Looking at HR as less transaction and more architecture.

1. Supporting Success:
Creating Canada’s First Cognitive
Labour Strategy

2. “Ontario needs to build the skillsets necessary for the
knowledge economy.”
“Governments need to help ensure labour supply better
matches demand.”
- Emerging Stronger: A Transformative Agenda for Ontario
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3. WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU
LEMONS…
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4. Forecast for Ontario: A Perfect Storm of Crises
Unsustainable service costs
– Have increased from $17 billion in 1997 to $49 billion in 2011 for healthcare alone, yet people
aren’t getting better
– $15 billion deficit and shrinking tax base
A Mental Health Crisis largely misunderstood by Private Sector and Civil Society
– Mental illness and addictions cost Ontario economy $39 billion annually; trending to become
number one cost driver of disability claims by 2020
– Private sector spends at least $2.1 billion annually on disability claims, drug costs and employee
assistance programs (EAPs)
Private Sector must improve productivity and encourage more innovation to sustain a
post-industrial economy
– In 2007, Canada was 17th among OECD nations for output per hour worked per worker
– In 2007, Canada’s business sector productivity was 75 per cent of that of the U.S (compared to 90
per cent in the early 1980s)
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5. In an information-based, innovation-fueled economy, it
will be cognitive labour – not physical labour – that
does the heavy lifting.
Cognitive Behaviour [käg-nə-tiv bi-ˈhā-vyər]
Work involving the use of cognitive skills such as information acquisition and
retention, critical thinking, planning, communication and innovation.
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6. …MAKE LEMONADE.
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7. A Provincial Cognitive Labour Strategy
would:
• Establish an online toolkit aggregating existing Private and Public
Sector best practices and evidence-based solutions for supporting
occupational mental health and productivity enhancement.
• Enable Government to work with partners (including business
associations, HR professionals, mental health and occupational
mental health service providers) to create evidence-based solutions
combining existing best-practices with new approaches
• By providing incentives, the Government of Ontario will make the
case that it is in the Private Sector’s best interests to internalize
cognitive labour supports.
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8. This Cognitive Labour Strategy would not only address a
key objective of Ontario’s Comprehensive Mental Health
and Addictions Strategy:
- Provide Ontario a competitive advantage in the global information
economy
- Encourage new industry development (cognitive workplace
assessments, design, etc.)
- Empower employers to become part of the solution to our mental
health crisis – helping to keep employees engaged and out of the
healthcare system.
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9. Potential Partners:
• Human Resources Professionals Association
• Ontario Chamber of Commerce
• Canadian Positive Psychology Association
• Optimus SBR
• Exhibit Change
• Centre for Applied Neuroscience
• Schizophrenia Society of Ontario
MPP Advocates:
• Christine Elliot (PC, Whitby-Oshawa)
• Kevin Flynn (Liberal, Oakville)
• France Gélinas (NDP, Nickel Belt)
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10. “We will continue looking for additional savings across government
while providing quality public services for Ontario families.
“And we welcome good ideas — from people, business owners,
economists and the Opposition — on how to best find those
savings.
- Dwight Duncan, Ontario Minister of Finance
“We can perhaps shoot for a grander goal – a province that
provides the best public services, delivered in the most
efficient manner in the world.
If this sounds impossibly ambitious, put the question another
way: Why not?
- The Drummond Report
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11. DISCUSSION
Notes
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