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"IBM is said to love buying Canadian companies like Cognos because of their tremendous employee stickiness. Next time one of my American clients ridicules Canad
by dean 19y ago
"IBM is said to love buying Canadian companies like Cognos because of their tremendous employee stickiness. Next time one of my American clients ridicules Canada's pro-employee ways, I'll remind them of this."
I didn't know Canada had "pro-employee ways" (whatever that is), let alone that they were being ridiculed for it by Americans. Last time I checked, Canadian companies were just as interested in down-sizing as American companies are. The "employee stickiness" IBM is talking about probably has more to do with the mindset of employees in Canada rather than anything employers or the government might be doing. Maybe Canadians are more reluctant to move cities for a different job than Americans are, but the people I know in IT in Canada, at least, have no qualms about leaving their jobs if they can find something better. Even people at Cognos.
- amichail 19y ago"employee stickiness" is a bad sign for employees. It means that finding and keeping a rewarding job is hard.
- electric 19y agoOr that an employee has "stuck" around for long enough to be unemployable elsewhere.
- hello_moto 19y agoNot quite a bad sign. Maybe they're just happy at the place they're working and the employees are loyal people.
- amichail 19y agoWhy would you want to be a loyal employee?
- hello_moto 19y agoThe employer treated me alright, good benefits, nice working environments. I value trust and connection.
- chaostheory 19y agoThere are very few companies like that - the names i can come up with are less than the number of fingers that i have...
- electric 19y ago"Maybe Canadians are more reluctant to move cities for a different job than Americans are" Canadians love living in Canada and in general move to the US very reluctantly. As a result Canadians have fewer career options relative to their US counterparts. This results in low turnover. You're right, it has nothing to do with a company's "pro-employee" which I assume means "employee-friendly" ways.
- neilk 19y agoI don't think it's true that Canadians move to the States "very reluctantly". For most of my lifetime, it's been a given that the top Canadian talent in any field would eventually move to the States, or spend significant time there. I would bet that most Canadians, even those working in the USA, feel that the USA is a bit messed up on some issues and has an arguably lower quality of life. But it's got an economy that's an order of magnitude bigger and opportunities to match.
- electric 19y ago"For most of my lifetime, it's been a given that the top Canadian talent in any field would eventually move to the States, or spend significant time there." I think that is true in some fields, like the performing arts and untrue in others like engineering esp. telecommunications where top talent is homegrown thanks to the likes of Nortel and now RIM. These people do not want to move and there is a critical mass that hasn't gone away even after the bubble burst.