Part of the labour shortage’s solution has nothing to do with employees.
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 900,000 jobs were vacant in August 2021. This is a problem that concerns the majority of businesses across all sectors — and experts estimate the situation will peak between 2030 and 2035.
If you thought the pandemic was the worst thing for your business, you’ve greatly underestimated the labour shortage problem. And even for companies that fully realize the consequences, they are probably considering non-viable long-term solutions to fix it.
To counter the labour shortage, the first instinct of many management teams is to try to find employees through immigration, students, or other types of workers — or by offering better conditions and higher salaries. But all of these are only temporary solutions. It is time to involve innovation, automation, and artificial intelligence.
The Right Way to Fill Positions with Technology
First of all, we must stop being afraid of technology. The goal is not to put 500 employees out of work — it’s to stop limiting the growth of our companies because of a lack of personnel.
Technology is an ally for the prosperity and growth of our businesses. By 2035, it will probably be the difference between those who make it through this shortage and those who have to shut down.
The right way to fill positions with technology is to automate repetitive tasks and leave value-added work to humans:
- Put exactly 150 screws in a box, 2,000 times a day → automation
- Judgment, creativity, decision-making, empathy → human
By doing things this way, you will find that your current team is more than enough — and you no longer need to fear for employee retention.
How Can Predictive Maintenance Help a Company with the Labour Shortage?
Attraction and Retention of Staff
Any type of innovation attracts and retains competent personnel. In the case of predictive maintenance, all teams that directly or indirectly work with operations are positively affected. The work environment becomes healthier — with less stress, less overtime, and much less pressure on the maintenance team.
An employee doesn’t leave a company for the list of tasks they’re responsible for. By changing employers, an employee leaves a work environment, unhealthy pressure, and a heavy workload. Predictive maintenance allows you to offer a productive but relaxed work atmosphere, reduce frustration during unplanned shutdowns, and build smaller but more efficient teams.
Your Current Team Is Probably Already Enough
If your operations are running smoothly, if you are able to predict any production stoppage in advance, and if the visual inspection time of your maintenance team is greatly reduced — there is much to bet that your current team is already quite sufficient, and that you don’t need to hire.
Stop the “False Excuses” for Not Innovating
The most frequent excuses are the lack of money and the lack of time — but in fact, they hide only one thing: fear.
Today, refusing innovation and technology is the equivalent of refusing to learn how to use a computer 20 years ago. If your business becomes the “new tech illiterate,” do you think you can thrive and grow long-term?
The Lack of Money
What is the real cost of your current maintenance? If you don’t have predictive maintenance, the hidden costs (loss of raw materials, overtime, loss of production, etc.) likely represent an additional 10–15% on top of your “known” costs.
Several companies, such as Soralink, now offer monthly subscription solutions that require no upfront capital. Innovation is accessible to everyone.
The Lack of Time
You are already wasting that time. How much time would you save by eliminating unplanned breakdowns and downtime? How many overtime hours does your production team work following a breakdown? Knowing that innovation attracts and retains competent employees, how much time do you currently devote to hiring?
The labour shortage is too big a problem to be solved by hiring alone. We must explore all the possibilities offered by innovation, automation, and artificial intelligence.
While you hesitate and wait, your competitors dare and get ahead of you.
Contact us to learn how predictive maintenance can apply to your business.