Consultant and speaker Eddie Lemoine delivered an eye opening and inspirational address to the Humboldt and area business community at this year’s Mark of Excellence Awards on Friday, April 25. Lemoine was hosted by the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce at the annual event.
Lemoine began by talking about the search all employers have for those workers who are anxious to get to work and put in a solid effort – how to attract them, and how to retain them. It’s become a challenge in times fraught with tariffs, shifting markets, artificial intelligence and changing work demands. With humour and homespun wisdom, armed with current data, Lemoine spelled out why the challenge may be less with a labour shortage than it is a skills shortage.
“One of the things that’s driving the workplace now is one that we didn’t see coming,” Lemoine suggested. “That’s the way people are working post pandemic. The one thing we know for certain is that it’s never going back to the way it was.”
Remote or hybrid work is here to stay, Lemoine thinks, given that work was headed in that direction anyway; the pandemic simply accelerated the model. It’s simply a matter of age and demographics. While employers have placed demands for knowledge workers to return to a brick-and-mortar office, the labour marketplace is demanding more flexible options which will make the numbers of in-house workers settle in the coming years.
Economics is the other consideration around remote work, says Lemoine.
“People in Vancouver love remote work because they can hire an account in Humboldt who can work remotely from here instead of in Vancouver where it costs $1.8 million to buy a starter home.”
Alternative shifts have proven productive, with on the floor industrial work shifts starting at 10:00 am and ending at 2:00 pm attracting parents with school-aged children. Lemoine suggested that such unconventional strategies have to be embraced by entrepreneurs and employers moving into the future of work.
The age demographic of workers answers the question where did all the workers go, Lemoine proposed. It’s simply a matter of an aging population leaving the work force and a much smaller “Z generation” entering the work force, supplemented by immigrants. The progressively declining numbers of children in North American families has contributed to the conundrum. A simple show of hands exercise in the room revealed younger families are smaller families.
“If you are in downtown Humboldt today, and you saw a family with a stroller and five kids hanging off it, you’re thinking one of two things,” Lemoine mused. “It’s a day care centre, or they’re nuts.”
Those cultural shifts have led to a sag in the labour market, but also a need for trained individuals in virtually all areas. Keys are trades and health care, two places where employers are having to develop new approaches to work recruitment and retention. The new generation of workers simply doesn’t come with the built-in expectations or brand loyalties when it comes to work that their parents did.
“The work life expectancy of a “Z generation” employee if you hire them right now is around 18 months,” Lemoine revealed. “Baby boomers may have changed their careers three times in their lives.”
Lemoine went on to examine many other challenges of the modern workplace, but offered potential solutions or approaches, albeit unconventional, that modern business leaders will have to investigate.
While business was at the forefront, Lemoine drew his audience into a more personally reflective environment before the end of his talk. The stress of the last few years, particularly with the pandemic, has resulted in a prolonged fight or flight response that’s taken a toll.
Lemoine coached listeners into adopting a stance of positivity, optimism, and spirit of giving and loving that will help manifest the outcomes we desperately seek in our lives.
For more on Eddie Lemoine and his message, check out eddielemoine.com.