Provide on-site support and outplacement assistance. This includes establishing rapport with clients and affected employees; providing information and encouragement to take full advantage of outplacement and career transition services; follow-up with former employees to provide emotional support and answer any questions they may have.

Led a team of HR Managers who provided a wide variety of labour relations and human resource-related services to approximately 15,000 employees located in 240+ corporate retail/franchise and liquor stores operating under the banner of Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Sobeys Liquor and Safeway Liquor across the province of Alberta.Key accomplishments:• Strategy / Project Management - Led the successful reorganization and deployment of all non-payroll related HR functions in Alberta as a result of Sobey's acquisition of Safeway. This resulted in a more efficient structure with clear roles, responsibilities/accountabilities, tools, and processes. Further, components of the strategy were deployed in other regions across Canada.• Strategy / Change Management - Restructured the HR Manager role to be able to support the above reorganization. New role resulted in the team being able to spend significantly more time in the field, and reduced overall travel expenses by over 20 percent.• Leadership Development - Collaborated with the Sobeys COE and HR Managers to develop and deploy a series of HR and leadership related training workshops and webinars to over 1,100 retail management team members. Topics included effective employee engagement, performance management, rehabilitation claims management, and leadership techniques.

Led a team of up to 26 HR professionals in a variety of functional areas who provided labour relations and human resource related services to over 18,000 employees working in our retail, logistics, manufacturing, and office locations across the region. Key accomplishments include:• Strategy / Change Management - Worked directly with OHS and Rehabilitation Claims teams to develop and implement a new strategy designed to improve our safety record and reduce our annual WCB assessment costs. Over the 6-year period following the implementation, we improved our experience rating by 29 percent and achieved an annual savings of approximately $3.2 Million.• Succession Planning - Worked collaboratively with L&D team to develop and deploy a Succession Planning / Leadership Development Strategy reduce the number of outstanding assistant and store manager vacancies. Over a two-year period, we were able to fill all 21 vacancies and build a ‘bench’ of trained and promotable retail management team members for future consideration.• Talent Acquisition / Retention - Led the development and deployment of an onboarding strategy to assist with the attraction and retention of employees during the Alberta labour shortage. Was successful in reducing turnover by 15% and lowering training costs. Many of the components of the strategy were deemed to be a ‘best practice’ and were deployed in other divisions in Canada and the US,• Diversity & Inclusion – Led the development and deployment of a diversity and inclusion strategy for all of our retail locations in Alberta. When comparing our results to Statistics Canada demographic information we were successful in exceeding our visible minority workforce representation goals for all locations. Further, we achieved a 35+ percent improvement in female representation for all of our in-store Department Managers, Assistant Managers, and Store Managers.

Led a team of 15 HR professionals in a variety of labour relations and human resource functional areas who supported over 7,000 employees working in our 65 retail, logistics, manufacturing, and office locations across the region.Key accomplishments:• Strategy / Change Management - Led the development and deployment of a detailed strategic plan for the entire human resource function in our region. This included: enlisting the support of the entire HR team; and conducting a SWOT analysis of all HR policies, procedures, processes, tools, and resources. Based on feedback from our senior leadership, retail management, and employees, we developed and executed a detailed plan to address areas of opportunity, improve service levels, and lower costs related to the HR function.• Strategy / Leadership Coaching - Worked directly with HR Managers and L&D team to develop a strategy to improve the Upward Evaluation scores of the 31 percent of our retail management team who received an ‘at risk’ ratings from their employees. After deploying a series of group and 1-on-1 training sessions held over a 1-year period on leadership development, action planning, team building, and effective communication techniques, this resulted in all 100 percent of our retail management team members significantly improving their ratings so they were no longer ‘at risk’.