Innovation talk is cheap when credibility is on the line\” />

Photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash
Tate Hackert wasn’t in Wisconsin on business. He was visiting Green Bay on a personal trip when curiosity got the better of him. 

At a Burger King counter, he asked a cashier if she had ever used ZayZoon, the platform and app his company built to give workers early access to their paycheques.

She did, and she told him it made a real difference. For Hackert, it was a reminder of how something that started as an experiment a decade ago in Alberta had become part of daily life for employees across North America.

Not everyone has that option. The worker across the street might still be stuck in the traditional two-week pay cycle, showing how innovation doesn’t reach all employees. That split captures the larger problem facing Canadian workplaces. For some employees, innovation is a benefit they can actually use. For most, it’s a promise that never leaves the slide deck. 

Digital Journal’s recent Canada Innovation Spectrum 2025 report, in partnership with RKI, surveyed more than 1,000 working Canadians across industries and provinces and found that more than half of Canadian workers say their company is “trying to be innovative.” But only 5% believe their workplace is actually embedding it into culture and systems (with that 5% designation being dubbed “Game Changers”).

Hackert, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Calgary-based ZayZoon, knows that difference matters. The company was built on challenging the centuries-old pay cycle by giving employees more control over their financial lives and helping them cover costs between pay periods, avoiding overdraft fees and predatory payday loans.

“Earned wage access when we started 10 years ago wasn’t actually a thing,” he says. “We innovated by way of creating an entirely new industry.”

Hackert points to the launch of earned wage access as evidence of what innovation looks like in practice. The research shows that same pattern at scale. 

Game Changer companies may be rare, but they are the ones consistently turning new ideas into embedded practices. Employees in those organizations report higher motivation, greater trust in leadership, and more optimism about the future.

Most other companies fall short. The research classifies these as Stagnant workplaces, which are the 31% of organizations with leaders who often make bold declarations or long-winded LinkedIn posts without taking action. Employees notice the gap, and the result is lower engagement, weaker trust, and fading confidence in the future.

So why does this say-do gap persist, and what can leaders learn from the few companies proving it’s possible to close it?

Let’s unpack it.

When innovation drops down the list, credibility drops with it

Our research found that Canadian businesses consistently rank innovation behind other operational concerns. 

It didn’t even crack the top five. 

At the top of the list is economic uncertainty, followed by talent acquisition and retention, business growth, maintaining a competitive edge, and workforce adaptability. Innovation came in sixth.

In other words, leaders talk a big game about being innovative but when the to-do list fills up, it’s the first thing to slide off the desk.

Hackert admits those trade-offs are real. 

“Every dollar counts,” he says. “We had to make a direct call to invest in a new product set, knowing it meant pulling resources away from improving parts of our core app in the short term.”

That choice captures the tension many leaders face. You either stick with what’s safe, or place a calculated bet on what comes next. ZayZoon chose the latter, and Hackert says it paid off in uptake from employers pushing to improve workforce engagement.

The research suggests most Canadian firms make the opposite choice. With 31% of employees saying their company talks about innovation but never follows through, an erosion of trust grows and makes it harder to keep talent. 

In fact, 36% of Canadians have considered leaving a job specifically because of weak innovation, citing ignored ideas, resistance to change, and siloed teams.

“Leadership buy-in is critical. It’s absolutely critical,” Raj Kuchibhatla, founder of RKI, said in the report. “If you don’t have a leader that understands the importance of innovation, it’s like pushing a rock uphill.”

What culture says about credibility

“Innovation” is a tough word to nail down. It has so many definitions (208 at last count, according to a 2021 study) that it’s basically the corporate version of “what’s the meaning of life?”

And that might be a part of why most Canadian workers are sniffing out the gap between “trying” and actually doing.

Hackert sees innovation as a set of habits instead of a single breakthrough. Curiosity, direct contact with customers, and a willingness to test ideas that may not work.

“We’re continually visiting our clients,” he says. “We’re not just doing check-the-box interviews. We’re on the ground, in restaurants, in stores, asking people what works and what doesn’t.”

