How Bedcolab Achieved Growth Despite a Labor Shortage by Increasing Productivity and Improving Mobilization

In 2015, manufacturing company Bedcolab found itself with its back against the wall. A year after a 50% cut to its workforce, due to a sharp drop in sales, strong growth resumed and the company’s manufacturing operationswere struggling to keep up with the pace of growth. Whereas most other companies in the same situation would have looked to recruit more staff in order to support production, Bedcolab’s management asked themselves if their existing teams could absorb this additional workload. This question is even more relevant today, in the context of labor shortages and a mismatch between available talent and the needs of the labor market.

Indeed, it’s rare to find a company that, instead of increasing its capacity immediately, starts out by examining whether their initial assets are being used to their full potential, whether best business practices are consistently implemented, whether identifying opportunities for improvement is a day-to-day priority or if the flow of information is efficient.

These issues fall under the responsibility of first-line managers, but how many of these managers have actually undergone management training? How have they been supported and developed during their transition from technical experts to team leaders, now held accountable for team performance? Even with decades of experience, first-line managers often measure their own performance by their ability to resolve crises on a daily basis. Rather than being team coaches or leaders, they remain technical experts, despite their supervisory This has major repercussions for many companies: recurring problems, confusion regarding performance accountability, “blame culture” within the organization, investments failing to deliver the expected results, etc.

Bedcolab’s strategy and visionary approach in resolving its production issues has been to invest first in its human capital and then in its infrastructure. The company therefore chose to strengthen its management capabilities at the point of delivery before embarking upon a recruitment drive or before purchasing new machinery. The goal: to increase productivity and motivation. The results were conclusive. Five years after cutting its workforce by 50%, sales have risen by 135% and the company operates with 40 fewer employees than would have been necessary to deliver the same sales revenue 5 years ago. By investing in management at the point of delivery, Bedcolab has succeeded in increasing productivity by 40%, has raised its production capacity by 30% without any injection of capital, and has also reduced staff absenteeism by 40%.

Bedcolab’s management called upon Proaction International to obtain the fighting force necessary to accelerate the implementation of the management team’s vision: “I knew where I wanted to go, but the need to act was urgent and the Proaction International team had the expertise, the experience both in Québec and internationally, and the references in the manufacturing sector.” Three main change areas were prioritized: