The vast majority of post-secondary students are entering the workforce without international experience, at a time when employers are placing greater importance on global awareness and intercultural competencies.

By some estimates, only 11% of Canadian undergraduates study aboard, compared to 33% in France, 29% in Germany and 16% in the U.S. For many, the cost of studying abroad and lack of credit transfers holds them back. But that may also shut them out of a fast-changing world.

“Given geopolitical and trade realities, Canada urgently needs to cultivate students with open minds and global competencies that can help to advance Canada’s diplomatic and trade relationships abroad,” said Larissa Bezo, president and CEO of the Canadian Bureau for International Education.

In less than two decades, the number of international students in Canada jumped 467%, to almost 600,000 across all levels of study. Nearly 70% of them study at post-secondary institutions, accounting for roughly 14% of all enrolment. Now, Canada wants to extend this momentum to outbound mobility, sending more Canadian students abroad.

Already, outbound student initiatives are gaining traction around the world. In the United Kingdom, the government plans to double the percentage of post-secondary students’ overseas experience. In the U.S., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has hailed American students abroad as “citizen ambassadors,” adding that “international education should be part of every student’s academic career.” And in France, international student mobility is seen as a social justice issue.

Canadian academic leaders have called for the government to increase the percentage of Canadian students studying abroad to 25% in the next decade. Ottawa has begun to take notice.

In August, the federal government announced a $95 million, five-year pilot program under the International Education Strategy to encourage more Canadian students to gain overseas experience and build networks. The initiative will prioritize study programs in Asia and Latin America and is expected to benefit up to 11,000 Canadian post-secondary students. Half of the funds will be targeted at increasing participation of underrepresented groups, such as low-income and Indigenous students.

Canada needs more students like D’Arcy White, who interned last summer at a Chinese law firm in Shanghai. Before setting off, he was told a Chinese proverb — “It is better to travel 10,000 miles than to read 10,000 books.” He has taken it to heart. This semester, White, a law school student at the University of Toronto, will return to China to study at Tsinghua University in Beijing on a Canadian government scholarship. The opportunity to study in China, he says, comes with immerse challenges and opportunities that create both a sense of energy and intrigue.

“I think that stepping outside of one’s own environment ought to be a key part of a well-rounded education, especially for those in the social sciences and law,” he said. “Gaining a deeper understanding of China is becoming more important for tomorrow’s leaders.” While at Tsinghua, he will study language and Chinese law.

A large body of research shows that international exposure will prove beneficial to students. It increases students’ creativity, boosts their employability and helps cultivate empathy.

For many prominent public figures, overseas experiences have had an imprint on their careers. Before founding Apple, Steve Jobs took a months-long pilgrimage to India, a trip that gave him the spiritual fuel to later lead a legendary company. For Vera Wang, a celebrated American designer who once mulled a career in figure skating, studying in Paris during her junior year helped spark her love for fashion.

Despite the benefits, a number of factors have discouraged Canadian students from going abroad. Chief among them: cost. A 2016 survey from CBIE found that 85% of the respondents were interested in studying abroad, but 80% would require financial assistance to do so. Other major concerns cited included possible delayed graduation and course credit requirements.

In addition, the survey revealed that most Canadian students tended to choose countries that were culturally similar to Canada. France was the top destination, hosting 14% of Canadians studying abroad that year, followed by the United Kingdom (9%) and the U.S. (8%).

When Justin Raposo, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, debated where to go for an exchange abroad, he considered countries like Australia and New Zealand. But in the end, he settled on Japan instead because it would offer him a variety of different cultural experiences.

“Being able to engage with alternative perspectives, ideas and cultural backgrounds really does add something.” He noted that it’s important to “work through differences and understand you don’t know everything and your perception isn’t always the right one.” That understanding, he says, will eventually help him better navigate the complexity of the modern world.

For Canada to succeed in an increasingly globalized world, its workforce must be equipped with the cultural competencies that can help to diversify trade and deepen ties with emerging economies.

The CBIE’s Bezo says cultivating these opportunities is crucial to Canada’s future. “The next generation of private and public-sector Canadian leaders will require international experience, intercultural understanding and skills to excel in tomorrow’s inter-connected and interdependent world.”

This summer, the company announced plans to boost the number of tradeswomen who will build the processing plant in Kitimat to 10%, double the provincial average.

This isn’t an act of goodwill – it’s a necessity. Canada is facing a critical shortage of skilled tradespeople. With demand rising and retirements accelerating, Build Force Canada estimates the construction industry will need to fill more than 300,000 vacancies over the next decade.

Women are an obvious way to deepen the talent pool: they make up about 48% of the Canadian labour force, yet hold less than 4% of jobs in the skilled trades.

