Canadian HR Reporter

Strategic capability Network'S paNel of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada's business community. eir commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies. Canadian HR RepoRteR March 23, 2015 executIve serIes 9 www.scnetwork.ca $745 regular $945 ... save $200 offer valid until Oct 15, 2014 The Professional Recruiter Full Accreditation Program on Multimedia CD-ROM This program covers a set of key recruitment and selection skills. The goal is to help you reduce recruitment costs, lower the risk of bad hiring decisions and avoid needless litigation. Successful completion of all 3 Modules makes you eligible for membership in the Association of Professional Recruiters of Canada, APRC, with the RPR (Registered Professional Recruiter) designation. Details at www.workplace.ca/hr-reporter.html Institute of Professional Management 2210-1081 Ambleside Drive, Ottawa, ON, K2B 8C8 Tel: (613) 721-5957 Toll Free: 1-888-441-0000 ipm $745 regular $945 ... save $200 offer valid until Oct 15, 2014 The Professional Recruiter Full Accreditation Program on Multimedia CD-ROM This program covers a set of key recruitment and selection skills. The goal is to help you reduce recruitment costs, lower the risk of bad hiring decisions and avoid needless litigation. Successful completion of all 3 Modules makes you eligible for membership in the Association of Professional Recruiters of Canada, APRC, with the RPR (Registered Professional Recruiter) designation. Details at www.workplace.ca/hr-reporter.html Details at : www.workplace.ca/hr-reporter.html valid until April 30, 2015 $745 regular $945 ... save $200 offer valid until Oct 15, 2014 The Professional Recruiter Full Accreditation Program on Multimedia CD-ROM This program covers a set of key recruitment and selection skills. The goal is to help you reduce recruitment costs, lower the risk of bad hiring decisions and avoid needless litigation. Successful completion of all 3 Modules makes you eligible for membership in the Association of Professional Recruiters of Canada, APRC, with the RPR (Registered Professional Recruiter) designation. Details at www.workplace.ca/hr-reporter.html $745 regular $945 ... save $200 offer valid until Oct 15, 2014 The Professional Recruiter Full Accreditation Program on Multimedia CD-ROM This program covers a set of key recruitment and selection skills. The goal is to help you reduce recruitment costs, lower the risk of bad hiring decisions and avoid needless litigation. Successful completion of all 3 Modules makes you eligible for membership in the Association of Professional Recruiters of Canada, APRC, with the RPR (Registered Professional Recruiter) designation. Details at www.workplace.ca/hr-reporter.html Bridging the gender gap at last — the status quo at the most senior level of publicly traded corporations is being officially stirred up. effective december 2014, the ontario di- versity policy strongly encourages companies to promote more wom- en to the boardroom and executive officer roles. companies can either disclose or explain. In other words, they must publicly disclose a diver- sity policy that includes goals and provide a public assessment annu- ally of their progress, or explain why there are no specific goals to bridge the gender gap. In a year's time, I wonder how many more Canadian business leaders will walk the talk and recognize the value of a diverse workforce at every level of their organization. How many more companies will demonstrate that a diverse workforce is a strategic differentiator? ere are many research re- ports validating that a diverse workforce improves a corpora- tion's ability to attract, retain and champion quality candidates with extensive expertise, skills, knowl- edge and background. How much longer will corpo- rate Canada discount studies like the ones published from Catalyst Canada, Credit Suisse and McK- insey & Company that clearly substantiate gender diversity in corporate leadership improves both financial and non-financial results? Needless to say, it was no sur- prise that the Ontario Securities Commission's research in 2014 confirmed that although women make up for almost one-half of our total workforce, only about 16 per cent of them are board members of Canada's FP500 companies. Clearly, there is more to this gender gap than we realize. What are the systemic barriers within company policies and procedures that work against women being appointed to executive roles? Are there still business leaders who resolutely fail to appreciate the strategic benefit in choosing to leverage women's innovative ca- pabilities and positive relational abilities? Canada's international ranking of gender diversity on corporate boards slid from sixth position to 11th over the past four years. Women make up only 11 per cent of directors on the S&P/TSX Composite Index, according to a Toronto-Dominion Bank