photo of Tom Carey
photo of Adam Frye
Thomas Carey, WINCan’s Co-Principal Catalyst for Academic Partnerships, was a Professor and Associate Vice-President at the University of Waterloo.
Adam Frye is Director of Operations & Partnerships for WEtech Alliance, the Ontario Regional Innovation Centre for Windsor/Essex, and the creator of WEtech’s Innovation Catalysts program.
In a previous post in this series, we outlined our new project to adapt research-driven practices and policies from Europe to improve both the quality of work for employees and organizational performance – in our Canadian context. These insights are not yet widely understood or applied outside of Europe, and we believe that Canada is well-positioned to become the North American leader in this area. We described the goals of our project, the research team and our supporting organizations: WEtech Alliance, the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, the Future Skills Centre (Government of Canada) and three Field Test partners (BCIT, EHRC and NLWIC).
In this post we’ll describe the specific challenges being tackled by each of the partners who will be working with us to test adaptations of the insights in our Research Synthesis, to meet their needs and contexts (and, more generally, helping us to understand the issues and benefits for adapting European research into Canadian contexts). his bothproject involves both a synthesis of past research and a set of organizational innovation projects to apply, critique and extend that previous research. We’ll describe in this post the individual focal points for each of our four Field Test sites.
WEtech Alliance is an Ontario Regional Innovation Centre supporting prosperity and growth in the Windsor/Essex region, including an Innovation Catalyst program to develop workplace innovation leaders across industry, public and social sectors. We will field test the incorporation of research evidence and research-informed practices in Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work as enhancements to the Innovation Catalyst program. The tests will engage past Innovation Catalyst cohorts with adapted learning resources and potential use case scenarios for their organizations.
Results from our Field Test and from other elements of the project will be shared with our own member organizations across sectors and with our sibling organizations in Ontario’s Regional Innovation Centres and Canada’s Tech Network of innovation hubs.
B.C. Institute of Technology is Canada’s premier polytechnic institute, excelling in developing work-ready graduates and in applied research collaboration with workplaces. We have an internal project to explore graduate capability in Workplace Innovation and will explore how to apply research insights to create structures and practices for academic-workplace collaboration to specify and develop a range of emerging capabilities for Future Work. In addition to clarifying how academic and employer partners can work together on emerging capability for Quality of Work, we intend to explore how the results might be applied in similar endeavours within our interdisciplinary Centres of Research Competence (e.g., Digital Transformation [1], Sustainability) and for innovations in Agile Learning, including industry micro-credentials, Work-Integrated Learning and other partnerships with leading-edge employers (e.g., TRIUMF, Seaspan).
Results from our Field Test and other elements of the project will be shared through our Case Study and conference presentations with BCIT’s networks – e.g., B.C. Association of Institutes and Universities, Colleges and Institutes Canada and Polytechnics Canada.
Electricity Human Resources Canada is a non-profit organization supporting human resources needs of Canada’s electricity and renewable energy sector. EHRC will field test the application of research insights with Electricity sector employers: for example, using scenario prototypes to enhance National Occupational Standards (NOS) job descriptions and to specify approaches for capability development and career pathways.
This work will support EHRC’s sector leadership strategy around instilling a culture of innovation from within and developing high-level change agents, as articulated in our 2020 Labour Market Intelligence report Work Transformed. Results from our Field Test will be shared with our member organizations and other Canadian Human Resource Councils, through our Case Study and collaborations to adapt research-informed practices for Workplace Innovation capability in our workforces.
The Newfoundland & Labrador Workforce Innovation Centre (NLWIC) was established by the provincial government at the College of the North Atlantic with a provincial mandate to provide a coordinated, central point of access to engage labour market stakeholders about challenges, opportunities and best practices. The Centre’s goal is to promote and support the research, testing and sharing of ideas and models of innovation in workforce development that will positively impact employability, employment and entrepreneurship particularly for under-represented groups.
NLWIC will field test the application of research insights with NL employers and other stakeholders, with a particular focus on applying research on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work for Older Workers, in support of our funded research on Barriers and Opportunities to Workforce Participation for Older Workers in NL (and building on NLWIC’s recent project with the St John’s Board of Trade). Research from Canada[2] has noted discrimination against older workers with regard to innovation engagement, and research in Europe[3] has shown successful approaches to address these issues.
Results from our Field test and from other elements of the project will be shared with our workplace partners, NL government agencies and our colleagues in other provinces, through our Case Study publication, our Events series and our News Bulletin (as well as internationally through our linkages with the OECD program in Workforce Innovation to Support Future-Ready Adult Learning).
[1] Using research studies such as Oeij, P. R., Dhondt, S., Rus, D., & Van Hootegem, G. (2019). The digital transformation requires workplace innovation: an introduction. International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, 16(3), 199-207; Garmann-Johnsen, N. F., Helmersen, M., & Eikebrokk, T. R. (2018). Worklife ergonomics in digital co-creation: the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. European Journal of Workplace Innovation, 4(1).
[2] Lord, M.-M. & Therriault, P.-Y. (2018). Vieillir au travail en context d’innovation : au-delà de la stigmatisation pour des pistes d’intégration (Aging at work and innovation: beyond the stigma for integration). Reflets, 24 (1).
[3] Kooij, D. T., Nijssen, H., et al (2020). Crafting an interesting job: stimulating an active role of older workers in enhancing their daily work engagement and job performance. Work, Aging and Retirement.
Volmer, J., Richter, S., & Syrek, C. J. (2019). Creative at each age: Age‐related differences in drivers of workplace creativity from an experience sampling study. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 53(4), 531-545.
Totterdill, P. et al (2016). Supporting active ageing through workplace innovation practices. WorkAge Project Report. Nottingham Trent University. http://www.ukwon.net/workage-blog/project-findings