Canada, one of the most educated populations in the world, is yet again experiencing a skills shortage spanning junior developers to specialized cybersecurity practitioners and senior executives. According to employee surveys, the problem has been compounded by employers not providing adequate training, and externally academia struggles to educate students due to high competition from industry for qualified instructors in a rapidly changing field. A recent report by Deloitte stated that Canada’s demand for cybersecurity skills is now climbing seven per cent a year, with over 5,000 cybersecurity roles to fill between 2018 and 2021. Globally, the workforce gap is expected to stand at 1.8 million by 2022, slowing global technological innovation by as much as $3 trillion (USD) in lost economic value by 2020. Steadily increasing over the decades, the demand for technology workers was not unexpected but somewhere between the 90s and now we dropped the ball in maintaining alignment of education, government, skills and the importance of corporate culture. Some of us may recall the “brain drain” of the 1990s, when scores of Canadian technology, engineering and science employees were drawn to other countries offering high paying professional opportunities. Back then, it was not uncommon for US firms to aggressively recruit Canadian talent with six-figure salaries, stock options, paid education, relocation and accommodations and luxury company cars. On top of that, “flex-time” and relaxed office environments were standard, often outfitted with pinball machines, coffee bars and beer kegs. Canada has already seen a steady increase in the immigration of skilled workers to the US, most of these temporary. To manage the impact, Canada’s technology leaders – Mitel, Alcatel, Nortel, Entrust and others – fostered relationships with universities, acquired resources from less-developed markets and utilized outsourcing as a stop-gap solution. But they also did something else very innovative to retain talent, setting them apart from other sectors. The technology sector turned inward and developed cutting-edge, people-centric recruitment and reward/recognition programs and invested heavily in employees, building their brand as an employer. Far beyond expensive Aeron chairs, “pop-can” hoteling pods with a LAN drop, whiteboard and reclining “sleep” space. In the 90s, Nortel was one corporation that led the way in creating dynamic workspaces in its many expansions, retrofits, and renovations. Enlisting designers, like HOK Architects out of Houston, they developed functional, human-inspired spaces that enabled teaming, high productivity and work-life balance for highly valued employees. In fact, nearly everything about Nortel’s culture reflected the importance of people from their onboarding processes to concierge-style employee services, both dedicated to getting and keeping top talent “up and running” by reducing bureaucracy. Nortel relied on excellence and best practices that were devised by other global leaders in productivity and instituted employee and service quality programs like Six Sigma, TQM, Baldridge and Meyers-Briggs – employees were engaged, consulted and compensated. For me, Nortel was not only a very cool place to work but the foundation of my career; as a professional, I was effectively raised there. Joining Nortel in 1994, with little education but a lot of promise, I started at $64,000 a year. Sometimes I wore flip-flops and concert t-shirts to work, sometimes I wore suits. When I wasn’t in my open-office space in Lab 3, I was at the Nortel gym or with collaborating colleagues on a couch in Lab 5; the team environment extending well beyond Nortel’s walls. There was no micro-managing, no time clock and I was expected to manage my time, workload and, more importantly, to be creative and to keep learning. Through a well thought out balance of salary, learning and development, recognition and dynamic culture, employees were a crucial part of Nortel’s success – and...