In the face of increased pressure on profit margins, intensified competition, and stagnation (or erosion) of results, it may be greatly tempting to seek rapid and visible gains: cross-cutting savings plans, hiring freezes, accelerated deployment of digital tools… However, such measures often end up generating a form of disappointment, as they aim only to optimize the execution of activities and operations without questioning the fundamental structure of work.
This reflection takes on particular acuity in the Canadian context. Labour productivity remains significantly lower in Canada compared to several comparable economies. Canada’s hourly labour productivity level is 30% lower than that of the United States, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This means that much more working hours are needed to produce an equivalent value.
The province of Quebec also lags behind by about 30%, but this time compared to the average of developed economies, according to the “Blue Book of Productivity” published in March 2025 by the Quebec Chamber of Commerce Federation. Such discrepancies are significant; they directly influence the standard of living, the investment capacity of companies, and long-term competitiveness.
One of the main sources of productivity remains largely underutilized because it is less visible, less tangible. This is the operational model, especially the processes that materialize it. This redesign may seem complex and demanding, but it allows for a deep-rooted change and avoids easy solutions without added value, or contradictory functions or behaviors compared to the company’s ambitions.
Avoiding False Debates
Talking about productivity without first clarifying what is meant by “performance” quickly leads to misunderstandings. Performance is not simply about increasing volumes or reducing unit costs; it is based on the balance of three inseparable dimensions.
The first is value, which is the organization’s ability to respond to a real expectation (from a customer, user, or partner) in a relevant and differentiating manner. Producing more, for example, only makes sense if this increased production corresponds to recognized value.
The second is efficiency in creating this value. It refers to how human, financial, and technological resources are mobilized to produce a useful result.
The third is sustainability, meaning the ability to maintain this performance over time without exhausting teams, increasing organizational or technological debt, and without degrading social or environmental impacts.
An organization that truly proves to be performing is necessarily productive. On the other hand, a strictly productive organization – producing more, faster – is not always globally productive. It is possible to increase the pace while degrading quality, customer experience, team engagement, or system resilience.
As defined, productivity is not simply about executing activities more quickly but also about creating more value per unit of time invested. It involves a systematic reduction of anything that does not add value: waiting times, reworkings, redundant checks, fragmented decisions, conflicting priorities, resource waste, etc.
Where Productivity is Lost
The productivity deficit can manifest at all levels of the operational model.
A strategically unclear or poorly translated vision leads to energy mobilization on secondary or even conflicting priorities. In other words, a lot of work is done, but not necessarily on what creates the most value.
A functional but compartmentalized organization generates silos, multiple transfers, and areas of non-responsibility. Work progresses in fits and starts, depending on validations and arbitrations, rather than as a continuous flow.
Key competencies may be poorly positioned: experts find themselves overloaded, constantly solicited to compensate for structural weaknesses, while other skills remain underutilized.
Governance focused on activity rather than outcomes, combined with leadership not in line with the required posture, promotes monitoring of volumes, charges, or compliance, at the expense of creating real value.
All these elements crystallize in the processes. They act as a mirror of the organization’s actual functioning, well beyond the organizational chart or rhetoric.
Processes as Strategic Revealers
Processes are often approached from a technical perspective: sequences of activities, tools, forms, deadlines. However, this reading proves to be limiting. In reality, a process reveals how the organization thinks and arbitrates: who decides, on what criteria, at what time, and with what responsibility.
It is not just a simple chain of actions; it is a mechanism for creating value, transforming a strategic intent into a concrete result. Revising a process, therefore, is not only about speeding up execution but also about questioning its foundations:
- To whom is it truly addressed?
- What promise does it serve?
- Where is the value really created?
- Where is it diluted? In frictions, expectations, reworkings?
- Who bears the responsibility for the final result, not each isolated step?
Such a redesign almost always involves a shift in the center of gravity: less control, more empowerment; fewer task-oriented logic, more flow logic; fewer purely technological solutions, more clarity on work organization.
This is precisely why many automation or digital transformation initiatives fail to produce lasting gains. They tackle poorly designed processes, sometimes reinforcing complexity and tool dependence without addressing root causes. Therefore, optimal use of artificial intelligence, for example, complements an evolution and optimization of orderly and logical processes.
The Need for a Systemic Approach
Facing a productivity problem, the organization is naturally drawn to the most visible symptom: a bottleneck, an overwhelmed team, or an obsolete tool, for example. However, these manifestations are rarely isolated. They often express a deeper and systemic misalignment.
Improving productivity sustainably, therefore, requires moving beyond treating symptoms to adopting a comprehensive approach that considers the operational model as a coherent whole. This can be analyzed through six closely interconnected axes, whose effects reinforce each other.
- The value chain and processes help determine where value is truly created and where it is diluted: in waiting times, reworkings, late arbitrations, or fragmented decisions.
- The organizational structure then defines who decides, at what level, and with what degree of autonomy. Multiplying validation levels slows down the flow, extends deadlines, and dilutes responsibility for the final result.
- Governance and leadership condition the organization’s ability to decide, support teams in tension zones, and make clear judgments between competing priorities. Without explicit decisions, complexity sets in.
- It is essential for leadership to induce the right behaviors and embody the required changes. Leaders must be exemplary and support productivity concerns in their actions.
- Data and indicators shape behavior: what is measured becomes what is optimized. Therefore, misaligned indicators fragment collective effort and direct energy towards partial, sometimes conflicting objectives.
- Talents and skills directly influence the fluidity of flows. Where there is a high process or competence debt, the system slows down and excessively depends on a few key expertises.
- Finally, technology should support the value flow, not constrain it. Automation only makes sense if it truly eliminates low-value work, instead of solidifying or accelerating suboptimal processes.
Continuous Improvement as a Productivity Lever
The methods are well-known and proven: the Lean model, value chain mapping, or DMAIC (for “Define, Measure, Analyze, Innovate, Implement, Control”) can help structure analysis and avoid intuitive or symptomatic decisions. However, the method itself does not create any performance. Without real ownership by managers and teams, it remains a formal framework disconnected from everyday operations.
It is important to note that continuous improvement is not a one-time exercise or a project for specialists. It is built over time, through simple but demanding routines: reviews focused on results rather than activity; short experiments with explicit success criteria; clear visualization of flows; and, most importantly, decisive actions on what to stop as much as what to pursue.
This discipline, more than the sophistication of tools, transforms DMAIC and continuous improvement processes into real operational advantages. When integrated into daily management, these practices become managerial reflexes in service of value creation.
A Change in Posture Above All
Seeking productivity without reviewing the operational model creates an illusion of performance. This could be the case of an organization that is active but transforms little in its actual ability to create value. While tactical levers certainly create movement, they rarely lead to lasting impact.
Improving productivity requires a shift from a control logic of activity to a responsibility logic for results. This then involves questioning the processes, decision rules, and implicit priorities that structure work. The observed resistances are not cultural; they are rational. It is not possible to ask teams to do better in a system that does not evolve.
Ultimately, the challenge is not productivity; it is managerial courage. The courage to revisit what truly structures work, to simplify where complexity has set in, and to make clear choices about what creates value or not. The organizations that progress will not be those that do more, but those that decide better.
Note:
1 – Quebec Chamber of Commerce Federation, “Blue Book of Productivity: 40 recommendations for quick action on multiple fronts,” report published in March 2025.
