Canadian HR Reporter

As president and CEO of Meridian Credit Union Ltd., Bill Maurin expects his human resources team to be thinking one step ahead of the rest of the company. "One concept I talk about is 'future-proofi ng' our employees," he said. "Jobs don't stay the same as they used to, and skill sets must be more transferable. The challenge for companies is that the industry is already changing so much, and the change that's yet to come will be more profound. We have to future-proof our employees, make them not fearful of that, but actually excited about it. "At Meridian, one of our strategic imperatives is instilling a growth and innovation mind-set, and we want people here to have an exceptional employee experience. Part of that is helping employ- ees become change-ready, fl exible and adaptable. I think people can be taught to think more innovatively. You need good ideas from every part of the company." Thus, HR delivers value when it functions as a "decentralized think-tank," opening up the channels of communication that foster contributions to innovation, according to Maurin. HR professionals can't live in their silo; they have to understand the business and the industry, and they may have to up their game on that," said Maurin. "For us, all these things fl ow from strategy: how does our strategy respond to – and ideally get in front of – the ways things are changing all around us? HR professionals need to be passionate ambassadors of the enterprise strategy and the concepts behind it." In a world where companies are communicating with their customers one-on-one via social media, Maurin also believes that it can be useful for HR to look beyond traditional demographic groupings (Millennials or new Canadians, for example) and look instead at personal characteristics that can allow programs and services to be tailored to different types of people. "It's not about having a single employee experience for each employee, but a better understanding of who your employees are, so as a company you're learning how to engage them," he said. "I think HR has to have more of an ongoing interactive and evolutionary approach, as opposed to updating every three years." At its most impressive, a forward-look- ing HR function would be helping to lead the creation of meaningful organizational ideation capture, says Maurin. This entails creating a culture that encourages innova- tion, enables communication and instills confi dence that employees' ideas will be acted upon. "A key message – and the good news for the HR professional – is that the criticality of the role is higher today than ever," he said. "I think it's only going to get higher in the future, so I think [HR] is a pretty good space to be in." Be agents of change "The world is moving faster and faster. HR teams are going to have to move just as fast to provide support and leadership in areas like artifi cial intelligence as technology shifts and new business models emerge. They need to be as agile as the world is becoming," said Greg McLelland. He is the chief revenue offi cer for Corus Entertainment, a media and content company with holdings in television, radio, digital assets and publishing, among other areas, including brands like Global Television, HGTV Canada and Food Network Canada. At Corus, the HR function is called the People Team. "I take that quite seriously, because our team is responsible for $1.6 billion. I expect our People Team to be completely embedded into our activities," said McLelland. This is demonstrated more at Corus than it is in many organizations, since the People Team is included in activities like sales meetings. "We'll take them out with us to meet clients; they help engineer that process, facilitating the meetings in some cases," said McLelland. For instance, he says, part of the Corus sales team is a group of about 60 people across the country called Tempo that works with major brands, in some cases developing creative ways to integrate them into Corus productions. In these instances, the People Team may be called in to a half- day integration facilitation process where they might run a meeting between the client and on-air talent. Of course, McLelland also places a high value on the more traditional HR role of managing the employee relationship. Business leaders speak out about what they want from HR now – and in the future By Sarah B. Hood The Business of People

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