Laura Freeman is the executive vice-president of human resources and chief human resources officer at Orgill, Inc., the giant Memphis-based hardware wholesaler. Hardlines interviewed Freeman earlier this year during Orgill’s spring dealer market in New Orleans. Although she had been on the job just a few weeks, she took the time to share her insights with us.

Freeman came over from the grocery industry. She had spent the previous seven years heading up HR as chief people officer at Schnuck Markets, a family-run chain of over 100 supermarkets in the American Midwest.

Many a hardware executive has come over from the grocery industry. We asked Freeman what learnings she felt she could bring with her to the hardware distribution business. She identified some similarities. “A couple of things: one is just the dispersed workforce and the hourly workforce. How do you connect with them? So in the supermarket industry we had multiple stores in multiple states. Here, we have our distribution centres, but we also have our different business units, like CNRG,” she observed, referring to Central Network Retail Group, a group of 144 stores under a variety of banners owned by Orgill.

But at the front lines, it’s all about the people and understanding their needs, regardless of the sector. “Especially with the DCs, with the hourly workers, what are they looking for? What attracts them to us? How do we become that preferred employer? It’s so very similar to what it was in the supermarket industry.

“There’s a war on talent, and you certainly want to get the best talent.”

Freeman admits that the recent news of layoffs had been largely in the tech sector, while retail remains a tough sector to hire for. “It’s hard to find the right people, to find the right talent.”

Customer service remains a priority in any business, whether it’s the shopper in a supermarket or a customer on the other end of the line in the distributor’s call centre. “That’s what differentiates a great business.”

Freeman says the changes happening in the workforce during the pandemic had started well before the pandemic. “Even pre-Covid we were seeing our workforce change. It was not all of a sudden that it started changing—it was just accelerated.”

Organizations today have multiple generations of employees working side by side. Each generation has unique needs and goals. The core values of an organization have to resonate for everyone from Gen Z (“where’s my career going?”) to Boomers (who may appreciate the stability that being an employee can provide).

“From an HR perspective, you really have to think about that employee proposition across all different areas and then across all the different generations you have in your workforce today.”

Building materials suppliers found themselves in the eye of the storm when the supply chain worldwide began deteriorating during Covid. That disruption affected everything from the products in the warehouse to the people handling those products.

Each distributor developed its own strategies to cope, and CanWel Building Materials was no exception. We spoke recently with Marc Seguin, president of CanWel, who shared his thoughts on staffing strategy before and after Covid.

“What did we do at CanWel to offset some of the supply chain crunch? First of all, for internal resources, we kept our full staff in our offices and operations. We put the right protocols in place to protect our people, but we decided that we needed the resources because our customers were relying on us,” Seguin says. “Some of our competitors decided to let people go for a period of time or operate with a skeleton staff. I think our approach helped us to provide better service levels.”

Seguin believes home improvement was hit harder than other industries. For example, supply was affected directly by staffing, “because all of our warehouses are staffed by people that work in demanding conditions. They are at the lower end of the salary grid many times. And it has created quite a bit of turnover. And to this day it’s still a huge challenge to find people. He points out that a lot of people migrated from urban centres during Covid, putting further strain on recruiting people.

Not only was it hard to find new people, it became difficult to replace the workers who left. “We were able to hire a lot of new resources—but we operated with less staff, so people had to double their efforts,” Seguin says.

“We were fortunate to have long-time employees that are good workers. They work hard. They are dedicated. They love our company and we have good dynamics. But we need to resource ourselves better and it’s going to remain a challenge for quite a while.”

These labour issues are not going to sort themselves out in the near term, Seguin believes, even with immigration. “No, I think we’re not out of this for quite a while. Because it’s a structural and systemic problem.” He is calling on the entire retail home improvement industry to become “more progressive” to make this sector more attractive to potential employees, “like hybrid work solutions, improved working conditions, better benefit packages. We are something of a primary sector. I think there are solutions we will all have to adopt to some degree.”

This month we talk with Zaida Fazlic, vice president of people, culture, and change management at Taiga Building Products, the national building materials wholesaler.

Ask a simple question: what’s changed? and Zaida Fazlic, HR lead at Taiga Building Products, has a thorough—and thoughtful—answer, one that involves compensation, company culture, and coaching.

“A lot of companies and employers are feeling pressure from the employee side on wage increases. They’re feeling the pressure. It’s a difficult position to be in because, yes, you want to provide that for your employees, because we all understand the cost of living has gone up.”

However, raising salaries may be a tough decision to make, with the possibility of the economy entering a recession. “You have to make sure that you’re fair and on-market with that, but there are all these other things as well, as an employer, that you can focus on to motivate your employees.”

Those “other things” can and should include maintaining a good culture. That, says Fazlic, requires business leaders to focus on their managers, who in turn interact with employees. She cites Gallup polls indicating that middle management is the most important part of your ability to retain employees, because they are the link between C-suite executives and frontline workers.

Those managers must be aware of increasing pressure from below as well as above. “They’re kind of stuck in the middle.” But the pressures aren’t strictly generational. Though values may differ among age groups, Fazlic says, “there are basic things that all humans need regardless of your gender, age, et cetera.”

Fazlic regularly takes a couple of days out of her office to get out to branches and spends 10 to 15 minutes with individual employees. “I like to meet as many as I can, to put a name to a face and to get feedback.” Being out in the field meeting workers is an important part of her role, and now connecting with managers to guide them is part of that. “Being a good manager is basically like being a good coach. You’ve got to be able to give good feedback, you’ve got to be a good communicator, you’ve got to be able to inspire people. These are not easy things!”

That kind of pressure means coaching and leadership development are important at the management level. Things like giving tough feedback effectively can create a lot of stress for managers. These leaders need to be taken care of. “It cascades down all the way from ownership to executives to management. What they model cascades down all the way to your front line.”

By HR and health & safety consultancy Peninsula Canada

It’s finally spring, making it the perfect time to get organized and get rid of clutter. Rather than falling into the same routine, why not refresh your workplace and spring clean the HR department?

Here are some tips on how to best organize your HR department:

Prepare for a surge of vacation requests. It should come as no surprise that this summer will be a very popular time for travel. But how do you properly and fairly manage vacation requests? To avoid any issues, employers should make sure they have a good system in place to prepare for the surge in vacation requests. The vacation policy should inform employees of how far in advance they must request their vacation. It should clarify the procedure for making the request. The policy should also list the reasons a request may be declined.

Employee files. When was the last time employee files were looked at and updated? It’s important to check employee files to ensure all the information needed, such as address and emergency contacts, is up to date. It’s also important to have only the files that are required so you don’t have a pile of unneeded paper taking up space.

Policy check. Are all policies and employee handbooks up to date? Not only is it important to ensure employees are made aware of all changes, but handbooks must be current and compliant with any legislative changes.

Review projects. Looking over the status of current and future projects will help keep your team on track. Checking due dates, tasks, and responsibilities will not only ensure the project is done on time but will also be able to see if there are any gaps in the process and handle them ahead of time.

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 ongoing updates to their workplace documentation and policies as legislation changes. Additionally, clients benefit from 24/7 employer HR advice and are protected by legal insurance.

How many times have you gone through the hiring process, set up a new worker in the schedule, then waited on Monday morning for them not to show up? You are not alone.

A study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has determined that small businesses across Canada are dealing with this growing trend in the hiring process. More than one-third of small business owners said they’ve hired people over the previous 12 months who never showed up or stopped coming into work shortly after starting. If that isn’t concerning enough, some job candidates stopped responding before they even got the job, said 37 percent of respondents, who found that job seekers failed to reply to requests for interviews or further information that would have secured them a job.

“Employers are already having an incredibly hard time filling certain positions. Ghosting is not only a frustrating waste of their time, but it’s a big drain on their already limited resources,” said Dan Kelly, president of the CFIB. “Job candidates and employees don’t have to take or stay in jobs they don’t like, but they should at least communicate their intentions clearly to their employer instead of leaving them scrambling and wondering.”

Shortages of skilled, or semi-skilled and unskilled, labour continue to limit business growth for 53 percent and 38 percent of businesses, respectively, according to the latest CFIB Business Barometer. Over half (52 percent) of small businesses have yet to return to normal revenue levels and 58 percent haven’t repaid their pandemic debt.

The CFIB has speculated that many unemployed persons are happy to remain on EI and apply for jobs even though they have no desire to get hired. As the federal government is working on potential reforms to the Employment Insurance system, the association has urged Ottawa to take into consideration the impact of potential EI changes on small businesses.

“We’re hearing from business owners who have experienced ghosting that some candidates prefer to stay on EI for as long as possible and may be applying for or taking jobs just to satisfy the requirements of the program,” added Kelly. “While the vast majority of EI recipients may be looking for work in good faith, any changes the government is considering making to the program should not disincentivize people from accepting or starting jobs, especially with the current labour shortages we’re experiencing.”

As an owner of Mountain View Building Materials, Joel Seibert shares many challenges facing business owners today, including the need to find and keep good people. Mountain View has two locations, one in the Calgary market and the other in Kelowna, B.C.

Working with Pete Baran, CEO of Blueneck Consulting, who has acted as a mentor and business coach to Seibert over the past four years, Seibert developed an employee retention and motivation strategy, which he presented in a seminar called “It’s Time to Get Your Sales Team Excited to Sell” at the Western Retail Lumber Association’s Building and Hardware Showcase, held in Winnipeg earlier this year. (Part One ran in our February edition of HR Advisor).

Using the personality profile of each salesperson (based on a breakdown developed by the McKinsey Institute), Seibert laid out three steps to connect with those employees: understanding and identifying, providing transparency and clarity in your communications, and developing a system of rewards including salary to incentivize and compensate those workers. In this issue, we look closer at how Seibert provides that transparency in his workplace.

Start with well-defined job descriptions, he says. Letting staff understand clearly what they can—and cannot—do provides strong guidelines for managers and staff alike. It can also enable workers to feel more assured and confident in their roles, knowing what they can say “yes” to when dealing with a customer.

Seibert lays out some clear ways to provide clarity and transparency. These include setting challenging yet attainable targets, not just annually but on a more immediate and attainable basis each month. And each week, he uses one-on-one meetings to get supporting information from each salesperson that can help them achieve their sales goals.

“Together, we review where they are in relation to their targets and expectations,” he says. From there, both sides can discuss upcoming opportunities and identify key customers that could help drive sales, and then set priorities for the week.

Above all, he stresses that the company strategy must be openly discussed with the team. Don’t shy away from tough questions either, such as collectibles, which can plague any dealer. And be sure and ask what your salespeople need from you to succeed. A great company is built, he says, when both the employees and the employer are working in unison toward each other’s goals and vision.

“Getting your new team members excited about selling begins with us!”

Donald Cooper is a Toronto-based speaker and business coach. Using his vast experience as a manufacturer (Cooper Canada sports equipment) and an award-winning retailer, Cooper has helped hundreds of companies in over 40 industries around the world to create compelling customer value, clarity of purpose, and long-term profitability.

This year you could have lunch alone or skip lunch altogether. But imagine what you could learn and accomplish if, just once a week, you chose to have lunch with someone new on your team. It’s a great way to connect with employees from various parts of your business.

Before the lunch, make sure you know what they do, and whether there have been any challenges with them or their department recently. Have they been promoted or taken any training recently? Then, at the lunch, thank them for being part of the team and, in a kindly way, ask them a few questions such as these:

1. How can we help you do your job better?
2. What frustrates you or slows you down?
3. Is there anything we can do to operate more safely?
4. What could we do to be more environmentally responsible?
5. From your perspective, what do we do that frustrates or confuses our customers?
6. What are three things that we could do better?
7. Do we as a company ever make promises that we don’t keep?
8. What would you like to know more about regarding the business and how we operate?
9. Where would you like to be in your career and life in three to five years? How can we help you get there?

Assure them that if they have any thoughts about any of these subjects in the future, you’d like to hear them and then tell them how they can reach out. If you’re not their immediate supervisor or manager, make sure that the person who is knows about the lunch ahead of time and why you’re doing it.

Pick a lunch spot that will make conversation easy and comfortable. A spot that will honour but not intimidate your lunch guest. It can be close to your place of business. Or it could just be sharing a great pizza with a small group of employees in a quiet corner in the office, warehouse, or production facility.

When we listen to our staff, two things happen. We learn from them and we honour them. So, if you think this makes sense, announce to your team that you’ll be doing this on a regular basis and that it’s not to go behind anyone’s back. It’s a simple way to stay in touch with the HR realities of your workplace.

By HR and health & safety consultancy Peninsula Canada

Employees may be at risk of developing repetitive strain injuries (RSI) when performing work tasks that are ongoing or involve uncomfortable postures for a prolonged period of time. Employers need to do their part and ensure they create a safe workplace for all staff to avoid any injuries. Here are RSI signs employers need to look out for and tips on how to keep staff protected.

What are repetitive strain injuries and what are some of the symptoms? RSI is an umbrella term used to describe painful disorders that affect muscles, nerves, tendons, and joints anywhere in the body such as the neck, back, and arms. Symptoms can be minor or progress into chronic disorders which sometimes cannot be reversed or fixed.

Educate and train staff. Since RSIs typically develop slowly, it’s important to educate and train staff on the causes, how to recognize early signs and symptoms of RSIs, and how best to prevent them. That way employees can take it upon themselves to be aware and do their part in protecting themselves.

Provide staff with the right ergonomic tools. Depending on the nature of the job, employers can make office adjustments to help limit RSIs. It’s not practical to completely eliminate the repetitive aspect of a job. However, providing staff with the right ergonomic tools that are adjusted to fit for the worker can greatly help.

Allow staff to take breaks. Staff who sit at their desks all day should be encouraged to take short breaks. They can either go on a quick walk or just stand up and stretch: this allows the muscles to get some rest.

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 ongoing updates to their workplace documentation and policies as legislation changes. Additionally, clients benefit from 24/7 employer HR advice and are protected by legal insurance.

Joel Seibert started out trying to make his business more competitive. He ended up creating a strategy to make his workplace a more effective selling environment for his staff. And once he’d figured out the secret sauce, he wanted to share it with other dealers. So he presented it in a seminar called “It’s Time to Get Your Sales Team Excited to Sell” at the Western Retail Lumber Association’s Building and Hardware Showcase, held in Winnipeg on Jan. 19 and 20.

As owner of Mountain View Building Materials, Seibert is also the lead on business development for the company’s two stores in Calgary and Kelowna. The challenge, he said, is getting people interested in making money in the home improvement industry, “which meant getting new people to our industry excited about selling things that are unexciting!”

He broke his approach down into three steps. The first involves understanding and identifying the people who make your sales team—and making sure you can properly support and reward them according to their values.

Second, it’s important to provide transparency and clarity on how their contributions add to the business. He said clarity is essential to define the contribution of each player on the team. Clear job descriptions and expectations result in “clear boundaries, which encourage free thinking in the middle” and can foster creative solutions among team members.

Third is the issue of reward. It’s not a cookie-cutter process, Seibert said. It’s based on the values of each salesperson. He identified his workers by demographic, and in turn by the expectations each group represents. For example, those 50 and older have lots of experience, while the 20 to 30 group has limited experience. More broadly, sales staff who fall into the 25-to- 50 range with transferable skills often end up looking for a career change.

Understanding the expectations and values of each group helps make rewards more meaningful. For example, Seibert said, these could involve more vacation days, donations to causes they believe in or non-taxable perks such as gift cards or fuel cards. It can be as simple as welcoming dogs into the workplace.

“You have to be able to ask them, ‘What do you need from us to succeed this week?’ This reinforces their accountability and how we support them.” And, he added, it helps you, as an owner or manager, to guide them to think about selling better.

Focusing on the divergent needs of your staff helps you identify their goals and tie them in with your own. And guess what? It has made Seibert’s business more competitive.

A large 62,000-square-foot Home Hardware Building Centre store under construction in Clarington, Ont., will obviously need a full complement of staff when it opens soon. This at a time when retailers across Canada are finding it difficult to hire.

Savvy multi-store owner-operators Dan and Emily Moulton were up to the challenge. They turned to a local community college, Durham College, to run a job fair for their forthcoming new store east of Toronto on Feb. 9. They advertised that they were looking for up to 60 staff.

The full-day job fair went extremely well, said Lindsay Karch, a job developer for Durham College Community Employment Services. Karch estimates that about 180 job seekers attended the event. “There was such a big interest that we had to have more staff from the stores” to come and interview all the applicants.

While the organization that Karch works for is affiliated with Durham College, she stressed the “Community Employment Services” part of the name. Indeed, Karch said that the majority of the applicants who attended the Moultons’ job fair were not Durham College students, but from the wider community.

Durham College’s three employment centres are funded by Employment Ontario. They are open to anyone seeking work—or anyone with businesses that are looking for workers. Similar assistance is available for businesses looking for workers in each province, from Work BC, Alberta Works, SaskJobs, Nova Scotia Works, and more.

The Moultons’ new Clarington store joins an impressive cluster of southern Ontario Home Hardware Building Centres that the couple have built up since they purchased Hanover Home Hardware Building Centre in 2012—as 24-year-olds. The Moultons also own Home stores in Alliston, Bowmanville, Haliburton, and Minden. Another branch of the Moulton family operates Home stores in Ontario in Allandale (Barrie), Ingersoll, Strathroy, and Woodstock.