The Power of eLearning: Prospering in a Digitally-Driven Economy

Technology has unlocked new pathways for innovation and skills development in Canada. As a result of advancements in everything from the ubiquity of smartphones to the adoption of AI, billions of people across the globe have greater access to learning and digital communication channels than ever before. In the workplace, machine learning, AI, and automation are accelerating disruptors. This important shift opens up exciting new possibilities to drive economic growth. 

Yet, challenges like workforce productivity, resistance to technology, and a widening skills gap continue to hinder Canada from realizing the full potential benefits of our ongoing digital transformation. Canada needs a workforce that can adapt to and operate within a rapidly changing technology environment. Building these competencies will require a culture of lifelong learning that spans academia and the workplace. As Canada looks to the future, eLearning is a pillar upon which to build the workforce to power a healthy, sustainable, and growing economy.

To chart a course for this future, we must first understand Canada’s current talent and skills development landscape. 

Gaps in Canada’s Talent and Skills Development Ecosystem

Canada’s GDP is shrinking. To jumpstart growth and increase prosperity, addressing gaps in our skills and development ecosystem is essential. 

Some of the barriers to skills and development include:

1. Canada’s declining labour productivity
2. Slow adoption of tech in academia and the workplace 
3. Chronically unhired populations 

Let’s explore these in more detail. 

1. Canada’s Declining Labour Productivity

For almost a decade now, Canada’s economic growth has remained stagnant and Canadian businesses have lagged behind international competitors in terms of economic output. Beyond financial profit, our capacity to build a productive labour force has declined significantly. The demand for digital skills has also threatened productivity – more than 50% of Canadian professionals lack the skills to do their jobs effectively. Since 2020, over 70% of Canadian employers have reported a shortage of digitally skilled talent.

With a highly educated workforce, Canada should be well-positioned to adapt to a digital economy. However, Canadian organizations and educational institutions haven’t invested in the training and upskilling necessary to help their workers build much-needed digital competencies. This gap may have a uniquely Canadian origin: Our reliance on a natural resource-based economy. Workers in oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, and construction were not required to build transferable skills or upskill to carry out their jobs. As a result, our businesses have gotten in the habit of being complacent about training.

As resource-based industries face digital disruption and automation, many Canadians risk job stability due to a lack of skills and competencies. There’s an urgent need to help these Canadians reskill to continue to participate in the economy. More generally, investing in training and upskilling is key for businesses to thrive in a digitally-driven global economy.

2. Slow Adoption of Tech in Academia and the Workplace 

Canada is not alone in the global race to meet the increasing demand for digital skills. Even before the pandemic, the digital skills gap was a challenge plaguing even the most advanced economies. Embracing technology across higher learning institutions and workplaces is critical to building a digitally advanced workforce. 

However, businesses and post-secondary institutions have not stepped up to close the gap. For example, despite extensive government funding of AI research, only 4% of businesses use AI nationwide. Providing more training and collaboration for educators under visionary leadership across faculties is a fundamental next step. By leveraging technology, Canadian post-secondary institutions can increase competition for talent at home and abroad. 

Importantly, lagging digital competency in academia continues into the workforce and is exacerbated by stronger economies hiring the best and brightest from across Canada. We do not have the skilled talent we need. We are not graduating and upskilling more skilled talent to fill those gaps. And when we do, we cannot often retain that talent in the face of global competition. 

3. Chronically Unhired Populations 

Despite the challenges above, there is an underappreciated competitive advantage we hold: Our multicultural society. While many Canadian employers report difficulty filling vacancies, a large demographic of skilled Canadians remain chronically unhired. Foreign-trained newcomers, racialized persons, including Indigenous people, disabled people, and other individuals from equity-deserving communities experience record-level rates of both underemployment and unemployment compared to white Canadians. 

Canada’s highly educated immigrant population, despite filling the higher education pipeline, faces significant barriers to the labour market. These challenges range from devalued credentials to a lack of access to training and upskilling opportunities and integrating into a new cultural landscape. Disabled people also face similar challenges as they are 14.5% less likely to be hired compared to non-disabled people of equal skill. 

As a result, Canada is missing out on a rich diversity of thought and perspectives, which could open up diverse markets and power up innovation. Without real actions to hire inclusively and remove barriers to access, there is a risk of losing hundreds of billions of dollars in GDP and innovation opportunities.  

As Rebekah Steele said, “When inclusion flourishes, it permeates the whole work environment. It enables everyone to succeed, and it leaves no one out. It has a positive impact on people’s desire to work for an organization and how productive they are, the quality of decision making, customer relations, innovation, revenues, and reputations.” 

Addressing the three gaps explored above will improve the workplace readiness and digital capacity of all Canadians and give Canada a critical competitive advantage on the global stage.

Making the required changes, however, requires a shift in mindset and priorities. In particular, we need to build and promote a culture of continuous learning that will empower our people to adapt and thrive in the digital age. 

Fostering a Culture of Lifelong Learning by Leveraging eLearning 

As our organizations weather technological disruption, economic uncertainty, talent retention, and other challenges, it is imperative that every Canadian business becomes a learning hub for its employees. With an estimated 50% of employees requiring reskilling by 2025, fostering a culture of continuous learning at scale is the key to sustained success. Building a society of learners is fundamental to enhancing job readiness, increasing access to education, and bolstering global competitiveness.

The Role of eLearning:

Technology is the vehicle we need to embrace to inspire effective lifelong learning. eLearning unlocks learning ecosystems that transform workers into expert learners who are resourceful and knowledgeable, strategic and goal-directed, purposeful and motivated. One way this is accomplished is by establishing digital communities of practice at both institutional and corporate levels. By tapping into a wealth of diverse backgrounds and perspectives, these collaborative eLearning spaces can help transform Canadian workplaces into hubs for innovation and collective growth. 

Technology is not a cure-all for gaps in our talent and skills pipeline. Technology alone cannot remove institutional barriers for underemployed talent from immigrant, racialized, Indigenous, disabled, and other equity-deserving communities. However, leveraging innovations in learning models powered by the expanded capabilities of eLearning is precisely what’s needed to establish a sense of belonging for diverse communities in post-secondary institutions and workplaces. Importantly, these practices further grow the capacity and capability of all participants in a learning ecosystem. 

Transcending the constraints of traditional learning, eLearning provides cost-effective solutions to scaling skill-building capacities while removing barriers to access.

By embracing new opportunities and implementing best practices across technology, academia, business, and government, Canada can close its widening skills gap and position itself as a global leader, all while nurturing the next generation of innovators. 

Let’s look at what we can do now to unlock the workforce of the future. 

What Canada Must Do for the Future of Education and Skilling

Canada needs more diverse workers with the skills to power the digitally-driven global economy of today. Building this cohort of employees begins in higher education and continues in the workplace.

1. Take Action on Diversity

A first step for companies that want to leverage Canada’s multicultural workforce to drive greater innovation is to hire a diverse workforce. Diverse and inclusive businesses are better positioned to serve broader markets, adapt to different cultural nuances, and drive business growth to meet the challenges and opportunities of evolving global trends. However, Canadian businesses must move beyond hiring a diverse team to create a space of belonging and impact by: 

• Cultivating diverse talent by working with programs that support underrepresented groups in tech and education, such as Interactive Ontario and MakingTheMove
• Creating a welcoming environment for diverse talent by empowering teams to innovate solutions that better serve diverse markets
• Engaging with the diverse markets Canadian organizations serve at home and abroad to uncover paths to delivering more impactful products and services

2. Get the Ball Rolling on eLearning

Innovation cannot happen without learning, and this is where workplace training comes in. Effective eLearning is a critical part of supporting and scaling a productive learning ecosystem across organizations. Some eLearning tools to consider implementing include: 

• Microlearning opportunities for flexible and adaptable learning
• Digitally enabled communities of practice to encourage knowledge-sharing and collaboration
• Personalized assessments and tools that reflect the perspectives of employees
• Learner analytics to validate learning program effectiveness and accelerate continuous improvement efforts

At the higher education level, we need to understand how technology can transform and improve existing learning programs. Faculty need in-depth digital tools, practices, and expertise to accelerate new pathways for innovation and skills development for learners and educators. An action plan to leverage eLearning to accelerate workplace readiness in the post-secondary environment involves:

• Upskilling faculty employees and empowering them with the knowledge and tools required to facilitate accessible and inclusive digital learning environments
• Collaborating with and hiring eLearning experts to improve existing learning programs
• Promoting learning practices that prioritize learner variability in order to upskill learners from all backgrounds 

While eLearning remains fundamental to driving employee readiness, its success relies on government investment and continuous collaboration between academia and businesses. Leveraging these partnerships is essential to facilitating a seamless transition from education to employment while advancing Canada’s research and development capabilities. 

Unlocking the workforce of the future requires a multifaceted approach that addresses digital skills, inclusivity, and digital transformation challenges across academia and industry. Working together, we can position Canada as a global leader in workforce readiness, ensuring that people and businesses across Canada are equipped with the skills needed to thrive in the digital age and across a global economy.