New Report: Canadian business leaders to put employees first in post pandemic recovery plans

Sage recently conducted a survey of more than 800 finance leaders across Canadian small and midsize businesses, the findings of which have been released in a new report from Sage: Forward Together 2021 . The report indicates that Canadian businesses are united in their belief that employee welfare will be key to post-pandemic recovery strategies.

Employee Well-being

When asked what they are most concerned about related to their employees for the remaining 2021, business leaders identified the following challenges:

• Burnout (47%)
• Employees feeling safe when returning to the physical workplace (43%)
• Adjusting to a hybrid work-from-home/work from office model (23%)
• Low productivity (22%)

From an industry perspective, not surprisingly, the public sector (including healthcare) and not-for-profit sector show significantly higher concerns about burnout (60%).

Remote work may also have made some business leaders’ concerns more acute. 55% of business leaders in organizations with employees working at 81–100% remotely are concerned about employee burnout, higher

than the 47% average.

Business leaders are responding to these various issues differently. Of those concerned about employees feeling safe to return to the workplace, 51% are already taking action. In contrast, of those concerned about employee

burnout, only 32% have taken action, with no significant differences among industry sectors.

Of those concerned about a hybrid work model, only 37% have addressed the issue, but the consumer industries are significantly more prepared, with 67% saying they have taken action to address the issue.

From the workers’ perspective, one in three (32%) employees are concerned about burnout.

23% are concerned about feeling safe when returning to the physical workplace. Only 14% of workers express concern about adjusting to a hybrid work-model, with more workers in the knowledge and professional services (22%) expressing such concern.

Arrangements for the Future Workplace

From the business leaders’ perspective, remote work is here to stay. Among businesses that currently have remote employees, a majority (76%) will continue to allow employees to work from home in various degrees within a hybrid

model. The level of flexibility is partly dictated by the nature of the industry:

• Knowledge and professional services (85%)
• Industrial sector and natural resources (73%)
• Public sector and not-for-profit (72%)
• Consumer industries (66%)

The tenure of the business also shows some variance:

• Under 5 years (86%)
• 6–10 years (89%)
• 10 years or more (74%)

Business leaders in Ontario (80%) and Quebec (81%) are most readily embracing this hybrid work arrangement trend, relative to British Columbia (70%).

Business leaders are also demonstrating confidence that the hybrid work arrangement is working and also necessary. 42% cited increasing productivity and 41% cited attracting and retaining talent as the main factors for allowing employees to work from home while 34% said mitigating burnout is a factor. Workers employed at companies allowing remote work are somewhat aligned to these business leaders’ expectations, but they agree on the three priorities to a lesser degree:

• Attract and retain talent (31%)
• Increase productivity (27%)
• Mitigate burnout (26%)

The three identified factors resonate most within the knowledge and professional services industries among leaders and workers alike, but diverge most in the public sector and not-for-profit.