social sustainability; andCanadians will continue to seek more meaningful and balanced work life at a living wage. “Pooling” is a strategy used in many businesses to manage risk including supply chains. The idea is that the bigger the pool of resources, such as inventory and people, the more options a business has to smooth out the surges and shortages of unexpected demand. Access to a large, mobile, and highly skilled pool of talent—either as employees or in the supply base—gives organizations more options to respond to local crises and the resulting shortfalls. There are a few caveats. The total amount of talent and the demand for talent have to net out in the long run. The other catch is that systemic disruptions, such as a pandemic, can affect many sectors of the economy all at once, leading to shortages because there are not enough people anywhere. Fortunately, during the height of the pandemic, major supply disruptions did not affect all businesses the same way at exactly the same time. Some firms and organizations learned agility and pivoting to dip into alternative pools of resources whether inventory, trucks or workers that were temporarily idle. The federal government has a role in building robust pools of talent. A starting point is immigration because it expands the size of that pool. Going deeper, the skills of new workers need to correspond to the diversity of needs across sectors and regions in Canada. Pooling only works if the resources amassed are interchangeable. That means the workforce has skills or can acquire skills that meet Canadian-wide education, training, and certification standards, allowing employment to flow between different industries and different provinces. Harmonization of workforce policies, whether for doctors, pharmacists and tradespeople, allows for mobility and that is good for resilience—as is retraining workers for emerging and declining industries. Finally, the federal government can hold the feet of other levels of government and industry to the fire and enforce, internally and at the border, progressive sustainability policies. That is, assure that employers, both domestically and internationally, invest in meeting minimum health, safety, and employment standards and levels of compensation to avoid forced labour and keep people wanting to work. Furthermore, the government can make sure we export and import products that contribute to a greener economy, which often require a more skilled, higher-paid workforce to do the designing, manufacturing, and servicing. The federal government can set an example through its own direct operational and capital spending, provincial transfers, public-private partnerships, and tax credits and subsidies. It can broker collaboration to build the talent pools that make supply chains more resilient for the next supply chain disruption. Dr. David A. Johnston is research professor and director of the George Weston Ltd. Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains, and director of the master of supply chain management program at the Schulich School of Business at York University. His recent research on supply chain management has covered resilience, collaboration, sustainable procurement, and health and safety. For more on the research programs of the Weston Centre and resilient and sustainable supply chains please contact Dr. Johnston at djohnston@schulich.yorku.ca. The Hill Times