“This lack of diversity is not a women’s issue, it is a workplace issue. We are missing out on a talented demographic,” said Andy Calitz, CEO of LNG Canada. “We want women to know there is a place for them on our project.”

Closing the gap will require the public and private sector actively recruiting, training and mentoring women in the trades, after decades of targeting men.

In Kitimat, LNG Canada has set up a four-week training program in partnership with Women Building Futures, an organization that supports women in the trades. It will be offered multiple times over the next 18 months, with the first training session starting in November. It doesn’t guarantee participants a job, but it puts them on the right track, and on LNG’s dime. The cost of airfare, accommodations, tuition and safety equipment is covered by the company.

It’s a robust response to the skills gap – and LNG is not alone. Across Canada, there is a concerted effort to change the old ways. And it’s starting to pay off. According to Statistics Canada’s most recent Labour Force Survey, the number of women in the trades is slowly ticking up, from 3.7% a decade ago to 3.9% now.

In last year’s federal budget, the government announced $20 million over five years for the Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women, which helps to cover the costs of training as an apprenticeship in a Red Seal Trade where women are underrepresented, like plumbing or welding. The government also announced $10 million over three years to support projects that have proven effective in attracting women to the trades, such as mentoring programs.

Even though it will continue to take time, bringing more women into the trades is part of an essential restructuring Canada needs to undertake as we enter the 2020s. We can rise to the skills challenge by empowering people with the right skills, regardless of old perceptions. The same is true in other places where we’re seeing a talent shortage, such as in STEM.

The next generation doesn’t feel bound by the same restrictive gender roles that previously kept women out of certain fields, and with the right opportunities, they’ll line up to participate.

In some cases, quite literally.

This past spring, Skills Ontario’s annual Young Women’s Conference was flooded with applicants from elementary schools. Some 1,300 girls tried to register for only 1,000 spots, according to CEO Ian Howcroft. They tried to accommodate the young girls the following day, during the high school program.

“We have had wait lists before, but this was a record for the elementary program,” Howcroft said.
 

The world of work has rapidly evolved since then; but the very people preparing our students to join this new workforce haven’t experienced exactly what it’s like firsthand. This is one of the challenges raised in a new RBC report, Bridging the Gap: What Canadians Told us about the Skills Revolution. The report is the result of a year spent travelling across the country, following up on our landmark research into the future of work, Humans Wanted. What if co-ops weren’t just for students, but for teachers? Sarah Reid, a young professional working as a cheese maker in Blyth, Ontario, thought this might better connect the education sector and the world of work. “Teachers would know what students are going to see and experience, what they’ll be expected to do. That kind of integration would be amazing,” Reid said. Right now, only about 1 in 6 high school students realize their career plan through to age 25; much of this is due to poor awareness of their post-secondary options and potential jobs. Jesse Rodgers, the CEO of the Volta innovation hub in Halifax, saw a lot of value in the idea. If teachers spent time at Volta, they could learn about new ideas and careers being created there through the use of new technology. They would then have more information to share with students as they begin to make their own career choices. In addition to career counselling, teacher co-ops would instill a deeper understanding of how the world has fundamentally altered, sharpening teaching skills no matter the subject. It’s an idea that’s already gaining traction in the United States. Last year in Pennsylvania, 1200 educators took part in the state’s Teacher in the Workplace program. Teachers, counselors, and administrators from K-12 are matched with industry and business leaders to learn about industry trends, needs, and opportunities. With this firsthand experience, teachers can enhance instruction, student learning, and career readiness. This spring, the state’s governor expanded the program under its new Workforce Command Center, announcing a 30% funding boost to commit US $2.6 million to the project. “Teachers bring that experience to their classrooms to develop lessons that teach students the skills they will need for those good jobs,” Governor Tom Wolf said at the announcement. “Teachers can also tell students and parents about the new and growing careers available in their community.” Pursuing a similar idea in Canada is intriguing – but there are still questions to be answered. Former high school teacher Kari Marken, who now works as an educational designer at UBC’s Centre for Student Involvement & Careers, suggested bringing people from the workforce into schools for classroom talks is a better way to give students insights, without creating more work for teachers. Marken also noted that many teachers have professional experiences beyond school that they can draw on to inform their conversations with students. While the average tenure of a teacher in Canada is 16 years, younger teachers still have one foot in the workforce. In Ontario, 62% of first year teachers must take non-teaching jobs due to lack of permanent positions. More than half of them take jobs as tutors, child care, or adult education, while the rest work in hospitality, retail, administration, and many balance more than one alternative work arrangement. “As the workforce undergoes rapid changes, I’m not sure that anyone is equipped to offer career advice,” Marken said. “However, I think we all have a role to play in posing really good questions that challenge and support students in their navigation of so much change.” Testing this idea on a small scale could net results on the local level, as the Chamber of Commerce in Minnesota has found. It has funded two pilot projects to strengthen the links between teachers and local businesses. In the northern town of Hibbing, high school teachers visit businesses for an in-service day to learn about future jobs that will be available to students. Further south in Winona, middle school and high school teachers have the chance to complete a one-week paid summer immersion program in the local manufacturing sector. There’s an added bonus with this program: the businesses also gain valuable feedback from having experienced teachers joining them on the job for a week, providing meaningful contributions to the workplace. Every fall, Take Your Kid to Work Day gives grade nine students the chance to explore the workplace. It’s time for a serious discussion about whether there’s value in earmarking another date on the calendar: Take Your Teacher to Work Day.

