This month we talk with Martina Pileggi, director of human resources for the Hillman Group Canada, a fastener producer for the hardware, automotive, plumbing, and electrical markets.

Martina Pileggi is a big believer in corporate values. Not just establishing them, but sharing them as well. As a human resources professional with over 15 years of experience in various industries that include pharmaceuticals, food and grocery, and most recently hardware, she knows the importance of maintaining awareness of what a company stands for. Those values, she says, have to be communicated on an ongoing basis.

Pileggi walks the walk. In 2019, she was on an airplane upwards of twice a month to meet with the various divisions of Hillman, which has seven facilities across Canada. During the pandemic, of course, all that has come to a halt.

But the commitment of her and her HR team to maintain and promote the company’s corporate values to the Hillman workforce (it employs 900 in Canada) is undiminished. “It’s a challenge,” she admits. “It was a challenge pre-pandemic and it will be a challenge post-pandemic.”Nowadays it’s an even greater challenge. But she has strategies for keeping the values of the company and the sense that workers are embraced by those values in the forefront.

Instead of being physically onsite at various workplaces, she has devised other ways to connect virtually. “You need to be present in your home location, as well as being seen travelling to all parts of the company.” Now she does a lot of stand-up meetings, or town halls, at Hillman’s head offices in Toronto. “We came up with a structure that could connect with every single person.” These monthly events, which cover everything from safety to the performance of the company under COVID, are broadcast to the entire workforce county-wide.

“The job of HR is often hard to quantify,” says Pileggi. “What’s really important is making sure the corporate vision is shared. People must understand and comprehend what we’re doing. We do that by being present.”

That, she says, means calling instead of emailing, making sure people understand and feel they are appreciated and supported. During challenges such as the current pandemic, these tools help her and her team stay connected across the company. “That’s how you cascade the culture.”

By Puneet Tiwari, legal counsel and legal claims manager at Peninsula Canada. He has also practiced as an employee-side employment lawyer for several years while also running his own small business.

Some employers may want to know their workers’ vaccination status in order to make health and safety decisions in the workplace or to confirm employees’ entitlement to vaccination leave. However, employers must be careful about what they ask and how they handle this information.

Workers have a right to privacy and vaccination status is considered personal medical information. Every province has its own rules on what employers can ask when it comes to vaccination. In most cases, asking for a medical certificate proving the employee was vaccinated is not allowed because this information is personal and private.

As an alternative, employers can ask employees for a confirmation of a vaccination appointment. This way they can be sure that the leave is not being abused without requiring any personal medical information from their workers.

Additionally, employers can ask employees to disclose if they got vaccinated but only if they want to, on an optional basis. Any personal medical information collected by the employer should be obtained with consent and kept confidential. Employers may not share their workers’ vaccination status with third parties and should keep access to this information limited only to those who must know.

Peninsula is an HR and Health & Safety consulting firm serving over 80,000 small businesses worldwide, including dealers in home improvement. Clients are supported with 24/7 employment advice, updates to legislation changes, HR software, and legal insurance.

One of human resources’ primary roles is to manage and conduct hiring for a company. Finding the right talent can be an expensive process. For one dealer, relying on students—who would often return as they worked their way through school—has become a tough proposition.

“We’re not just surviving in terms of business, we’re thriving. It’s booming along and has been for the last year,” says Don Dyck, president of Kingdon Lumber, a TIMBER MART dealer in Peterborough, Ont. “The struggle then is to find the right people. In the midst of all of this, how do you go about doing that?”

The pandemic has changed the way companies have to conduct hiring. Most face-to-face interactions have either been reduced or eliminated. It’s been a bit easier after going online, but the company still faces a few more challenges. Due to the nature of the industry, its manufacturing side sees a lot of seasonal staff.

The company used to hire students from high schools and the nearby university. It would work out perfectly due to their schedules lining up with the manufacturing needs and many of the students would return the next season. But fewer and fewer students are applying for work, either because the demographic of the students is changing or they’re just finding work elsewhere.

Now the company hires seasonal workers who are later in their careers and are interested in only working for a part of the year.

Tanja Fratangeli is head of people and culture for IKEA Canada. In a recent virtual HR conference hosted by the Retail Council of Canada, she talked about the importance of strong values within a company. These values can guide business decisions and motivate employees to work in harmony. And they can provide tools for managers to communicate more effectively with their teams.

Fratangeli noted that “our success goes beyond our sales. It’s our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. That’s what we keep at the centre of all our decision-making. Our culture, our values, and our purpose are what continue to unite us in all of our decisions.”

Those common values, when clearly expressed and reinforced, can strengthen a team, no matter how diverse. “We have that common set of values that is always at the heart of any of our decisions,” she said.

If your company has more than one location, whether it’s multiple stores or distribution centres, maintaining that consistent culture of values may seem daunting, but Fratangeli says IKEA maintains it across its range of stores internationally. “What makes it unique is that it doesn’t matter where you go, whether you visit virtually or in person, you get that same feeling … I think that’s what grounds us.”

During the time of COVID, IKEA focused on supporting both the physical and mental well-being of its employees. That included more leadership training for managers, such as mental health first aid training through a partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association. That didn’t mean, she said, turning managers into “therapists” for their staff. The training was aimed at offering tools to help leaders know how to provide support and have meaningful conversations with workers who needed that.

This month we talk with Zaida Fazlic, director, people and culture at Taiga Building Products, the national building materials wholesaler. This will be the first in an occasional series with her on the topic of leadership.

When asked what makes a good leader, Zaida Fazlic doesn’t hesitate to point out some clear fundamentals.

“Who you are as a leader is who you are as a person. That’s one of the key things.”

Leadership is not simply management. That, she says, is just maintenance. “Leadership is about having a vision of the future and articulating it in a certain way to get people to buy into it.”

Good leaders have to be change agents, visionaries. But it hardly stops there. “You have to have the competencies.” That means building on one’s passion and vision to set goals, communicate those goals effectively, and identify the strengths within your team to know whom to rely upon to execute those goals.

Fazlic says the nature of leadership has changed over the past decades. Where once it was mainly tactical and managed through delegation and performance measurement, these days it’s much more holistic. “It is a great responsibility and a privilege because of the trajectory you take people on. Just think about it: how it can affect their career and their personal life is based on the decisions you make and the future that you lead them into.”

Good leaders build positive work environments that energize the team. They know how to bring out the best in their people by providing them with coaching, training, and support to do their jobs well. Good leadership is about character, integrity, and trustworthiness.

“Developing all these critical leadership and interpersonal skills does translate into better performance for the team and the company,” she adds, “because leaders are ultimately the ones responsible for building effective and productive teams that support each other and help each other get the work done in a sustainable way.”

By Andrew Caldwell, HR advisory team lead at Peninsula Canada. A Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP), he specializes in employment relations, employment standards, recruitment, and employee engagement. 

When it comes to deciding whether to hire a worker full-time or on a contract, there are pros and cons to both work arrangements. A contract worker will generally be more expensive to employ and have more diverse experience from having worked for many employers within a shorter time frame. For this reason, they may be more innovative and be able to give insight into the industry and what your competitors are doing. By hiring contract workers only when they are needed, businesses can also save on the expenses and administrative work of maintaining full-time staff and providing benefits.

On the other hand, contract workers do not have the same loyalty to their employers as full-time workers. If your competitors offer better pay, you may find yourself looking for new talent regularly. If you are consistently hiring contract workers for the same jobs, it is worth considering employing full-time staff.

While full-time workers require a greater investment in training and time, they will get to know the way your business operates and are likely to work more efficiently in the long run. Your business will enjoy greater stability and develop a workplace culture. Having in-house staff also makes it easier to manage workloads and ensure confidential information is kept secure.

Peninsula is an HR and health and safety consulting firm serving over 80,000 small businesses worldwide, including dealers in home improvement. Clients are supported with 24/7 employment advice, updates to legislation changes, HR software, and legal insurance.

It’s all about people and the year of COVID has driven that home more than ever. It’s added layers of complexity to an already difficult job market and the need for finding, and keeping, good people is paramount.

For Christian Leduc, who managed the RONA Plateau, a big box store in Gatineau, Que., As lockdowns occurred and the cases of COVID grew, he found the personal lives of his staff become more enmeshed than ever in their workplace lives.

“We always said, ‘take care of your employees,’ but under the pandemic last year, we had to be even more attentive about that. We had to be a big family and make sure everyone had good health.”

