FEATURES
SPECIAL REPORT TANIA OPPEDISANO National director of human resources DIALOG
ANNE-MARIE OSTIGUY Vice-president of human resources, people and culture CERIDIAN
Achieving workplace flexibility has been one of the most notable accomplishments for Anne-Marie Ostiguy and her team within the past year. Whether engaged in implementation work or customer support, more Ceridian employees now have the ability to work from home as needed while remaining engaged with their teams and customers. Ostiguy and her team also introduced a program called Take2, which allows employees to take a couple of hours off as needed without impacting their vacation balance or requiring a manager’s approval beforehand, thus demonstrating the high level of trust and empowerment within the Ceridian culture. Another key focus for Ostiguy over the past few years has been shaping culture. The merger of Ceridian and Dayforce, which combined the former’s domain expertise and customer-focused reputation with the latter’s spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship, has necessitated joining two disparate cultures as one. The new entity also required the creation of a new brand promise and a set of shared values. To equip and empower people to become the best advocates for the organization, the HR team also began to emphasize hiring for cultural fit while facilitating open and continuous feedback from employees, in addition to supporting their growth and development, diversity, and equity.
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In addition to overseeing culture development and mentorship at architecture and design firm DIALOG, Tania Oppedisano works to identify business strategies and relevant metrics to ensure retention rates remain high across all four of the firm’s studios in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Oppedisano and her team have revamped DIALOG’s performance review process, coming up with four major touchpoints to replace traditional annual reviews and scrapping the typical ratings system for more focused and continuous conversations around employees’ goals and current standing. Overall, the process entailed a shift from performance reviews to development coaching sessions, which has greatly improved the working relationship between managers and employees and empowered the employees to take charge of their personal and professional development. Oppedisano was also part of an expert panel at the HR Tech Summit in Toronto last June, where she discussed the importance of applying design thinking to HR systems to ensure that employees remain truly at the centre of HR efforts and that the experiences effectively address their core needs.
POONAM TEWARI Human resources director UBISOFT TORONTO
A techie at heart, Poonam Tewari holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in computer application, along with a diploma and certification in human resources. Thanks to Tewari’s recruitment strategies and progressive HR programs, Ubisoft Toronto has grown from 150 employees in 2011 to more than 650 in 2017, and is on track to reach 800 team members by 2020. In the last fiscal year, Tewari and her team hired more than 200 people, exceeding their target by 26% and increasing the year-over-year hiring rate by 41%, which Tewari considers her top achievement of 2017. To ensure the smooth integration of new employees, Ubisoft Toronto’s HR team provides managers with an onboarding checklist, ranging from IT checks to managerial guidelines. New hires are invited to a team welcome lunch on their first day, and each one is assigned a buddy to help them adjust to their work environment. The HR team also checks in with the new hires at the three-day and two-week marks, and sends out a satisfaction survey at the two-week and three-month marks to ensure that the onboarding program remains effective.
www.hrmonline.ca
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