Canada | USA

Home

Productivity Alberta is Your Productivity

By: Jeff Baker

Alberta businesses have always been at the forefront of industrial innovation and productivity in Canada and abroad. Alberta’s productivity has led the country for years. But the number that matters – Alberta’s productivity growth rate – has faltered, while the growth rate of national and international competitors has accelerated.

But this is changing as Productivity Alberta helps organizations find ways to do business better. By gathering diverse tools and resources in one convenient portal, Productivity Alberta can help create a tailored productivity plan that is right for your business.

Many of these tools and resources are available at ProductivityAlberta.ca, where organizations can find the most up-to-date information on best-practices and strategies. There are also self-assessment tools to help businesses compare their productivity growth year-over-year, and to help businesses compare themselves to other global benchmarks.

Going beyond the information collected on the website, the staff at Productivity Alberta is ready to help organizations take the often challenging first steps toward building a better, more productive business, says Lori Schmidt, Senior Director of Productivity Alberta.

“Many companies that want to improve their productivity, or their competitiveness, have said to us, ‘we have no idea where to start,’” says Schmidt.

“We want to help by guiding businesses toward the resources that are right for them as they take that next step.”

Many Alberta businesses are already reaping the benefits of productivity.

With economic recovery and growth predicted in 2010, other organizations are well-positioned to take those first steps now to improve upon existing processes.

Increasingly, productivity is becoming part of the overall approach to business in Alberta. It’s an approach that will help to position Alberta as one of the most innovative and competitive regions in the world in the years to come.

Productivity is…

Schmidt and her staff can relate many stories of businesses and employees that still hold skewed and outdated notions of what it means when a business looks for ways to become more productive. Cutbacks. Pink slips. Longer hours. Less pay.

Nothing could be further from the truth. “Productivity is not about working people harder, or laying people off. That’s a really critical point that needs to be made,” says Schmidt. “There are lots of things that can be done within organisations, things that don’t necessarily cost a lot or take a lot of time, that can really enhance a company and allow people to work smarter and be more engaged.”

It’s in the little day-to-day things that Alberta businesses have the greatest opportunity to fine-tune their operations and enhance the bottom line. It’s also where Productivity Alberta comes in – to help businesses find these efficiencies and discover the value that was hidden within their operations and people.

Industry leading the charge

Part of the strength of Productivity Alberta is the leadership team guiding it. An advisory committee comprised of industry experts provides its best advice about the services and knowledge that Alberta businesses need. This means Productivity  Alberta is guided by advice from company CEOs and presidents who have already benefitted from upping their own  productivity.

These experts know the journey to productivity is intimidating at first, but they also know that if Alberta businesses are to grow and succeed in a global market, they need to get more productive.

Productivity Alberta advisor, Andy Mackintosh, President and CEO of Calgary-based Werklund Enterprises Ltd, says that productivity resources exist, but the challenge often comes when businesses want to access them. This, he says, is where Productivity Alberta can help.

“Rather than re-inventing the wheel each time, Productivity Alberta is meant to be an information source to go to, to see what others have done, or what they are doing, or research that they have identified,” Mackintosh says. “It’s really there to help all Alberta businesses.”

While industry is taking a leading role in the direction and development of Productivity Alberta, government is playing an important role, too, according to Schmidt. Both the Government of Alberta, through Alberta Finance and Enterprise, and the Government of Canada, through Western Economic Diversification Canada, are currently supporting Productivity Alberta’s programs and services. “The governments understand the need to keep industry globally competitive and keep Alberta workers engaged in meaningful, value-added ways.

Productivity and supply chains

One example of industry advice leading to a program offering is Productivity Alberta’s Supply Chain Collaboration Program. This made-in-Alberta program brings together companies and members of their supply chain and their customers to learn and implement collaborative practices within their existing relationships.

The program consists of three components which can be made separately available but which together have maximum effect:

  • An interactive, on-line supply chain simulation demonstrates to participants the differences between traditional, visible, and collaborative supply chains;
  • A collaboration and trust workshop showing supply chain members the power and potential of collaboration, including the development of a 120-day action plan
  • Professional coaching from an experienced industry advisor who will guide the implementation of the action plan.

Piloted to companies in Central Alberta in 2009 and 2010, and recently expanded to regions across Alberta, the Supply Chain Collaboration Program is helping companies find significant cost savings and build stronger relationships with their suppliers and customers. In one example from the program’s pilot phase, one supply chain was able to free up nearly $2 million in cash flow by just improving the lines of communication and becoming more deliberate in their dealings and working together to find efficiencies and opportunities that were hiding just below the surface.

Schmidt says, “The collaboration program is a wonderful example of the power of productivity improvement through  non-technical means. Companies begin to see that just by communicating clearly, frequently, and consistently they can really make a difference in their business.” Productivity improvement isn’t difficult; you just need to want to do it.

To find out more about Productivity Alberta and get started on your own productivity improvement journey, visit productivityalberta.ca