That holistic effort came both from store management and from head office. Lowe’s Canada provided a series of bonuses for workers in the stores and distribution centres through the worst of the pandemic. Money was also available for staff who needed support at home, whether for themselves or to take care of other family members. “People had money problems,” says Leduc. “We never spent so much time as we did last year to make sure our employees were safe and happy.”

This year, Leduc was transferred to the Réno-Dépôt store nearby and the same issues confront him at this location. Both stores had sales well above budget last year, which meant everyone was working harder than ever, often with a shortage of staff.

“Hiring is tough,” he admits, as he considers the challenges ahead. “I’ll be looking for 45 more associates this spring, for everything from the garden and seasonal departments to night shift workers. While the RONA store was in a power centre and accessible in the city, the Réno-Dépôt is a stand-alone store a little more off the beaten path. This presents an additional problem, as it’s tougher to convince potential hires to make the trek, especially if they rely on public transit. “That’s a challenge we have.”

The notion of leveraging your people may sound cold and calculating, but if done right, it is an important way to help your team feel connected during these difficult times. That’s just what one retail chain set out to do.

Kate Railton is VP people and operations for Mejuri, a chain of jewellery stores with locations in Canada and the U.S. At the recent DX3 conference, she explained how her team worked to understand the needs of staff.

“We started with surveys to determine the pain points and provide guidance and really answer questions for our bosses. We also did quarterly ‘town halls.’”

The surveys helped management understand how to make jobs more engaging for staff. “And for stuff that couldn’t be changed, we could identify what needed to be explained.”

The result was to bring all sides together better. “The process helps to close the gap between what’s happening for the retail staff and what’s happening for the management, so everyone can be working from the same page.”

How to build a case with management to use this approach—and keep staff engaged in the process? Railton says it’s important to share the results of the surveys and other personnel metrics on an ongoing basis. That way, everyone will look forward to participating, so they can see the results themselves and witness the change that is guided by these surveys.

Through it all, her team has played a key role in the process. “Your HR department is your partner across the entire business,” she says.

This month we talk with Walter Pranke, vice president, human resources at Lee Valley Tools, a chain of tool and gift stores based in Ottawa.

Getting the right people for your company means more than matching up work experience and job skills. The values of a potential new hire must align with your company’s.

“It’s very important, first and foremost, for an organization to really define and articulate the values and goals it holds corporately,” says Walter. “You have to ask the question, ‘why do we exist.’ Then, line up what type of person and kind of personality is best suited to fit that.”

In the hiring process, that can mean landing on specific interview topics. For example, says Walter, if your company’s values include a passion for your customers, some of the questions can address the candidate’s own relationship with customers at their current position. If they indicate a similar enthusiasm here, that will be a good sign. If they tend to bring up the challenges of working with customers and dealing with their concerns or complaints, you might consider that a warning sign that this individual’s values won’t align with your company’s—even if they possess the right skills and experience.

Another example, says Walter, may relate to your company’s team environment. If your company embraces a culture that prizes teamwork, there are things to watch for during hiring.

“If the person keeps using ‘I’ to describe their past work experience and achievements, they may lack the capacity to work with others.” You have to ask, ‘Are they more focused on promoting themselves?’

There are ways to proactively stream the interview process to get at the underlying values of a candidate to determine whether they align with yours. “But it all comes down to identifying just what your company’s own culture and values are.”

Vaccination against COVID-19 is not mandatory in Canada, therefore, employers cannot force their workers to get the vaccine. It’s important to consider that some workers may not be able to get the vaccine due to medical reasons, religious beliefs, or a disability. Discriminating against an unvaccinated worker for any of these reasons could result in a human rights claim for the business.

However, employers can strongly encourage workers to get vaccinated, and can provide information and resources to educate them on the benefits of vaccination. Workers that cannot get vaccinated for one of the reasons above must be accommodated. For example, they can be given the option to work from home or given a separate workstation that allows for distancing. Meanwhile, to protect other workers and visitors, the employer can require unvaccinated workers to continue adhering to COVID-19 health and safety measures such as masking and distancing.

If the work environment poses a high risk of COVID-19 transmission, such as in the health care sector, the employer may be able to justify making vaccination a necessary requirement of the workplace. This requirement would need to be clearly explained in a company-wide policy that applies to everyone.

Peninsula is an HR and Health & Safety consulting firm serving over 80,000 small businesses worldwide, including dealers in home improvement. Clients are supported with 24/7 employment advice, updates to legislation changes, HR software, and legal insurance.