Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash
“Life is short. A good part of the time that we have in this world is spent at work. And so you want that work to be meaningful,” says Lori Weir, CEO of Four Eyes Financial, based in Saint John, New Brunswick.

“You want to work with other people that are ambitious and are interested in doing something new and different that’s going to make things better.”

Raise your hand if you share the same goals. (Slowly raises hand)

Her point also speaks directly to a growing problem. According to Digital Journal’s recent Canada Innovation Spectrum 2025 report, in partnership with RKI, 58% of Canadian workers considered leaving their jobs in the past year, and 36% connected that decision directly to a lack of innovation. 

The data sends a clear message that employees are not only chasing higher salaries, but looking for workplaces that give them a challenge, reward new ideas, and when change comes knocking, they roll with it and adapt. 

This shift matters because talent is the foundation of Canada’s innovation economy. Companies that fail to create engaging, forward-looking environments risk losing their best people. On the flip side, those that succeed are not simply avoiding turnover. They are building loyalty and optimism that carries through their teams, their industries, and their regions.

Innovation is more than a strategy for growth. It’s now a workforce necessity.

Why innovation decides who stays and who leaves

For decades, employers treated innovation as a strategic or operational concern. Now, it’s become just as critical to how people experience their work. Companies that ignore it risk not only falling behind in the market, but losing the very people they need to compete.

Weir has seen how quickly this dynamic plays out. 

“What I found [in] my career to be more important is meaningful work and work that makes a difference.” she says. “And so in order to have both of those things, you want to be working for a company that’s innovating.”

Weir’s company, Four Eyes Financial, builds compliance technology for investment managers, and she stresses that innovation also shows up in how they run meetings, onboard employees, and improve day-to-day workflows. Small changes are built into the culture rather than left to chance. In turn, employees are provided with processes and tools to support execution.

“We expect it from everyone,” she says.

Our national data reinforces this. In companies defined as “Game Changers,” i.e. the 5% of Canadian organizations seen by their employees as truly innovative, people are significantly more motivated and engaged than in Stagnant firms. They are also three times more likely to be optimistic about their company’s future. Stagnant organizations, by our metrics, are companies following established practices with minimal change. In our research, 23% of the Canadian workforce believe their companies are Stagnant.

You know how in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods says “happy people just don’t shoot their husbands”? Well, dedicated workers at innovative companies just don’t quit their jobs. (Or at least they’re much less likely to.)

Innovative companies can anchor people locally

The stakes extend beyond individual companies, shaping how talent flows across regions.

According to our research, talent mobility is directly tied to innovation. Over half of Canadian workers would consider moving provinces to join a more innovative employer, with Eastern Canada and Alberta workers most open to relocation.

That finding highlights both a risk and an opportunity. Regions that lag in adopting new approaches risk becoming exporters of talent. Alternatively, those that invest in visible, consistent innovation can flip the trend and attract skilled workers. 

In other words, don’t let those East Coasters thinking of moving to that big Ontario city to work for Very Big Company Inc™️ ️slip away.

Weir sees that dynamic in Atlantic Canada. 

“There’s no shortage of talent,” she says. “People often say to us, well, ‘How are you finding… good people to work on this really complex technology platform?’ We have no issue at all finding incredibly talented people to do that who are desperate to… find places to work in their communities, on really complex, interesting, innovative, life-changing types of products.”

She does caution that companies in smaller markets need to be more deliberate. Without structures that make innovation part of the daily routine, even ambitious teams can fall back into firefighting. 

“Creating the…system to be able to make time and make it easy to do those things, I think, is doing that thoughtful building up front. It pays dividends in the end,” she says.

The difference between failure that stalls and failure that strengthens

One of the strongest predictors of talent engagement is how companies handle failure. 

Nationally, employees at Game Changer firms were far more likely to report positive responses when new ideas did not succeed: 52% said lessons were documented and shared, compared to only 25% at stagnant companies.

That openness is not accidental. It requires deliberate systems that frame failure as learning rather than loss. At Four Eyes Financial, retrospectives are built into major projects so lessons can be carried forward. 

“We have little ones throughout the way, but at the end, we document all of the things that were learned so they can be carried forward to the next,” says Weir.

The research shows that employees notice when this mindset is missing. In Stagnant organizations, only 9% said lessons from failures were shared, and fewer than one in five said failure was considered an acceptable part of innovation. That lack of openness does more than stall progress. It drives people out the door. 

She adds that the real value comes when teams own the process and solutions themselves. One example she gives is when her teams consult the vacation calendar ahead of a project, so they’re not faced with future bottlenecks or roadblocks, and so that employees can actually enjoy their vacations.

“I love it, because people don’t feel like they’re being asked to do a thing,” she says. “They’re figuring out themselves: How do we meet the six month timeline and looking forward so it’s not a surprise.”

Ben Franklin was really cooking when he said “by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail,” wasn’t he? 

Optimism is contagious

Beyond retention, innovative workplaces build optimism. Only 22% of Canadian workers are fully optimistic about the economic future, but that rises to 45% among employees at Game Changer firms. 

Optimism is not simply a sentiment. It fuels resilience and makes it easier for teams to invest energy in long-term goals. 

Weir argues that optimism is a necessary ingredient when building companies in smaller markets like Atlantic Canada. 

“I think many of them are entrepreneurial in nature, and I have no doubt that the spin off will be really positive for our economy,” she says. “The more people are ingrained into how to start something from nothing and build it, believe in the future, be positive about the future and not overthink things… you set the stage for another group of young people to create. And more of that is certainly needed in the region.”

The survey suggests that this belief in the future is strategic. Companies that treat innovation as a system rather than an aspiration are “what successful organizations look like,” says Raj Kuchibhatla, RKI founder, in the research report.

Their employees are more motivated. Their managers are more empowered. And their teams are more collaborative.

“The bottom line speaks for itself,” he adds.

A challenge for business leaders: Creating work worth staying for

What makes this research urgent is the scale of the challenge. With more than half the Canadian workforce ready to walk if innovation is absent, the message to leaders is that talent retention is no longer a question of perks or incremental raises. It is about building organizations where new thinking is expected, supported, and acted on.

(Grabs megaphone) Step out of your comfort zone, leaders.

For Canadian business leaders, this means looking at more than product pipelines. It means considering how meetings are run, how employee ideas are logged and acted on, and how teams respond to setbacks. These may sound like management details, but they are becoming competitive differentiators in the fight for talent.

As Weir puts it, the challenge is less about attracting talent than about creating work that is worth staying for. 

“You want to work with other people that are ambitious and are interested in doing something new and different that’s going to make things better,” she says.

Canada’s innovation economy will be shaped as much by these everyday practices as by major investments. The evidence shows that employees are watching closely, and their willingness to stay — or to move — depends on what leaders do next.

Final shots

Talent is not leaving for higher pay alone. It is leaving because innovation is missing.

Failure systems, not just success stories, decide whether employees stay engaged.

Innovation is no longer optional for retention. It is the foundation of Canada’s workforce competitiveness.

Download our Canada’s Innovation Spectrum 2025 report. Benchmarking leadership, culture and innovation in Canadian workplaces.