Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 27 because now we're going through some- thing real together. And even in the face of… temporary salary reductions, which usually do not lead to a bunch of happy people, it was another thing that we were going through together and I found no ill effects from that." The power of empathy has also become really clear at all levels of lead- ership at BMO, says Evans. "It connects back to that sense of purpose around business and life where we're getting way better at listening." That meant frequent short surveys with employees and customers to see how they were feeling and to stay connected, she says. "[BMO began] really caring about the well-being, protecting the well-being, of the people that worked in our company and really wanting to tap into what was working and what wasn't working." Back in 2019, BMO took an-in depth look at its purpose and how it works with its clientele, which helped it to be more prepared for an event such as the pandemic, says Evans. "We worked with our customers, with our communities, with our employees and we landed on describing our purpose, [so] we exist as being the bold, the good in business and in life... and that meant sustainable finance. It meant creating a more inclusive society, it meant creating a thriving economy," she says. Focus on culture, mental health At Wave HQ , all the staff had worked remotely previously, so the shift due to COVID-19 was fairly straightforward, according to Gobrin. Ultimately, the big transition for the financial services company was more of a cultural one. For example, in-person events such as monthly town halls or recognition disappeared overnight. "Our ability to figure out ways to give people the time, the attention, the connection without having that was actually quite difficult," says Gobrin. "What was and remains tough is the amount of mental weight and emotional things that people are experiencing and how much that's actually changed and influenced the way that we work, the way that we communicate, the way that we think." The world is upside down politically and economically and the lives of our families have changed, and our work environments and our social interactions have changed, says Gobrin, which makes day-to-day experiences "one-thousand times more difficult." "We've had everything from people being diagnosed with various serious illnesses and miscarriages and losing some family members close to them to exciting things that have just been hard to deal with ― how to have a baby in the middle of a global pandemic, [how] to sell or move your house. Those are typically celebrations and things that are exciting and just extraordinarily difficult, so the line between coming to work and getting your job done and what's happening in your personal life is very blurry." One big lesson? Different groups of people need different things, and, ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: our trading floor was operating from people's homes. We had to make sure our call centre was operating from our homes. Technology that we didn't know we could secure in a disperse, remote way, we got out there really, really fast and we didn't have any breeches." In moving one of Canada's largest banks to a remote scenario, BMO learned some important lessons, says Evans. "We're a 200-year-old company and we have over 45,000 employees spread across Asia, Europe [and] North America, [but] we learned that we can change on a dime and we didn't know that we could. So, that was pretty incredible," she says, adding that things that normally would have taken BMO years to do were done within hours. Communication key in 'craziness' The best thing about the craziness of the last few months was how agile Avante became, says Goodman, as the company focused on its business and key stakeholders. "The main thing was to bring people together, treat it as a dialogue, not a top-down communication, because we haven't been through this before either and we need [their] ideas and to be flex- ible together," he says. "I found a lot of teams bonded in a way that I understand soldiers would bond in trench warfare in World War II "We're a 200-year-old company and we have over 45,000 employees spread across Asia, Europe and North America, [but] we learned that we can change on a dime." Jane Evans, BMO "I am incredibly proud of how we rallied around our customers and around our employees." "Sometimes, you have to have a very narrow focus to give people what they actually need." "The main thing was to bring people together, treat it as a dialogue, not a top-down communication." "The 'how' of digitization needs to include the people lens as much as the technology lens." JANE EVANS head of people, process and change, BMO ASHIRA GOBRIN chief people officer, Wave HQ SCOTT GOODMAN chief people and legal officer, Avante Logixx DORON MELNICK partner and national lead for people and change, KPMG in Canada

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