That approach connects back to Hackert’s pit stop in Wisconsin. Real insight comes from standing where employees stand, not just reading the spreadsheet version over a boardroom table.ZayZoon co-founder Tate Hackert (left) speaks with a Burger King employee in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who uses the company’s app. – Photo courtesy of Tate Hackert

That behaviour matches what the research calls the “middle-manager multiplier effect.” In Game Changer companies, innovation doesn’t rest solely with executives. Managers and teams are empowered to experiment, learn, and share outcomes. That’s why 93% of Game Changer employees report positive responses to failed ideas, compared to only 72% in Stagnant companies.

“You need to create a culture where failing is okay, where surfacing ideas of any type is encouraged,” says Hackert. “A lot of those ideas are going to fail, and you need a culture where failure is completely fine and learnings are taken from it.”

That openness is reinforced at ZayZoon through regular company-wide scrums. Three times a week, all 200 employees join the same call to hear updates from different departments.

“That allows us to provide context on the business from different departments,” says Hackert. “And what that does is it allows for more curiosity, questions, and ideas to be thrown out.”

For employees, practices like this make innovation tangible. They see how ideas connect across teams, and they experience first-hand that leadership is willing to share context and listen in return.

Basically, talk is cheap. 

Behaviour builds credibility. When leaders reward ideas, document lessons from failure, and act on feedback, trust grows. And so does retention.

Innovation credibility beyond the company

That link between behaviour and retention matters at every level. It shapes how employees see their leaders, and it also shapes how regions build a reputation for innovation.

Innovation hubs can build infrastructure, launch programs, and market themselves as places for growth, but the real test comes down to whether the companies inside those ecosystems deliver practices employees can trust.

Calgary has invested heavily in its innovation ecosystem, with organizations such as Platform Calgary creating visible infrastructure for change. But building an ecosystem is only part of the equation. 

The real measure of credibility comes from what individual companies deliver. ZayZoon’s growth is one example. The company started locally, scaled in the U.S., and returned with stronger traction, backed early by Calgary investors and community support.

For Hackert, the bigger hurdle is cultural.

“Canadians have tall poppy syndrome,” he says. “When someone’s succeeding, they want to cut them down. We need more of a mindset of abundance, that there’s more than enough capital and customers to go around. We need more big thinkers, and more people building.”

Retention is tied less to geography and more to credibility. Employees stay when innovation is real inside the workplace, not just part of the brand.

That shift in mindset matters because workers are mobile. Digital Journal’s research found 57% of Canadians would consider relocating to another province to work for a more innovative employer. That number climbs even higher in Alberta and Eastern Canada. 

Lessons for leaders

For leaders staring cross-eyed and bewildered at this credibility gap, the lesson is that employees no longer trust slogans. They trust action. 

Game Changer companies show higher motivation, optimism, and resilience because innovation is embedded in daily behaviour and not memos from the top.

Hackert frames innovation as solving real problems better than anyone else. 

“Innovation only matters if it’s solving a problem your customer base is experiencing,” he says. “I want to be able to solve their problem ten times better than another solution available to them. To me, that is extremely innovative.”

For decision-makers, the path forward is practical. 

Make space for experiments, even the ones that flop. Nothing says “we value innovation” like applauding the prototype that burst into flames (figuratively, I hope). 

Stay curious about customer pain points. Ask questions, listen, then actually fix the thing instead of adding another dashboard nobody asked for. And back up your innovation narrative with action, even if that means skipping short-term wins for long-term bets. Employees know when you’re bluffing. (Sorry, but they can see your poker face.)

The credibility gap is one of Canada’s biggest innovation challenges. Closing it requires more than talk, or arguing about which of the 208 definitions of “innovation” is the right one. It requires the kind of consistent delivery that turns small signals into long-term trust.

Maybe it just comes down to doing what you promised. 

Final shots

Canada isn’t lacking in ideas. The innovation gap is about credibility. Employees reward action with trust.

Innovation hubs gain that credibility when the companies inside them turn branding into embedded habits employees can see.

Leaders need to reframe innovation as solving problems ten times better, not chasing shiny tools.

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