That’s a 10% survival rate. Even sectors previously thought to be safe – mattresses, oil and gas, health care – are now grappling with power players from unexpected places. In the age of mass disruption, every company needs to be ready for the day they wake up to the news that Amazon is moving onto their turf. Just yesterday, Amazon unveiled a new credit card that’s aimed at those with bad credit, something no retailer has done before. At the recent ICD Conference in Toronto, I had the opportunity to ask a panel of veteran board members how to get ready for your Amazon moment. Here are 6 takeaways from my discussion with John Cassaday, who chairs the board of Manulife Financial, and is director of Irving Oil, Sysco and Sleep Country Canada; Kathleen O’Neill, who sits on the boards of Finning International, ARC Resources, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan; and Michael Wilson, who chairs the board of Suncor and sits on the boards of Air Canada and Celestica.

1. Set a Bold Agenda

“Too often we just accept the agenda,” Cassaday said of board meetings. Try sending out the agenda a month in advance instead – that gives the board the opportunity to review and add new items, while allowing management time to prepare

2. Create the Right Culture

The tone is set from the top – so boards need to support innovation and disruptive thinking with candid, open, transparent discussions. “If the board sets the right tone, it permeates management,” O’Neill said. “Boards need to spend time looking at themselves, creating the right culture.”

3. Bring on the Experts

Boards used to hire generalists, but now subject matter experts have arrived on the scene – and they’re invaluable. John says he encourages people to go full steam ahead with questions and insights when their area of expertise comes up. “When it’s your turn, be great. Don’t worry about taking up ice time.” O’Neill raised the idea of rotating 10-year memberships, because the skills you require on your board are always changing.

4. Disrupt the Board Itself

Having a diversity of views on the board is important, and productive. “I encourage someone who is prepared to throw a contrarian view out there, aggressively,” Wilson said. But within reason – you don’t want to create an adversarial environment, or you won’t get transparency. “There’s a line between disruptive and disrespectful,” he added.

5. Never Stop Learning

“Directors shouldn’t think about the job as just meetings, but an ongoing commitment to stay up to speed,” Cassaday said. Board-wide education should be an integral part of the calendar, with site visits and input from external experts. Wilson added that he always insists on reading all the analyst reports – not just the ones highlighted by management, but the “sell” reports too. What are the dissenting views? What can you learn from them?

6. Look Back, Not Just Ahead

Cassaday ran Corus for 15 years, during which time mass disruption hit the media landscape. He says he regrets spending “virtually no time” reflecting as the company sought a way forward, notably through acquisitions. “We were always looking ahead to the next deal instead of thinking about the deal from three years ago.” Even when change is coming at a rapid past, you need to be learning from the past.

But if we want to maintain this momentum, we have to pay careful attention to some clouds on the horizon: the countries that supply most of Canada’s international students are getting a lot better at postsecondary education.

In the QS World University Rankings 2019, no Canadian schools made it into the top 25 in the world, and only 3 were within the top 100: the University of Toronto (at 28), McGill University (at 33) and the University of British Columbia (at 47). Just missing the cut: the University of Alberta was ranked 109^th, after falling 19 spots from 2018.

Meanwhile, Chinese universities are ascending. Over the last year, 8 of the top 10 Chinese schools rose in the rankings, while 8 of the top 10 Canadians schools fell. There are now twice as many Chinese schools as Canadian in the top 100 — six vs. three. China’s top performer was Tsinghua University in Beijing, which jumped eight spots from the year before. Other universities jumped by as many as 25 spots (Wuhan University and Tongji University) or even by 40 spots (Harbin Institute of Technology).

This rise reflects the payoff from China’s huge national investment in education, and an emphasis on improving standards at the top universities, all with the goal of becoming a global higher education centre.

Canada’s appeal in the current political climate goes beyond our academic reputation. The United States and the United Kingdom dominate the top 10 spots in the rankings, but political changes in both countries make them less appealing for young people from abroad.

There’s an opportunity here to solidify Canada’s place on the international stage, but we need to recognize that global rankings inform international student mobility, and perform at a higher level.

When evaluating the universities, QS looks at four major indicators: academic reputation, reputation among employers, faculty to student ratio, and research citations per faculty member. China outperformed Canada in each category.

