Canadian HR Strategy

04/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY EDITOR'S NOTE Todd Humber THE ONE QUALITY A LEADER MUST HAVE W hat is the single most important qual- ity in a leader? Stop and think about that for a moment — because it's a cru- cial question. It's one I've asked of countless lead- ers over the years. Most of the time, I get the same answer — empathy. The consistency of the answer used to surprise me; it doesn't any- more. I've been around long enough to see talented leaders flounder and fail — and the one thing they all had in common was a serious lack of empathy. Sarah Dobson, Canadian HR Reporter's editor/ supervisor, takes a look at the topic on page 16 of this issue. While far from a cure-all, an empathetic leader can cover for a lot of shortcomings. Every- one knows that people don't leave companies, they leave managers. And there's no doubt people leave empathetic managers less often. But never confuse it with weakness. Empathy is not sympathy. It's not about lowering expectations. It's about perspective — about being able to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. At its root, it's about being human. Abrasive, bombastic leaders may get the job done in the short term. Dropping F bombs and berations all over the job site may snap people to attention, but it's not going to build morale in the long run and it certainly won't create the elusive and all-important engage- ment your company needs. THE BAD NEWS ABOUT GOOD NEWS I love the roundtables we get to do for this magazine (see page 6). This time, in partnership with Sun Life Financial, we dug into the issue of rising drug costs and what compa- nies can do about it. It was a fascinating conversa- tion — on the one hand, some of the drugs being created are nothing short of a miracle. And we're getting better and better at creating different drugs that work for different individuals. The downside to these new cures and treatments are the soaring costs. Diseases that used to be death sentences are now chronic diseases. But the price tag can run tens of thousands — or even hundreds of thousands — of dollars. With employers footing the bill, a frank discussion needs to be had about how to cover staff while not bankrupting the bottom line. One inter- esting takeaway is the need for employees to co- pay on drugs — you may think you're doing staff a favour by covering 100 per cent of the costs. But a co-payment can accomplish two things — first, it ensures the worker actually needs the drug. Second, it raises appreciation of the value of the benefit cov- erage because they're more likely to pay attention to the actual cost. You can also watch a series of videos from this groundbreaking discussion. Go to www. hrreporter.com/videos to see these and many others. AND MORE Uber and AirBnB have shaken up the taxi and hotel industries, but they're just the tip of the iceberg for the contingent workforce. We talked with three CEOs (see page 12) about how this trend of contingent workers might revolutionize the way business is done in all industries. Plus, we take a look at the notion of hiring disadvantaged workers (see page 24). The headline is "Lending a hand" — which you may read as somehow doing a favour for the worker. That couldn't be farther than the truth. These workers have far more to offer you as an orga- nization than what you offer them. We hope you enjoy the articles in this publication. They're designed to help educate you about criti- cal HR issues. Human resources is the most critical department in your organization — it's the toughest to get right and the one with the most consequences if you get it wrong. @hrreporter Join the Canadian HR Reporter group

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