report. Even more surprising is that nearly three-quarters of those companies have either no women on their board, or only one. e traditional belief that an ef- fective leader needs to be mascu- line, forceful, confrontational or controlling is truly being super- seded. ere are plenty of highly talented women taking owner- ship of their aspirations, who know exactly what they want and where they want to focus their contributions. e question is — are they be- ing heard? Aside from being our own champions, perhaps with the support of this legislation we can be far more vocal in defending diverse leadership as a strategic relational influence. If business leaders are genu- inely interested in building a com- petitive advantage and improving Canada's economic future it's go- ing to take both genders to em- brace this opportunity and start tapping into the total pool of ca- pable talented people. Trish Maguire is a commentator for SCNetwork on leadership in action and founding principal of Synergyx Solutions in Nobleton, Ont., focused on high-potential leadership develop- ment coaching. She has held senior leadership roles in HR and OD in education, manufacturing and entre- preneurial firms. She can be reached at synergyx@sympatico.ca. Trish maguire Leadership in action Karen gorsline Strategic Capability Are we still talking about this? as a young woman in the 1970s, if someone had said the corporate board glass ceiling would still not be broken in the next cen- tury, I would have laughed — yet here we are. why is the door still so often closed? Women are not interested in these roles: Really? e women on this panel are living proof this is simply not true. We live in a world where women run countries, go into combat and hold the most senior executive positions. Of course, not all women are inter- ested in being on a board, but not all men are either. When Beverly Behan reached out to her network to see who might be interested in a director role, she had no diffi- culty finding senior women. ere is a scarcity of qualified candidates: e women who in- dicated interest to Behan held very senior roles and had proven track records. Do corporations and re- cruiters really try to reach outside their networks to find candidates other than the familiar list? Are women aware of opportunities? Boards are being challenged to put more effort and creativity into making themselves more repre- sentative by considering women. The status quo should be maintained: Even a casual review of boards in Canada will show it is a pretty small club. Board mem- bers know each other from other business dealings, social inter- actions and sitting together on other boards. Although tough business questions may be raised and the company's executive may be held accountable, conformity and status quo remain the operat- ing model. We live in a very differ- ent world, far more diverse than 40 years ago, and effective boards must have exposure to diverse ex- perience and thinking by consid- ering more women. Karen Gorsline is SCNetwork's lead commentator on strategic capability and leads HR Initiatives, a consulting practice focused on facilitation and tailored HR initiatives. Toronto-based, she has taught HR planning, held se- nior roles in strategy and policy, man- aged a large decentralized HR function and directed a small business. She can be reached at gorslin@pathcom.com. Barbara Kofman organizational effectiveness Strategic opportunities If the key aim of a board is to steward an organization on behalf of its stakeholders, then it's common sense to reflect the makeup of this community. e creativity, oversight and purpose-driven approach described by margie parikh, chair of mountain equip- ment co-op's diverse, "elected" board, is a great example of this. taking the best practices of Hr, such as a skills gap analysis in sync with the co-op's strategic plan, this board ensures its composition is right and all members are there to add value. e result? productive decision-making and record profits. In Canada, it was not until the 80s and the appearance of em- ployment equity programs that there was a big push for compa- nies to open things up for women in leadership roles and beyond. While slow progress was made in breaking through the systematic barriers that existed at that time, the idea of hiring women into key leadership roles gradually became a more common occurrence. But the hurdles that barred woman from being appointed to boards continued to be over- looked for decades. Consequently, ingrained practices such as relying on the small group of members in the old boys club remained unchecked — until now. ere is plenty of evidence that suggests this omission proved to be costly. One wonders what the fate of Nor- tel and other doomed Canadian companies might have been had they broadened their boards' gene dIversIty > pg. 10

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