Marnie: Hi, I'm Marnie Niemi Hood. 

Russell: And I'm Russell Evans. We're the host of Contributors, a podcast where we explore how Canadian employers are leading change, innovating industries and investing in our country's well-being and prosperity. 

Marnie: These organizations are prospering today by prioritizing more than just the bottom line, and so are we. As leaders at the CAAT Pension Plan, we are contributors to one of Canada's fastest growing defined benefit pension plans. 

Russell: We believe in contributing today for a long term benefit. And we want to showcase other employers who are securing a better future for Canadians. Follow along. 

Marnie: In today's highly competitive environment for talent, it's more important than ever for organizations to go above and beyond to recruit, attract and retain valuable employees. We've moved well beyond what we call table stakes now, wouldn't you say, Russell? 

Russell: That's right, Marnie. In today's episode, we're sitting down with the leader in applied research, an individual who gathers insights to help solve Canada's most pressing challenges. 

Marnie: Dr. Susan Black joins us today. As the president and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada, she tackles the most pressing issues facing the country. One of them being the concept of the post-truth environment. And she'll share details into what that means. 

Russell: She'll also discuss the critical importance of building stronger employee engagement and fostering a purpose driven work environment, which is what a lot of high performers are looking for. 

Marnie: Susan will also share the challenges that the Conference Board of Canada was up against and how she and her team improved engagement in the workplace following the height of the pandemic. 

Russell: Thanks, Dr. Black, for joining us today. 

Susan: Thank you, Russell and Marnie. I'm delighted to be here. 

Russell: Just to get started, can you share a little bit about your background with us? 

Susan: I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional territory that I'm on. I'm coming to you from Toronto, which is the traditional territory of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, Metis and the Mississauga of the New Credit First Nation. And I am understanding that this is probably going to be heard by people across the country. So I'd also like to take the opportunity to recognize and acknowledge all the people, all the nations across Turtle Island. So having shared that, I will tell you that I'm born and raised in Montreal, and I've had a really eclectic career. I started my career as a banker. I was a commercial banker and an investment banker. I've been a chief human resources officer for a couple of big Canadian companies. The Conference Board of Canada is the second research organization that I've led. And it's fundamentally work not only in different functions but across different industries. There are two themes that have always driven my choices and really framed all of my, my behaviors and my actions and my decisions across those many places. In the first is I am deeply curious about why people do the things they do. You know, what is it that drives us to make the decisions we do? The second theme is I always want to use that knowledge in service of making things better. I have a profound belief that you should leave any organization or any endeavor in better shape than where you found it. 

Marnie: That's fantastic. Certainly, the research that the Conference Board prepares is revered nationwide. And your background is just fascinating. Could you tell us a little bit about the Conference Board of Canada? 

Susan: Love to. So the Conference Board of Canada is one of the country's largest independent research organizations and we are in applied research organization. So again, all the work we do is in service of having people use those insights to make things better. We've been around almost 70 years now and I don't think I'm going out there on a limb to say that we are a trusted resource for many, many leaders in this country and for Canadians more generally. I appreciate the choice of the word revered. That certainly warms the cockles of my heart. Our research focuses on two buckets. First, we do, you know, bread and butter, terrific gold, standard basic data and advanced analytics around again, information that leaders need. So as an example, many of the provincial finance departments use our economic forecasting to estimate the equalization payments. So we're in that depth. The other bucket of research we do, we broadly refer to as our wicked problem research and where we want to spend our efforts is is helping leaders figure out solutions to or how to move the conversation forward on some of the challenges that we face in any of those knowledge areas that are really hard to solve that affect a lot of people that require multiple perspectives to analyze them. So we call those the wicked problem. Someone's got to step up to the front. So we have a number of those underway. So that's the basic research. And then to help pull that together, we host 16 executive councils, which are really entities that we operate that convene leaders together to talk about in each of those knowledge areas, issues that are of interest to them. 

Russell: So for our listeners, what would you say are the top wicked problems that are facing Canada today? 

Susan: Well, I think we have wicked problems in abundance, so, you know, a couple of them that I'll talk to on the on the economic side clearly were struggling with inflation right now and we're struggling with supply chains in terms of our future in terms of ensuring the country is economically competitive globally. We need to we need to do some work in the innovation ecosystem. We're not as as strong there as we used to be. We need to do work in terms of education skills and helping create opportunities to upskill or skill the entire country for the way the world of work is changing in health care. I will say in general, it is concerning that the times we live in are what I would call a post-truth environment. So the risk we have with any of these wicked problems is that instead of looking at data and evidence, people default to their own facts, if you will and they make up things. And that doesn't help us as a country doesn't help our leaders take us to a better place. So we're very much focused on how do we get good understanding of root causes? How do we get good core fundamental data? How do we bring different perspectives together so that we can stand for the truth and not a polarized version of it? 

Russell: Do you see any new problems emerging as a result of the pandemic? 

Susan: Well, I'm sure there will be new problems emerging. I tend to look at perhaps not the problems, but perhaps the challenges around how it's going to reshape the labor force and how it's going to reshape expectations around the workplace. So one of the things that we have seen with respect to people who work in offices, obviously is remote work becoming a core feature and I think that's a sea change. I spent a lot of my earlier career exploring issues around diversity and inclusion, including looking at work-life balance issues and one of the biggest barriers to enabling people to work more flexibly and therefore accommodate their own particular situations was, you know what, everybody has to be in the office, otherwise we don't trust you. Well, we've just now had a massive global experiment that demonstrates that is simply not true. But we don't know exactly yet how we are going to manage a hybrid workplace going forward. 

Marnie: In today's competitive and very changeable labor market, as you as you mentioned how things are really shifting and managing these hybrid workplaces. It's going to take more than just competitive salaries to keep people, to attract people, to recruit the best. And what do you believe the more should be? 

Susan: I think the more fundamentally comes down to a concept that's been with us for probably close to two decades now, and that's employee engagement. It used to be back in the day we measured employee satisfaction. Are they satisfied? But now we want to understand our employees engaged with their workplace. Do they feel connected to the workplace? I always think that one of the best definitions I see in around engagement is captured by one of the consulting firms and they would frame it as a phrase say stay strive. So do you say good things about your employer? Are you intending to stay there and are you giving that discretionary effort? Are you striving? I think in order to do that, there are some table stakes things that organizations now more than ever need to be mindful of. Broadly put, I'd say the first one is around purpose. I think across generations, people are feeling an increasing need to feel that the work they do and the work of their organization and the reason it exists is meaningful, is legitimate, is authentic. So there has to be some purpose. There has to be alignment with your personal values in the corporate values but I don't think they need to be exactly the same. But you got to feel that you're showing up in the workplace every day for an organization that contributes in some broader way and a way that's meaningful. The second thing that I think are table stakes is you have to create an environment where everybody feels they have opportunity and excel, and that means very different things to different people. Some people are enormously ambitious and excelling means moving up a traditional ladder. Some people, that means having the resources they need to do their job really well. So the definition can change. So those are some table stakes but I would caution every organization to really understand what it means for them because it does differ, according to your industry, the size of the company, how long it's been around the kind of work it does, the workforce and so on. 

Russell: So I notice anecdotally, a lot of organizations are talking about turnover as a threat and I wonder whether you think that might also be an opportunity. 

Susan: I think it is an opportunity. I mean, it is a threat in that when people leave your organization, you've got to replace them. There's a cost. You've got to share the work and that's disruptive for other people and sometimes an unfair burden. And if it happens, we all expect turnover seven to 10 percent a year. But if it's happening, you know, 20 to 30 percent a year, that's a real threat not to survivability of a business but to a business flourishing. Let's say it just it reduces the business's resilience, too. But is it an opportunity? Absolutely. It's an opportunity. I caution colleagues. I caution other organizations that when turnover numbers are as high as they are right now, let's take an evidence based view of that segment and understand what the different kinds of turnover are, what it means for us and how we want to handle it. Because it's, you know, turnover will come down again in two or three years or it'll stabilize again. But right now we have to deal with it. So I don't believe anybody's losing 30 percent of their high performers, to answer your question.

Marnie: Well, let's keep our fingers crossed that it does that those numbers don't hit that high. 

Russell: This is where insights meet impact. Susan in the Conference Board of Canada are really committed to excellence in giving decision makers the information they need to solve Canada's toughest problems across all of their focus areas education and skills, health, human resources, indigenous and northern communities, inclusion, innovation and tech, immigration and sustainability. 

Marnie: Susan noted the Conference Board's HR research shows the increasing importance of employee engagement, and that certainly aligns with what we're seeing across the country. You know, I talked to chief human resource officers regularly and the sentiment is the same. There is a need to revisit some of those table stakes offerings that organizations and find opportunities to find more value, more flexibility. 

Russell: Well, said Marnie. This is absolutely a trend that we've heard from many of the guests we've had and contributors and having evidence based analysis can really support our decisions as leaders. 

Marnie: And I love that Susan and her organization are walking the walk as national business leaders the Conference Board delivers valuable insights into Canada's toughest problems. It is no surprise that as an employer, they were themselves challenged by the rising need for enhanced employee engagement. We're about to hear how the Conference Board of Canada tackled the pandemic and three important decisions they made to ensure employees felt supported, needed and part of a purpose driven organization. You know, certainly when the pandemic hit initially, I think a lot of companies were just trying to keep the lights on. How did you handle it at the conference board? 

Susan: So the conference board handled it in a way that was a little different from many organizations. I'll give you a little context. The conference board at that time was headquartered in Ottawa. Over 90 percent of our employees were based in Ottawa. We had some other folks in other parts of the country but that was the bulk of it. And we owned our office building. And when we took a hard look at ourselves, what we determined is, you know what? Our people actually do a lot of work outside the office already. We were doing, we had a lot of flexible work and we had a really good approach and attitude towards it. So we thought, Well, you know what, we can, we actually do this and we are probably could do more of it. We did and we did also raise our employees at the time to understand what they wanted and what they felt comfortable with. And there was a huge amount of anxiety around what are we going to do with kids back in school and what happens when you go back to the workplace? If you own a building like we did, you're thinking you got to retrofit it, you've got to schedule people coming in. You remember we used to put the arrows on the floors back then. So we said, you know what, if we really think this is our thing, I think we could spend our management time and focus and energy in places that really again help our people do their best work. So we made the decision to sell the building. And become a virtual first organization. And I emphasize virtual first, so as to underscore the point we do not see ourselves as a hybrid. There is no office space for the conference board to come back to now. We have poured all our energy and our, you know, discretionary or surplus funds into investing in our people and our organization to become the best possible virtual first organization we can be. So here are the four big things we did. You know, the first is we overindexed on employee communications. We are only 175 people and we hired a full time internal communications manager. We have an external comms department. We hired this person and she's fantastic and she does great work. And she just launched a whole new intranet for us, not a not a small achievement in a small organization like ours. It's a big achievement. We also just amped up the communications overall. So early in the pandemic, we actually met with all staff at 9:30 every morning. I think we started on the Monday remember it was announced by the W.H.O. on the Wednesday. I can tell you, we closed on the Thursday. I flew home from Ottawa and we started money and we did that for several months. And then we cut it back to two days a week. And now we do it one day a week. But we have supplemented that with lots of other sort of all employee kinds of discussion groups. In the early days, we also set up an employee taskforce to give us feedback and advice on how we wanted to make the transition to virtual first. So we had six of these groups and they focused around what to do about the culture. Home Office support technology, health, safety, wellbeing, training and guidelines and policies. And they came back collectively with something like 85, 90 recommendations, a number of which we have put in. The third thing we did is we made massive investments in our technology. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. So we have done things like upgrading our e-commerce platform. We have no financial software. We have established a project management office. We have made more investments into technical tools for the researcher and so on and so forth because people really need to have that ease of access online to information. And the final thing is, again, we, you know, we don't have a building anymore. We're committed to working in a brand new way and it's all about the employees. It goes back to what we talked about earlier, engaging your employees. Money isn't enough. So we really spent a lot of time considering what was most valuable for our employee proposition. So we did things like we increased the amount of training every employee got and we we got vendors to come in and do different kinds of things that we've been putting off for a while. We did a lot of work on our onboarding because we have brought a lot of people in and you're bringing them in virtually and that's a different kind of challenge. The other thing we did, as you well know, is we joined the CAAT Pension Plan. So we have research that also says people's financial security is not where it needs to be. And we're very we were very persuaded by the research that you were able to share with us, too. So we made the move from a group RRSP to the CAAT DB Plus plan, and that has been very well-received for us. So all these things collectively signal to our employees. We are continually working to again create the best possible environment so that for whatever period of time you're with this, you can do the best work you can. If there has been a positive out of this awful situation and tragic situation in some ways with the pandemic, for us, it has been the ability to broaden our talent pool. So I mentioned earlier on when we started, we were over 90 percent of our employees are in Ottawa. That's down to 50 percent now. So we have employees and the majority of the provinces. We have people in everywhere, from Halifax to Medicine Hat to Vancouver. We are seeing critical masses emerge in Montreal, Toronto and Calgary, as well as obviously still Ottawa. And given that everybody is working virtually, everybody's on an even playing field now, and there's a lot to be said for that. Our view going forward and what we've shared with our staff is we think it's very important to maintain that inclusive environment virtually. What we've said to our folks going forward is when you have regular operational meetings with your team, you must use the same format for everyone. So if you happen to be part of a team that is entirely based in Calgary, you can all meet in person once lockdowns are up. But if you have anybody for a regular, you know, weekly bi weekly updates, no, you everybody does it on the phone. If three people are sitting in one space, you all go on your computers. But what we will do is make budget available to managers to bring their teams together physically from wherever they are across the country, for things like a team building day, a strategic planning day, business planning and that kind of thing. So we're going to be think about it, repurpose the money, the considerable money we were spending on an office building to to facilitate those kinds of connections. 

Marnie: Well, that's fantastic. How are these changes being perceived by the employees? How is the employee gauge meant? How are they responding? 

Susan: We do do a lot of pulsing of the employees sort of five questions, and I would say those numbers are they're pretty healthy and we've been pleased with them so far. Again, we've got employees who are I can't say enough about how they rallied around the organization in the early days because we had to make some very tough decisions aside from selling the building. We had suspended our group RRSP contributions while we were figuring things out. The good news was because our employees rallied around us, we were able to come back in in full form. So those furlough days, we only took four and we repaid all of them. Obviously, we've gone to a more sophisticated, generous pension plan. 

Russell: I think a lot of business leaders know that employee engagement is important, but you're in a unique position, Susan, in that you have the fact based behind that. So can you talk a little bit about why you believe employee engagement is so critical? 

Susan: So there has been a lot of research over the last two decades that connects engagement to simply better operational results. So there have been studies that connect higher employee engagement to higher sales, higher employee engagement to higher profitability, higher employee engagement to greater sourcing of innovative ideas and so on. So I think we are very clear on the business case for greater engagement. Beyond that, I'll put it in more simple terms. I think everybody is probably had an experience in life where they are when you don't feel engaged in the organization and what happens when you're not engaged. You have a tape in your head that keeps playing over and over and keeps reminding you of all the irritate irritations you have with the organization. All the dissatisfaction, the things that you want changed. I think if employees are engaged, that tape gets louder and louder and it reduces their ability and the organization's ability by extension to be resilient and to focus again on on the business. So engagement is not about making people happy, it's about putting them in the best possible environment so that collectively the outcomes are things like better revenue, better fundraising, whatever it is. The second thing I would say is from a humanist standpoint, don't we all want to work in a workplace that is respectful that even if you disagree with colleagues, you can coexist with them in a way that's positive? Absolutely. I'm going to use that point to to share another change that I think has come about. You asked me the question earlier, what comes out of this? I think there will be much less tolerance from people for bosses who are jerks. I think there just will be, and I think that's going to put a lot of pressure on organizations to equip and train their managers to be better and then to hold them accountable for it. It will become a more explicit performance criteria. And I think for some organizations, that's going to be tough because there are organizations who will forgive the person who has great performance results. Forgive the the microaggressions they commit or the truly bad behavior and so on. I think I think that will be another sea change. 

Marnie: Can I probe a little bit with you, earlier, you talked about purpose and meaning and showing up every day in accordance with your own personal values. And how can an organization build that alignment between the values, the mission, the purpose of the of the organization and engage employees a long alignment with those values? 

Susan: I'll tell you how we did it at the conference board, so I came in in 2018 as the new CEO, I came in with a mandate for change, you know, fabulous organization, long history. But time to come into this century a little bit more, be a little more modern. One of the very first things we did that fall of 2018 is we took a look at the values that were there and the values were fine, but they weren't particularly memorable. And I suspect we had had them for a very long time and we suffered from what a lot of organizations suffered from, which is your values are written by your communications department because they sound good. And then we make a poster and we put it on a wall. I've been around the people space of you all for a long time, and I've seen a lot of values work. And so I came with a very clear view that the values have to come from inside the organization, from the people themselves. I will take a moment to tell you how we did this because it was quite fascinating. We said, OK, everybody is going to have a say in this. So we invited the whole organization to participate in a half day value session, and we ran it like an open space technology session. The question was what is the single most important value for the Conference Board of Canada to embrace? And then they talked about how would we bring this value to life? What are the behaviors we need to see? So long story short, those eight workstations came down to our six values, which we are enormously proud of. And following that session, we did one workshop each month for the next six months, one on each value, and we again invited the entire organization to come together and to talk in more detail about what are those values. Our values book is available on our website. There is not a week that goes by where it's not referenced by senior leadership. 

Russell: Susan, there are a lot of exciting opportunities for job seekers in Canada's market today but there's a lot of upheaval as well. I think in particular, there are a lot of people who had a really tough time the last couple of years, losing their jobs or being forced to change professions, being forced to move to a new city. I understand there's an innovative solution that your organization has developed around just this scenario. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

Susan: Oh, yeah, I believe you're referring to the work that we've been doing with the Future Skills Centre, so I'm delighted to comment on that. So the Future Skills Centre is a government funded center that the commerce board is a consortium partner up. We helped stand it up and its entire focus is on helping the country upskill for the future. And in particular, we look at issues like what are the career pathways for people? How do we help sectors who've suffered immediate dislocation? The Future Skills Center has has funded about 160 projects so far, different initiatives that are really focusing on helping smaller groups get the skills they need to move forward. The Conference Board has done a couple of pieces. One of the things we've done is a deep dive into where are the jobs that are vulnerable to automation. And so we've created an automation vulnerability index and, you know, probably not surprisingly, but that number is in the millions. And out of that came a tool that's called OpportuNext, and it's actually a website you can go to. So I had to spell it O P P O R T U N E X T .ca. And fundamentally, it shows people the pathways between the job they currently have and multiple options. So it's simple. You type in your job, say teacher. And what will pop up are 10 different options that create a pathway for you that doesn't require you to spend years retraining, doesn't require you to take a significant drop in income, and it will tell you what are those soft skills that you need that are prized most often in that role. And I'll tell you what the future growth prospects for that industry are. Our hope is going forward is that we can embed this as a tool that's available to all job seekers, so they'll have the ability to quickly go in and play with it and see what their options are. We think it's going to be also very useful for employers who may be looking out to the future and seeing that they're going to have large numbers of their workforce ultimately displaced by automation or for other reasons. How can they help them earlier in the process find new pathways, either in the organization or outside the organization? Who also could they be looking at that might have an unusual profile they hadn't thought about because the pathway again limited reskilling, very complementary skills already available and so on. 

Marnie: The loss of three million jobs due to automation is not insignificant. I'm thrilled to hear that that you've been doing some research on this and that the tool you have really provides that kind of a path forward. What other kinds of changes do you see happening over the next five to 10 years? Anything that could help make the country stronger, perhaps as it relates to employee engagement in the workplace? 

Susan: I think we need to take a very clear headed look at immigration in this country. It's very apparent to everyone that in order for us to continue to increase our productivity to prosper, we need a larger population. That population is now coming from newcomers. So there were 1000 this year who have entered Canada. We are not yet doing a great job of helping those people find the best jobs, the jobs they're actually skilled for and qualified for it. We need to do a much better job of that. We're definitely moving in the right direction, but we've got to deal with some of those barriers. As you can appreciate, if you're if you're coming here and you're in a job where you are not as where you're overqualified, that doesn't help with engagement either. And we do tend to find those people again disproportionately in some industries. So we've got to really be thinking also strategically about the supports we can put in place to help people enter into the country and become fully contributing as fast as they as they can. 

Russell: Ultimately, this podcast Contributors is for Canadian employers. What advice would you offer Canadian employers in 2022? 

Susan: In 2022, I would say you've got to stay the course. It's it's a very challenging time for all of us. We know there's going to be more turnover. You probably have some absenteeism and presenteeism issues, so dig deep into your organization and listen to your employees about what you can do to help them move through this phase. Be willing to make bold moves if necessary and really questioned the former ways of doing things now is an opportunity to do that with every crisis comes an opportunity, and that that opportunity now is to really be innovative in what you do. I always say to employers at any time use your data, use your evidence, listen to your employees, dig into your own data, be innovative, be willing to be bold. And if you're going to be innovative and bold, remember you got to bring people along with you because most people don't like change. But we're in challenging times, so my biggest message is just stay the course, keep your head up, keep encouraging your employees. We are going to get through this and that ultimately the nature of progress is such is we will be in a better place. We will learn from this. 

Russell: Well, thank you so much for your time today and this has been a fantastic conversation. 

Susan: Well, thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun and I appreciate the opportunities today. 

Marnie: Thank you. Susan stressed that creating an environment that prioritizes respect and acceptance of everyone is crucial to succeed in this changing labour market. 

Russell: And Susan approach change management by going back to basics, looking at her organization's employee value proposition and identifying creative ways for their employees to get more involved. 

Marnie: And you know, it's in the evidence. Higher employee engagement is linked to higher sales, higher profitability and more innovative ideas. But more importantly, employee engagement also increases overall satisfaction at work. 

Russell: For our listeners, today is Marnie's last regular co-hosting episode with us, for now. She'll definitely be joining us on the show again in the future. Marnie is our vice president of pension solutions at the CAAT Pension Plan, and she leads CAAT's efforts to make affordable and secure pensions available to more workplaces across the country. If our listeners are interested in learning more about CAAT or DBPlus, how might they get in touch with you, Marnie? 

Marnie: Russell, you know, I'm always available for a conversation about pensions. Our team of pension solutions experts just love to help employers and employees alike with attraction, retention and retirement challenges. You can connect with me directly on Twitter, LinkedIn or visit powerofplus.ca for more information to see if one of our many pension solutions could be right for your workplace. 

Russell: Join us again on Contributors on February 23rd, to hear from CAAT CEO, Derek Dobson.