Welcome to our first Human Resources Issues in Supply Chain Roundtable

By: Lou Smyrlis, Editorial Director

Of all the challenges the supply chain profession faces, we believe attracting and retaining the best talent in the years to come will prove one of the most important. It is critical that we begin a dialogue now with the professionals in the job to better understand what they like, dislike and would change about their jobs. This knowledge will be critical in both retaining the current talent the supply chain profession is blessed with and in fine tuning the job to attract the best new talent for the future.

For the past 10 years Canadian Transportation & Logistics has been conducting annual surveys to paint an accurate picture of today’s supply chain professionals – how old they are, how many years they’ve been on the job and how many employers they’ve worked for, their educational background and ongoing training inclinations, their responsibilities and the size of the teams they manage, the hours they work and the money they make, etc. Much of this information was included with our January and February issues.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our survey, we also partnered with The Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council to create our first HR Issues in Supply Chain Roundtable. Eight supply chain professionals from across Canada were brought together to discuss their careers and opinions of the sector. Participants were selected to be representative of the diversity in the supply chain sector; they ranged in age, in geographical location, in educational background, and in their areas of knowledge and experience. Industry, academia and government were represented. Newcomers to Canada were also included.

Over the course of almost two hours we touched on a number of issues I think you will find of interest in your own job: attraction to the sector, retention of employees, leadership, education, the value of designations, the impact of technology, and personal motivation. Over the next few pages you will find excerpts from that conversation and I would also direct you to www.ctl.ca where many more excerpts from the lively conversation will be broadcast on a regular basis over the next few months as part of our Web TV show, Transportation Matters.

I would like to thank the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council whose support and guidance were crucial to the success of this roundtable. I would also like to thank our 8 participants who took time from their very busy jobs to share their insights. I hope you find our roundtable, both the conversation shown here in print and the rest available in video format online, to be informative and thought provoking. As always, I look forward to your feedback.