Even our top universities are faltering in two of the key areas: faculty to student ratio, and research citations per faculty member. Taking a closer look at McGill, which ranks 33^rd overall, it’s clear how much these areas are dragging down the university’s otherwise impressive showing: it ranks 183^rd in faculty to student ratio, and 175^th in citations per faculty.

Looking at specific subject areas, China and Canada are split on performance: Canada comes out ahead in Arts & Humanities and Life Sciences; but China scores higher in Engineering & Technology, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Management.

It’s critical that we capitalize on our existing strengths, and at the same time secure more resources for the areas where we’re falling behind. If we can top these world rankings, we’ll attract the world’s top talent.

A year ago, RBC released Humans Wanted: How Canadian youth can thrive in the age of disruption, a ground-breaking study on how Canada is shifting from a jobs economy to a skills economy and what we’re doing to prepare for this transformation. Then we hit the road. We travelled from Halifax to Victoria, bringing together 5,000 Canadians to share our findings, and to discuss how the skills gap is changing the way we study, educate and run our businesses. The result is our new report, Bridging the Gap: What Canadians told us about the skills revolution, which brings together the perspectives of educators, employers and youth on the skills revolution. What emerged was less about technology, and more about people. We heard some compelling ideas –big and small – from Canadians about how we can prepare for the future. Among the messages we heard, Canadians feel the country needs more:

• arts and sciences in our schools
• management skills in the digital economy
• digital skills in traditional industries
• skills training for Indigenous youth
• help for small businesses to hire students

Prosperity for all Canadians is directly linked to our ability to prepare young people to succeed in a fast-changing global economy. The themes and ideas that emerged from our cross-country journey offer a promising way forward for Canada as we enter the 2020s. The future of work may be changing, but Canada’s youth have the potential, the ambition and power to impact the world around them.

Every week, almost 5,000 baby boomers are retiring, according to Statistics Canada. It adds up to more than 250,000 retirements this year — akin to the entire population of Saskatoon exiting the workforce, and a jump of 52% from 20 years ago. What was once a baby boom is today a retirement explosion. Over the next seven to eight years, the number of retirements will reach 285,000 annually. This mass exodus is going to transform our workplaces, with widespread implications for companies and public policy — especially when you consider how tight Canada’s labour market already is. With smart new thinking, we can prevent Canada’s retirement crunch from becoming a crisis. For businesses, the loss of the boomer cohort — highly knowledgeable workers with decades of experience — amps up the urgency of the 3Rs: recruiting, retaining and retraining workers. A new report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce found an overwhelming majority of members (75%) consider their ability to recruit and retain talent to be the biggest driver of competitiveness, but 49% said they’re having trouble attracting and retaining staff who have the skills they’re seeking. To close this gap, we’ll have to find new ways to prepare recent graduates for the new economy, equip existing workers with even higher skills and change the way we evaluate job candidates. There’s also a significant opportunity to reimagine our workplaces and retain the intergenerational talent that makes companies thrive. A recent poll found the majority of working baby boomers would opt for semi-retirement if their employers offered it. Workplaces are already appealing to younger employees with flexible hours and work-from-home policies. A similar approach around semi-retirement could keep retain older workers, and the institutional knowledge they provide. Every organization and sector is seeing an increase in retirements, but the trend is hitting some sectors harder than others. It’s highest where the workforce tends to be older, including office management and administration roles, mail delivery and courier services, and principals and administrators at elementary and secondary schools. We know from our RBC research, Humans Wanted, on the future of jobs and skills that some of these positions are at a higher risk of automation than others. Technology is likely to take over some of the duties currently performed by administrative assistants and mail carriers, for example. We’ll have to focus our energy on replacing retirees who work in areas like management and education, which are harder to automate and more likely to face shortages. For Canada as a whole, the challenge is to become more competitive even as we lose these established workers. Immigration is helping to grow our talent pool. We welcomed more than 300,000 new immigrants last year, about 60% of whom are skilled workers. The immigration minister has described this as “the new normal.” Yet it still doesn’t cover the annual retirement rate, so we’re going to have to get more creative. Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz estimates some 500,000 underrepresented Canadians could be drawn into the workforce under the right conditions — including women, youth, Indigenous people and people with disabilities. This is a longer-term goal, but Quebec offers one lesson: the province’s subsidized daycare program has been linked to the steadily growing number of women joining the workforce. This boost in Quebec is happening at the same time that women’s participation in the workforce in Ontario, where daycare is more expensive, has declined slightly. For policy makers, it won’t be easy to earmark public funds for child care as the costs of caring for the aging baby boomer generation mount. But by Poloz’s calculations, the payoff of drawing half a million underrepresented Canadians into the workforce is a potential windfall — increasing output by 1.5% or $30 billion per year.