With the wildfires burning in northern Saskatchewan (and really, across much of Canada’s north), I can’t help but think of the handful of times I’ve been able to travel to the north of the province for vacations or even work.
This was a fishing trip we did with Shea’s family in 2014.
HR doesn’t set the culture, the leaders do.
So look at the top leaders – how do they act? How do they treat people? How do they support people? How do they enable people to do their best work? Are they well-liked by staff? Do staff even know who they are? (If they don’t, do they introduce themselves or just say “hello” when they come to your location?). Do they admit when they make mistakes? Do they apologise? Do they treat the people below them the same as they treat people at their level?
To put it another way, ask yourself – who does the HR/People & Culture Manager report to?  That person has infinitely more power to set the culture of an organization than the HR manager.
I have my own example of this – I was working at RPL’s HR Unit (now rebranded as People & Culture – which is totally not the inspiration for this post in the first place!) years ago with the HR Manager and a senior Manager on a project to focus on “core competencies”. The senior managers who was leading the project said to the assembled librarians we were presenting our work to “We’ve brought you here because you represent 80% of our workers in this organization.”
And when he said that, I remember thinking – why isn’t 100% of staff represented? And why is the only person in that room who had more power than any of the people representing the 80% not acknowledging they have more power to set culture than any of the 80% in the room?
With all the US-Canada tensions, I would have taken any Canadian team in the Stanley Cup final this year compared to most years when I cheer for whichever team I like best – New York Islanders to Detroit Red Wings to Pittsburgh Penguins. But this year, I wanted a Canadian team in the Cup Final and hell, I would’ve cheered for the Leafs (while choking up the spit-up in my mouth) though they, of course, choked badly themselves!
But I will never ever ever cheer for the Oilers.
So Go Florida Former Flames – may the glory of Tkachuk and Bennett again rescue us from a team that’s one of the worst run franchises in all of sport, that signs criminals and sex offenders, that messed up multiple first round draft picks so much the NHL had to change the draft lottery rules!
