By our WINCAn/WEtech project team (listed at the end)
We are now in the final stages of writing up results from our most recent applied research project with workplace partners – sponsored in part by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Centre. We focused on adapting European research insights and exemplary practices on employee-led Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work into Canadian contexts. Our goal was to determine the applicability of these strategies for scaling up workplace innovation across Canada and to explore supportive public policy to accelerate these advances.
This post summarizes the major results from the project, excerpted from the final Project Report. Short bios for the project team members are available on our Team page.
(If you want some background on the project, our previous posts have provided
An overview of the Network Hub Partners involved
Some sample work products: our workshop on Workplace Innovation: From Goals to Game Plans and a Research Synthesis example (including some research from Canada)
Research Questions
We initially had two key research questions which guided the project trajectory:
How can Canada’s workplaces and workforce adapt research advances from Europe to improve Quality of Work through employee-led Workplace Innovation? and
What European policy and program issues and initiatives should be explored further to guide our Canadian initiatives to encourage, support, recognize and scale-up Employee Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work?
In the course of the project, we also uncovered an additional emerging concept with potential as a distinctive Canadian contribution to advancing employee-led workplace innovation:
How can we ensure that initiatives for workplace innovation and quality of work focus intentionally on inclusive workplace innovation? Although “inclusion” is identified as a goal in some existing initiatives, the focus on and context for inclusion varies. Canadian work in this area would add a valuable perspective to the current European discussions.
Workplace and Sector/Regional Partners
Eight organizations agreed to participate as field test sites for research adaptation, across four Canadian provinces from coast-to-coast (NL, ON, AB, BC). Of these, five were Workplace Partners who used the adapted research directly to advance innovation and quality of work in their contexts. These included a leading private training institute (NL), a healthcare provider network and a municipally-owned utility company (ON), an engineering services company (AB), and a company in the Forestry sector (BC).
Workplace Case Snapshots
ENWIN is a municipally-owned and operated energy and water services utility in southwestern Ontario. As an example of an organization that had already begun its workplace innovation journey, the research insights and adaptations shared the project team provided the organization with more critical awareness of the innovation initiatives that the organization had employed. ENWIN’s full Case Story was shared in a previous post.[1]
“EngServ”is an Engineering Services company based in Alberta that focuses on offering progressive solutions to complex challenges. The firm identified the need for strategies to encourage all employees to engage in the innovation opportunities provided by the firm. Deploying a research-based “motivation to innovate” tool supported Entuitive to think critically about the role of innovation culture across the organization. The EngServ full Case Story was also shared in a previous post.[2]
“LTC Network” is a progressive network of long-term care retirement villages across Ontario. Innovation is at the core of LTC’s operations, and their staff previously participated in an Innovation Catalyst training program; however, employee motivation to innovate continues to be a challenge and the current innovation programs do not engage front-line workers. Research syntheses and adaptation ideas were created for both issues and implementation scenarios are being considered for their 2024 plans. (The first of these Research Syntheses has already appeared in previous blog posts, Part I and Part II).
Academy Canada is a leading private training college in Newfoundland and Labrador, with 15 locations across the province “training Canada’s future workforce”. The company was new to the concept of Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work but recognized the potential value in enhancing company performance and quality of work life (as well as opportunities for leadership in their sector). From the research synthesis of opportunities, the company selected for their pilot study a research-based scenario to build a progressive sequence of employee innovation opportunities. The first steps in implementing this pilot study scenario are expected to be completed by Q4 2023.
With “ForestCo”, a B.C.-based company in the Forestry sector, we were not successful in our initial research-to-practice process. They requested a research synthesis with examples of workplace innovation specific to their industry sector. However, our research did not identify insights on inclusive workplace innovation specific to the Forestry context.
Given that Forestry is a key sector in northern Europe (where much workplace innovation research has been based), this lack of sector-specific research was surprising. Our European colleagues informed us that this reflects sector-specific regional anomalies (e.g., sector labour associations not participating in the national trilateral government-industry-labour relationships).
We did, however, follow up later with a research synthesis on Digital Transformation in the Forestry Sector, [3] which also included research references on “why digital transformation requires workplace innovation” and on the potential impact of digital transformation on the demographics of the Forestry workforce (i.e., “male-dominated”). This research synthesis was based largely on work by the Nordic Test Network for the BioEconomy and the Mistra Digital Forest project of the Forest Industries Research and Innovation consortium in Sweden.
Our remaining three partner organizations were Network Hub Partners: the WEtech Alliance regional innovation centre in southwestern Ontario, the provincial Newfoundland and Labrador Workforce Innovation Centre and the national Electricity Human Resources Canada. They became catalysts for Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work in member organizations, as well as serving as Case Stories themselves. Subsequent blog posts will summarize the results achieved with each of these partners.
Overall results for Workplace Partners
As a result of our Research Adaptation project, the Workplace Partners collaborating in this study have targeted specific employee, team, and organizational innovation capabilities. Using European research (and some from Canada), Workplace Partners were able to adapt exemplary practices for their own contexts, invigorating their organizational workplace innovation programs with new insights. Given the breadth of industries, sectors and regions of the participating Partners, our findings indicate that research adaptation can advance Quality of Work in diverse Canadian workplace contexts.
We also identified three areas where further work is needed to advance workplace innovation for quality of work in Canada with our Network Hub partner (which are summarized in subsequent blog posts):
Scaling up support for research adaptation [1] with a broad range of Workplace partners;
New Collaboration models [2] to expand the catalyst role beyond our Network Hub Partners;
Reframe our Canadian exploration and deployment of Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work to become intentionally Inclusive Workplace Innovation. [3]
We also produced two auxiliary reports on topics of interest to specific Partners:
Research on European Policy and Programs in Workplace Innovation for Quality of Work: Selected Insights for Canadian Contexts[4] ;
Enhancing Capability for Innovation Project Management[5] .
Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work Project Team (bios available on our Team page):
Adam Frye Anahita Baregheh Blake Melnick Eleftherios (Terry) Soleas Gillian Sudlow Janet Zlotnik Natasha Castela Lopes Peter Totterdill Tom Carey Tyrenny Anderson Victoria Abboud Yemisi Iyilade
Special thanks go to our Network Hub Partners:
Yvonne Pilon and the WEtech Alliance support team;
Sharon Mclennon, Joanne Kendrick and Suzanne Dawe at the NL Workforce Innovation Centre; and
Yoana Turnin and Mark Chapeskie at Electricity Human Resources Canada.
Acknowledgement: Our project on Workplace Innovation and Quality of Work Life is supported by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills program