Jill: Good morning. Nice to see some smiley faces from everybody. Just so you know we are recording this session. For some folks who could not be with us this morning we have this session recorded. Welcome, everyone. I'm so proud to say this is actually our 7th annual HR Hot Topics which is so cool, right? We are so pleased. In this year we've gone virtual, obviously, because you're here today. Year after year this event just keeps on getting better. We have a kick ass speaker lined up this morning, if I do say so myself, and we even have something a little bit fun. Yes, I said it. Fun. Okay. We have over 450 guests who have been registered for this event. I think some are slowly coming in so that's okay. They can catch up with us. We have business owners, HR professionals and other leaders. So, welcome. Our HR Topics 2020 hosts welcome each of you. The best darn law firm in town, Neena Gupta with Gowlings and Chantal, give a wave, from Gowlings, my team at H2R Business Solutions. My team, give a wave, and Grand River Personnel, the best darn employment agency in town. You know, I was thinking of something. Where are my peeps on here who remember the show, 'Romper Room', with Miss Nancy? Can I get some thumbs or hands up. Okay, awesome. Awesome, awesome. Romper, bomper, stomper, boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me do. Where was Zoom back then? Miss Nancy would have been in her glory with Zoom when she did her famous, "Okay, friends. It's time to see our friends at ... the magic mirror. I see Jennifer and Caroline. I see Samantha, Jake and I see John, Bob, Paul and Harold too." The millennials have no clue what I'm talking about but that's okay. Okay, okay, stay on track, Jill. Our speakers and session topics this year are pretty kick ass. We'll hear from Jackie Lauer. Jackie, give us a wave, who will speak about employee engagement and managing the remote workforce, followed by Joseph Fung and Lisa Brown, give us a wave, speaking about the best and worst practices of recruitment and onboarding during COVID, followed by Neena Gupta with a 2020 and 2021 legal update, and last but not least, Robin Bender, give us a wave Robin, speaking to us about mental health. I want to thank my co-host companies, Gowling WLG and Grand River Personnel, as well as Chantal and Shannon from Gowling for their help in organizing the guests and technology for this event. You would think that doing this online is much easier than a live event. It's not. It's still a lot of work so thank you to everyone for their help. A special shout out to Chris and Kim, from Grand River Personnel, for the recent birth of their first grandchild and to Chantal, from Gowlings, for the recent birth of her first granddaughter. Congratulations. A shout out to my dad who has joined us this morning as a guest. Why? Because he's retired and this is the best darn thing going on this morning. I think he likely passed up the weekly seniors poker game at his condo just to be here with us. He has just moved back here to Waterloo after living in Atlanta, Georgia for 22 years so welcome home and back to Canada, Dad. The closed captioning feature is provided for this session. There is a button on the bottom of your Zoom screen for that. If your camera is off right now please turn it on. We need to see each other's smiling faces. We have gone for months without normal contact so let's see everybody. And, P.S., if you don't have any pants no one will know. Throughout this session, if you have a question, you'll see the button at the bottom that's a Q&A. So if you click on that button, you have a question, type it in and Michelle from my team will be monitoring the questions that come in and she will read the questions out loud for the speakers. So please type anything in there that you have. We'll be answering questions throughout the presentations. As well, we'll have time at the end. As you can imagine it's a bit of a challenge for those of us facilitating and speaking this morning while not being able to hear any sort of feedback from the audience. So we're going to improvise. Here's what we're going to do. If you want to react, give a silent clap. Let's try it. Come on. Okay, awesome. The silent clap. You can do a thumbs up. Let's try it. You can even do a raise the roof. Alright. Awesome, awesome. Okay, at the bottom of your screen you'll also see a button that says reactions. Actually, I'm not seeing it on my screen right now but you may see it on yours. You can also click that button to react with a high five or something but we'd rather that we see you guys doing it in person. So those HR designated folks, on this Zoom, this does qualify for CPD points with HRPA. We will providing you with that code at the end of the session. So, let's get it started. What do you say? Thumbs up? Alright. Alright.
First off I'd like to introduce Sydney, from Family and Children's Services, Waterloo Region, with a special announcement for us. So over to you, Sydney.
Sydney: Thank you, Jill. I hope everyone will bear with me. I'm fighting a bit of a cold. So I'll introduce myself. My name is Sydney. Like Jill said I'm here on behalf of Family and Children's Services Foundation. I wanted to say a big thank you to H2R Business Solutions, Gowlings and Grand River Personnel as they've made a donation to Family and Children's Services, in lieu of hosting this event at Whistle Bear, and the several costs associated with it. They decided they wanted to give back on behalf of their organizations and on behalf of all of you HR Hot Topics attendees. Thank you to all of you for that. We really appreciate it. I just wanted to share with you, really briefly, about why donations like this are so important to us and how they make a difference in the lives of the families that we serve here in the Waterloo Region. As I'm sure all of you can imagine, and have been experiencing yourselves, everyone is really struggling with the challenges that COVID-19 has presented. The pandemic, combined with pre-existing factors like poverty, mental health issues, addictions, systemic racism and/or trauma, these things are really disproportionately affecting the vulnerable families in our community. As a result there's really urgent need for additional supports and prevention programs for these families ,so that they have the opportunity to build connection and resilience with themselves and in their communities, which ultimately reduces the risk of child abuse and neglect. These prevention programs are actually not funded by the government. So that's what we do at Family and Children's Services Foundation is we raise funds and awareness to support these prevention programs. Especially at this time of year, you can imagine that these donations go a long way for the families that we serve. They do things like providing practical items like groceries, hand sanitizer and masks, facilitate access to mental health care which is always important, offer respite to parents through programming for their children, provide educational supports for children and youth and, at the holidays, provide special items like gifts and games for families to use together to come together and connect and build those special memories, even in difficult times. I just wanted to say thank you again. That this donation today really will make an immediate difference now and have a lasting impact on generations to follow. We're really grateful for the support. If any of you attending today want to learn a bit more about what we do at Family and Children's Services Foundation, or would like to support the work that we do, you can feel free to reach out to Jill and she can send you some information, or even connect you with me and I'm happy to share more. So, thank you to all of you today. I hope you have a great conference and really grateful for the opportunity to speak to you all and say thank you.
Jill: Awesome. Thank you, Sydney. My co-host and I would like to encourage each of you to consider making a donation to Family and Children's Services, even personally, or perhaps a business donation. They are in great need especially now during COVID. Okay, ready for some fun that I talked about earlier? It's time to make sure your videos are on and you need to turn up your volume. For us speakers today, the audience has asked that we speak up a little bit. Can everybody hear me okay? Oh, perfect. Maybe it was just Sydney because she's dealing with a bit of a cold but let's try and speak up a little bit. Time to turn up your volume at least to 80 or 90%. Trust me. It will be worth it. I know, I know. Some of you are thinking that it's morning and you just want to drink your coffee but this year we are turning HR Hot Topics up a notch and we are going to kick start this event with something fun. Work with me here, folks. None of this, "Eeee! What's she doing? I don't want to have fun." None of that. No. I just ask for 10 minutes of your time. So who's in? Thumbs up? Awesome. Okay. So here's the deal. You have 2 minutes. Whether you're at home or in the office, in an orderly fashion, your task is to go and get the following items and return here in 2 minutes. No running, just walk. Turn your cameras on and turn up your volume. You have 2 minutes. Go and get 2 wooden spoons or, if you don't have wooden spoons, improvise and a pillow. Alright. Go! We'll see you back in 2 minutes.
Alright, Jackie. I see yours. Awesome.
Just give everybody a couple of minutes to get back.
Alright, everybody. Let's see what you've got. Alright. Very impressive. Okay. I'm going to turn things over to you, Val.
Val: Awesome! Thank you, Jill. Well, welcome and I am so excited to be here with you this morning. My name is Val and I am with DROM. DROM is drum and om bringing energy and calm together. We are going to get energized this morning. Help get you focused. Help get you ready to take all of this valuable, amazing energy, but most of all, have some fun. Who doesn't want to start their day with a little bit of fun! I only have one rule and that's what it is. You must have fun! I'm going to encourage everyone to stand up. Your body and brain are going to love you for this. Stand up. You're going to put your pillow, if you can, on your chair. You can use your desk too. That's okay. There's no wrong way. Your spoons, your pens, your forks, whatever it is you have, are going to be your drumsticks. I'm going to ask everyone to mute but turn on your cameras because let's feel connected. Let's build that community. Let's really feel like we're doing this together because really we are. Trust me. I can feel your energy from here. We're going to start by getting grounded. I want you to stand up nice and tall. Bring yourself into this moment. Give me the next 10 minutes, that's it, to focus on you, right here, right now. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If you want to close your eyes, take a big breath in, and I want you to send that breath past your chest into your belly, filling it up like a balloon. As you exhale I want you to let go of any stress or worry. Any tension that you're holding onto, let go of it, it doesn't belong here. And again, inhale sending that past the chest, past those stress receptors, bringing down the breath into your belly and triggering those calm receptors. Now, on your next inhale I want you to give me big arms, big stretch up, starting to wake up that body, and exhale. Bring them down. Are you ready? Here we go. Turn it up if you need to. Here we go.
We're going to start drumming on your pillow. If you had a ball you could drum on your ball. If you're on your desk go for it. Just get up and move. Let's go a little faster in the tempo and guess what? No one's watching it. They're too busy with their own hands and feet to worry about what anyone else is doing. Let's go. Come on, super tempo. Come on, drum it up. How fast can you drum? It's a great stress reliever right here. Just drum it out. I want you to take it to the side. You want to bring it to the side of your chair, air drum, or bring it all the way down to the floor. Totally up to you. Back to the chair. I'm going to say chair because that's what I'm using, but whatever is your drumming on, take it the other side. Can you go low or half way? Back to your chair. in the ... side. Center. Side. Center. Side, center, side, center, side center, AHHHH! See? No wrong way. As long as you're moving and having fun. Give me two hands, double. Double. We're going to bend the knees. We're going to come down a little bit. Hit the side of your chair if you can. Looks like this. Ready? Down, up. Down and up. You can just do a little bend. You don't have to do a big bend. Listen to your body. Do what feels right for you. We're going to add a click to your tab. Click. Bring it up. Click it over head. Down. Up. Down. You look awesome! Ready? Let's go a little bit faster. Let's go. Down and up. Really wake up those legs, the body. 3, 2, one more. Back to singles. Right here. Singles. Alright! We're going to do 1, 2, 3 click. Looks like this. Ready? 1, 2, 3, up. 1, 2, 3, up. And up. 1, 2, 3. Ahhh, look at you guys altogether. One big drum. Drumming goes community. It's a great exercise for our brain, our body. One more. Okay, bring it back. Give me that super tempo again. Come on, drum it out. How fast can you drum? How fast can you drum? How hard can you hit that? Come on, GO! Now, bring it back to tempo and march it out. March it out. Wow. Okay. I got my heart rate up. I hope you did too. We're going to start this next one with a polyrhythm. That means your hands and feet are going to be doing two different things. Let me go catch that beat. There we go. Give me slow sticks. Slow. Ready? Now give me fast feet. Keep your sticks going slow, but your feet are going fast, your sticks are staying slow. Can you do it? Okay now give me walking feet. Walking feet. Walking feet now super fast sticks. Go. Can you do it? Your hands and feet are doing two different things. It's called the polyrhythm. Okay. Let's bring the hands down. A little slower. We're going to do a paradiddle. This is a drumming rudiment. I want you to try it. It looks like this. We're going to go par a did dle. I, 2, 1, 1. That's a par a, a little faster, let's try it. Par a did dle. 1, 2, 1, 1. I say you are awesome. You are awesome. You are awesome. Good. 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2. One more! Really fast hands. Fast hands. Give me slow feet. Do that. What are we doing? Polyrhythm, yes. Polyrhythms, paradiddles. Give me, ready, fast feet. Fast feet. Slow, ... Slow hands. Bring it back. Let's go. Par a did dle. I, 2, 1, 1. Now, I'm going to make it a little harder. Try this. Ready? It looks like this. Par a cross cross. I'm going to cross on the diddle. Par a did dle. 1, 2. We're crossing that midline. Engaging both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Ready? A little faster. Try it. 1, 2, 1. Par a did dle. Par a. I see those spoons/sticks going fast. Alright. Last one. Bring it back. Give me fast hands. Give me fast hands. This time give me fast feet. Fast hands, fast feet. Come on, go. Can you get them both moving? Nice! Bring it back. March it out. We're going to take it into a slow jumping jack. Slow. Bring it down and in. Slow.
Now I want you to take one foot, tap the opposite stick. Right to cross. We're going to go a little faster. Opposite stick, opposite foot. This is really working that brain again. Now we're going to finish behind your back. Can you do it? Behind your back, opposite stick, opposite foot. Your brain is going, "WHAAAT?" It's early. I know. But know what's happening? So much is going on in your brain. You're waking up. You're getting refocused. You're getting energized. I hope all that's happening. I want you to draw a big smile with those sticks. Big smile. You can sing too. Singing's good for the soul. We're going to draw a big circle with those sticks, spoons, your hands. Draw a big circle. Go the other way with that circle. Now make that circle smaller and smaller into a tiny, tiny circle. I want you to turn them into two circles. Make them bigger and bigger. Okay, bring it in. I want you to take two sticks in one hand. Bring your feet wide apart. I want you to weave those sticks in and out of your legs. Can you do it? In and out of your legs. Can you go a little faster? Yeah, yeah. I know you can. You can practice this in the middle of the day. You know? When you need just like a little brain break. Bring it up. We're going to go around the world. It looks like this. We're going to around your chair and up. Here we go. Side, center, side, up. Side, center, side, up. Okay, this time, we're going to add a click. Click it here. 1, 2, ready? Let's go faster. 1, 2, 3. Nope, don't worry. All the way one more time. Okay. Stop it here. We're going to go the other way. Slow it down. No click at first. Ready? Let's go. Slow. Side, center, side, no click, just up, just up. It's hard for the brain to turn it around. No click again. Side. Okay you can click it this time. 1, 2, ready? Let's go faster. 1, 2, 3. Side, center, side, up. One more. Give me a great big stretch. Up and over. Big reach. Big stretch. And the other way. Great big stretch. And around in front. Stretch that shoulder. Stretch that shoulder. Reach the spoon to the side wall. And the other way. Big stretch. Now, I want to test your reflexes. How are your reflexes this morning. Hold your sticks out in front, knuckles facing the ceiling. I just want you to drop and catch. Drop and catch. So you have to let go. Let them fall and come underneath and catch. Can you do it? How are your reflexes? Try the other way, knuckles facing the floor, come overtop and catch. Can you get them? How are your reflexes? Try one each way. How's that? Yeah! We're doing nice! Alright, I want you to bring it down to the chair. Have a seat. Have a seat. Setting the spoons down, your sticks down. I want you to give me a big breath in. Bringing those hands together right down the center of your body.
And we're going into a rhythm. So it's going to look like this. We're going to start with a big stomp, stomp. Okay? We're going to start with a big stomp, stomp. So turn it up if you can't hear it very well. Really want you to feel this drumbeat. We're going to start stomping. Like you mean it. Okay? Hear that? Let's go. Come on, like you mean it. Own it. You're taking this power with you into the rest of your day. Nothing's getting in your way because you've got this. Come on, like you mean it! Oh yeah. Imagine, all 400 of us in the same room creating this boom, add it, on the lap, 2 claps. Just imagine all of us together creating this powerful energy. Together, on your own. I can feel it. 1, 2. That's it, connecting with your own powerful heartbeat. Oh yes. Being right here in this moment. Nowhere else. Adding a clap. You can't be in stress or anxious, fight or flight, when you're having fun and in the moment. You just can't. So be right here, owning this, in this moment. You've got a lot going on. But right now have fun. Ready? Now I want you to own it. I want to hear you go, "Huhh". Come on. Nice and loud. Huhh. You've got this! Come on, huhh. That's it. Louder. Huhh. Yes! Huhh. I can feel it. I really can feel it from here. Come on! Yes! You are awesome! Go. Now, I want you to sit up nice and tall. Close your eyes. Resting your hands on your lap and I just want you to breathe. I want you to be here in this moment. You being with you. That is it. Feeling and reflecting on your own powerful heartbeat. Every thing that you need is inside of you. You are awesome. You have got this. As you inhale, sending that breath all the way down to the tips of your toes, the tips of your fingers, filling up with positivity, passion, purpose, all of those amazing things that you are. As you exhale imagine you're going to sprinkle that out into the world like pixie dust. Because it sure could use it right now. Now, I want you to take one big slow breath in, nice and slow. And same thing on the exhale. Nice, slow, controlled. Feeling your body relax. Bringing yourself back to this moment. And when you're ready, opening your eyes, and we have to finish like this because I always have to do it. So we're going to reach down and grab onto all of this awesomeness that you brought in here this morning. Bring it up over your head. Pack it between your fingers like a little snowball. Take all of this amazing energy that we created together and your own amazing awesomeness and bring it down and squish it right into your heart. And one more time. Bring those arms up. Wrap them around yourself. Give yourself a great big hug and a pat on the back. On the count of 3 we're going to yell as loud as you possibly can I am awesome. Are you ready? Here we go on the count of 3. 1, 2, 3, I AM AWESOME! Yay! Woohoo! You are awesome. Thank you so much for drumming with me this morning. I hope that it set the stage for you to continue with the rest of your morning to feel awesome. To take all of this amazing information, and everything that's coming at you, in and do what you need to do best. Showing up every day in the world being your best darn self possible. So, I'll turn it back over to you, Jill. If anyone wants to reach out, I do this for teams, corporate events, all sorts of fun things happening in my world. So I would love to hear from any of you. Reach out through Jill but I'll turn it back over to you. Enjoy the rest of your day. I will be back for a tiny bit a little later. So, yay! Keep being awesome.
Jill: Amazing. Thank you so much, Val, and welcome back everybody. Anybody else like, holy smokes, I needed a couple of minutes to just chill out there. We've got our juices flowing. Feeling a little more awake and if there's anybody out there still doing there, "Eeee! She made us do something fun." I sure hope not. Anyway, if you want to think of doing something like this for your team or your corporate event, think of Val and good for you, Val, for pivoting your business into something virtual. Val used to do this in person with huge, huge groups at events. So good for you, Val. Okay. So that was a perfect transition this morning for our next speaker who really doesn't need much of an introduction because she is Miss Popular with organizations, especially within our Waterloo Region. Get ready for a couple of F-bombs to be dropped. Watch, she will. I'm taking about Jackie Lauer. I'm also proud to announce that Jackie has officially partnered with my team, at H2R, to build out our leadership development side of the business. So we are super excited. Jackie Lauer, workplace culture guru and executive coach, please join me in welcoming Jackie who will talk to us about managing the remote workplace through employee engagement. Welcome, Jackie.
Jackie: Thank you very much, Jill. I'm going to share my screen with everybody. Here we go. So, still catching my breath. I'm just saying I sat down 20 seconds before you all did. I had to strip off my scarf because I was freakin sweating. I don't know about you. Very grateful for the wind coming in through my window right now. I do like that you didn't have to see my whole body so there's a little bit of comfort in that you just got to see the top half. I could have faked it but I only faked the last 20 seconds, just saying. I am so honoured to be here. I will watch the time because I've noticed that we're a little bit over, which is totally fine, so I'll do my best to reign it in a little bit. You know, the reality is that the world has changed. I'm stating the obvious, aren't I? So given the pandemic we have learned to just adjust to this remote work world and this is a great opportunity with so many of you on the call together to use the chat feature and share with each other. Because 300 plus ideas, sitting in the room together right now, make sure you're sharing with each other. Here's some tips for you from a pure brain friendly perspective. How does neuroscience guide us, and how do we engage around employees a little bit better than what we've been doing, and some actionable tips based on that brain science to make work a little more engaging and building trust so it's a little less stressful.
Some of these look familiar? I thought if we had time I'd love everyone just to turn their cameras around and show us what we're looking at. Reality is this is new but not new. So working from home is not new for some. For me it's been a part of my world for 20 years but it was only 50% of my time. Now it's 95 to 100% of my time. So how do we make this remote world a little more inclusive? A little more brain friendly and productive? So I'm going to give you some of those tips. Here's the thing and I hope you've heard this many times over from many practitioners that do the kind of work that I do. The Human brain is a social brain. We actually require connection, and as much as I feel like I've been telling that story and sharing that research for almost 20 years, I feel like people get it now. Now that we actually know the pain of not actually being together in our workplaces we've seen anxiety go up and depression increase. We're finally talking workplace wellness. I'm sure Robin Bender is like, "Come on. I've been telling this story for how long and workplaces are feeling the pain and so they're now understanding." I feel like we don't just sell it. They're coming to us and saying help. We need some help. The human brain is a social brain. We actually require connection. So part of this engagement piece is, and I know a lot of you have done a good job and shared that in the chat with each other, what are the things that you have, consciously and intentionally, designed to make sure that your workplaces are more social if we haven't been able to run into each other in collision meetings or at the watercooler, what have you done to invite that social piece to actually happen? A lot of the science in neuroscience has been around the in group versus out group. I don't know if you guys remember Mr. Wilson. That's why I put a picture up there so it's like being stranded on an island, right? Tom Hanks still needed someone to take to so he created Mr. Wilson. I've been working alone for many years. I've had my weird little things that have kept me going. Talking out loud. Hearing my own voice. I've got my own Mr. Wilson. We actually require it as a coping strategy to survive being on a stranded island.
But the in group piece, the research around that has been really interesting. When you talk about a team that gets together, if they have shared goals and shared values or an experience that's shared, they tend to be more productive. So, yeah, it's about recognizing that we're all different. We come from different backgrounds, different experiences, all of those things matter that make us unique and special. But polling a team together to feel the in group, you can actually measure in the brain through MRIs, the connection in the pre-frontal cortex that happens between people. Trust centers of the brain actually open up and you can measure the productivity of a team that feels connected with shared goals, shared values. The organizations that do that well, and the team leaders that do that well with their team, produce more results and on top of that they have a team that's more connected to each other. More inclusive with each other. It's like the old expression, I worked with a department in National Defense for 7 years and they talked about brothers in arms, it's an old language but it's the idea that we have a shared experience. One of the things that I'm appreciating finding some benefit to what we're all going through is, internationally, we have a shared experience with the pandemic. For the first time in a long time we're going to war together. For lack of a better phrase. We're having the shared experience of how hard this is and what the challenges are around this. In groups, teams that have that capacity to create the language around the shared values and goals, it's really, really important. So make an effort, as a leader, whether it's a team lead or the organizational CEO, is creating those unique shared experiences. I'll give you an example. One of my clients is a senior vice-president, sales, for a global company, Fortune 500 company. I was on the phone with him last night and I said, "What is the main thing you learned at your, I think he had a virtual leadership retreat, globally for 3 days. Can you imagine sitting on your butt in front of Zoom for 3 days? But that's what they did. I said, "What's the main thing you got from this?" and he said part of the agenda design was to share feedback. To be really courageous about what they wanted to see more of and less of from each other as humans in virtual environment and it was hard. But they got courageous. They got vulnerable and he said at the end of the session they all agreed, on all the things they did in those 3 days together, it was the shared experience of the stress of giving each other feedback. But it created a story and an experience that they could align with each other. Creating those shared experiences is really, really important from the pure productivity and connection inclusivity perspective.
What you see is what you get. So what I'm talking about is one of my biggest pet peeves, in this virtual world, is some people are not doing an awesome job of creating the virtual environment where we can see faces. So you'll note that some of us have a light. So I'm a little bit dark on this side. I do my best to light it up a little bit. It's really important that we don't go to close to the camera because that's a little bit horrifying, anyway, when you see all the lines in the face. That we sit back and you can see a bit more of someone's body language. Making an effort because the brain, you guys have heard the term, Zoom fatigue. It exists for a reason. The brain is overcompensating for all those little micro expressions that we're used to observing in meetings and body tone and language and we're missing a lot of it. So we're overworking the visual cues. So make an effort to make sure that you can be seen, in terms of your body language and the expressions on your face. Also, as part of this what you see is what you get, it's also seeing you listen that builds the trust. It is seeing you listen. So, if we're in a meeting and I'm kind of looking away and I'm digging around in something, is she looking at her phone? She looks like she's typing away on something. Making effort to demonstrate you're actually paying attention. It's all of those little things, those tiny little moments whether we're in person together or we're on camera together, that let's your people know you care. You're in the present moment with them. You actually are interested in what it is that they have to say. We show that predominantly with our body, in the way that we are being, not just in the words that we are using. All the same lessons. This is the stuff we've learned about active listening for 40 years in management training. We're just translating it now to the virtual environment. So I don't know about you but I sure am triggered when. It's like, "You could just come look at me for a moment?" Share your screen is another tip. Share you screen and take notes where possible. I'll give you an example. When I do my work with the client at the Accelerator Center, and I'm designing shared mission vision and values exercises, I'll actually pop up my screen and we're in brainstorm mode I'll have a screen that could show what did we just say? We're brainstorming. What did we just agree to? What do you want to do next? So they can see by the words that I'm typing, and the activity on my screen, I'm 100% in this conversation. Every time I'm done a meeting I'll go, "Do you want my notes?" and it's like, yup, sure. It just shows active engagement. So do your best to demonstrate you're paying attention.
Another one, sit back were you can. Sit back a little bit and let them see your hands. I'm sort of handsy, even though I'm not that far away, but where possible. I've noticed if I have a virtual coaching call where it's video versus phone I wasn't paying attention, but I've noticed that I do this and I suppose it's my way or habit of keeping myself still. I want my body to be still so that my heart and my head are fully engaged in that moment. Find out. What I love about Val's work with DROM is the beautiful gift of mindfulness and presence. This just Jackie's opinion. I think every meeting should start with that. Present moment. Get the energy going. Anyway. I got a little excited there.
Sound advice. Again, when we are struggling with hearing someone we saw that just log in. We saw this when we're trying to hear the speakers. That it releases stress hormones in the brain. So we're not present. We can't focus and so do everything you can for your team, and for the people in your organization, just to make sure they have good sound. I know that some organizations did it right away. They did a beautiful job of supporting the remote environment and many did not. They might have just focused on the tools that they have but they forgot that sound matters. Just making sure that there is the capacity with really good lighting, really good sound quality because it affects our relationships. It impacts the trust in terms of hearing each other and we're spending unnecessary energy fixing something. If you're in a meeting in the board room and you're all together and someone just outside of the board room is making a ton of noise. They're playing their rock music. There's two people shouting. What do you do? You get up from your seat, you go outside the board room, and you're like, "Hey man. Keep it down. We're trying to hear each other in here." It's the same here. We've got to do what we can to support the environment so that we can actually connect with each other and hear each other. I'm just going to do a little time check.
Alright. I'm going to zip through this people. I've got this! Cue the visuals. So one of the things that I love is that when we're using things like the thumbs up, and using the clapping feature, or even doing it visually this way, or hopping on a poll is that those who are mastering these and learning to use those cues are actually more efficient in their meetings. It isn't always necessary to go, "How do you feel about that?" and 12 people, one at a time, take 10 minutes to express their opinion. Sometimes a really well designed poll, give it the answer to something, so you can get something else done. The one thing we are doing is overdoing meetings right now. So how do we actually make them productive, still connect with each other, feel heard and go to something that's actionable. Leverage the back channels. So I love the chat feature. I think that it's really important that people have permission to have conversation with each other, and share, as long as it's all employed. You know, I don't want you talking about your grocery lists maybe, right now. Do that privately. It's important that people are allowed to have a free space to connect with each other and to process. The brain needs a place to prioritize the data it's just heard. We also need to build connection and trust with each other to say, "What did you just hear Jackie say?" or, "What's the message that Jill just gave us?" and, "How are you guys going to apply that." That's important but it might not be important to everyone so having a place to use the back channels is pretty important.
I hope that some of you are familiar with the data around 20 minute meetings or 50 minute meetings but no more. Here we are, on a full day thing, but one of things, I just did this summit. It was a 3 day summit for the lawyers but because it was a brain based summit, I don't know if any of you were here, one of the things they did brilliantly, it was after 20 minutes of speaking, they called it a digestible moment and they gave us 2 minutes to pause and reflect. So everything that we can do, even if it's drumming, it's take your bio break. It's a moment of reflection. The brain actually requires that time to organize, it's like filing something in your filing system, it needs a space to put all that new perspective and data to process it. So it's safely stored away so we're not over producing. It's kind of like driving by rote. You know when you drive in your neighbourhood, you're not longer conscious about where you're driving. You sometimes show up and go, "How did I get here?" It's because the brain has put everything into the pre-frontal cortex and it's just naturally there so it's quick, easy access. Right? So the same thing when we're processing data from a meeting or a learning event, give people time, even if it's a stressful conversation between you and me. Maybe we had a come to Jesus moment and we're having a courageous conversation, we both need time to go, "Okay. What just happened? What was my insight? What do I do with this now?" So, please keep that in mind.
Sort of spring boarding off that, our restorative breaks are pretty critical. It's like giving people that space to kind of decrease the cortisol levels, which is the stress hormones, whether it's laying back in your hammock. For me it's the outdoors. I've shared this with few people but one of the gifts I gave myself was moving into a condo that has green space and there's walking trails here. That's been my savings grace since the pandemic. It makes me even teary just talking about it. It's that place where you just destress, manage the cortisol and you increase the happy hormones like serotonin and dopamine. Getting into our yoga or going for a walk in nature. Whatever that is for you. One of the things that I love about some of the leaders I've had the honour to spend time with during this pandemic are the ones that force it. What I mean by that is, and this is where brain science comes in, is it's creating habits for the whole organization around restorative. Around time for nature and I've got this one leader, he has literally blocked his people from the internal internet from their homes, they are not allowed to log in until 8:00am and they're kicked out at 5:00. I'm not even kidding you. The CEO will write, it happened for the first 4 months, you're done working at 5:00. Go be with your family. He literally told 350 people that. Go be with your family. Because it's so easy to overwork when we're at home because it's right there. We see it. My son asked me, he's like, "Why don't you sit at your desk?" Nope, this is Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. I walk around my desk on the weekends. I am not, because I will start to think and plan, right? So you see a trend in some of the things I'm saying. Give time for insight. The more reflective you are, the more effective you are and it's really about the gift. It's like slow down to speed up. That's an expression I use all the time. I'm sure I annoy the heck out of my clients but if we create that space for that to happen we'll actually be more productive, more thoughtful, more empathetic, better connection skills. Focus on the outcomes, not the activities. So stop micromanaging. I'm still seeing it from leaders. We seem to have this hard time not trusting things we can't see. Because I don't see you working. I don't see you logging in at the right time every day. So get practiced at the language around what are the outcomes. How are we going to measure that today or on this project? What's the end result we're looking for on Friday? Whatever. Just getting really good at giving people autonomy because the brain actually thrives in a place where it is trusted. When we get that kind of autonomy we are more productive. We are more innovative. Agree on meeting norms. So whether it's brainstorming. Whether it's just a weekly meeting or a daily standup. Just get practice. Have the team decide with each other what our meeting norms are. So there's shared agreement in terms of how to behave. Example, one person speaks at a time or share the air or whatever it needs to be, find the meeting norm so that you can be more productive. The brain requires a knowing of what expected behaviours are and when we went into this environment, some people love the virtual and some don't, so even the quality of the virtual meeting changes depending on who's leading you in that virtual meeting. I'm getting to the end so I can pass the torch and honour our time here. Feel the emotional intelligence of those on your team and for yourself and master courageous conversation. Leaders, more than ever before and there's a typo, apologies, more than ever before we have to lean on our empathy. Again, I'm talking about my fellow last night, he's that Fortune 500 company, he's international, and that in the end I said, "What was your big lesson in terms of feedback from your own team?" He said, "They said they don't know me as well as I know them." I'm like, "What did that mean?" He goes, "I haven't been vulnerable to share who I am." I said, "Why does that matter?" He said, "Because the more they know me they more they trust my good intention." Right? That sense of bring the whole self to work. So more than ever before we need our emotional intelligence capacity to increase and quicker. Trust and engagement, it happens one conversation at a time so let's build that capacity. Bottom line is, and this is Jackie's opinion, I think this remote thing is pretty awesome. When I'm watching people do it well, they're having more time for family, more time for self-care. There's a lot of data, in research pre-pandemic not post, that demonstrates that this is good for the employee, however, we haven't mastered this in post-pandemic time. It's been forced upon us. We're not practiced at some of the habits and the behaviours. We're not always trusting what people are doing at home. Let's be clear, we've got kids and pets and everybody in our space so that puts a whole level of challenges in terms of our health and wellness. But I hope that we're learning a lot of really cool lessons, so when we go back to some semblance of normal, we get to keep the really cool things that will serve us in terms of our mental and wellness going forward. I don't know about you but I'm super excited to hear Robin later talk about some of the insight and lessons that she's had. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I hope I didn't talk too darn fast.
Jill: Awesome. Thank you, Jackie. Thumbs up, thumbs up. Raise the roof. Awesome. We didn't hear any F-bombs, Jackie, so I find that really odd this morning. Somethings just not right.
Jackie: I know what happened. The fucking pandemic changed me.
Jill: Hear we go. There we go. Thank you, Jackie. Thank you for getting us back on time. Wow, you are amazing. Okay. Thank you. For our next topic, recruitment and onboarding during COVID, best and not so best practices. I'd like to introduce Joseph Fung, CEO of Uvaro, and Lisa Brown, VP of talent at Vidyard. Take it away.
Lisa: Great. Thanks. I'm going to pull up my screen. Don't need into my slack messages there. Can I get thumbs up from the panelists? Can you see my screen okay? Great. Okay, we're going to start with self-introductions. I'm going to turn it over to my co-presenter, Joseph. Do you want to start with an introduction?
Joseph: Absolutely. First of all, thanks everyone for having us. This is always a fun conversation. I know Lisa and I have some fun conversations planned but, as we're going be sure to tell us any questions you want in the Q&A, because we'll be keeping our eyes open on that. As Jill already shared I'm the co-founder and CEO at Uvaro. We're a tech sales re-training program. So we help individuals who are in sales and customer service roles in other industries. We have a lot of clients in hospitality, tourism, pick up the skills and introductions networks necessary to land roles at tech companies. So we help place people like companies like Shopify and other great tech companies. Through that we're seeing a lot of onboarding, not just for ourselves, but the recruiting and onboarding process that all of our grads are going through. So it will be a fun lens. Lisa, balls all yours.
Lisa: Yeah, thanks. I'm kind of laughing. So one of the pandemic problems I'm facing is obviously I can't get a new headshot. I've got COVID hair right now that looks very different than my photo. So I hope everybody recognizes me. I'm Lisa and I'm part of our talent team at Vidyard. Vidyard is a video for business company. Specifically we've always been focused on marketing and sales but hopefully I can help translate the power of video as we talk about onboarding and recruiting. I think the pandemic probably created the opportunity for me to fully embrace what my company does and apply it to what we do in HR and recruiting. So just to give a little bit of context. Let me go to the next slide. This is probably your work place, give or take a few desks, a few people here and there, but I think we can all agree that we were on-prem, for the most part. I think Jackie took us through that there's a lot of research and information out there that suggests that we're ... was actually positive things, but I think if we could probably be honest with ourselves, a lot of companies adopted an onsite strategy and we did very much at Vidyard. Then the reality of March, I'm going to say for us it was March 13th, I don't know the exact date for everybody else but it was almost like everybody just picked up and walked out. It almost looked like a little bit of a ghost town for a period of time. But the reality is that you're probably looking at something like this if you're trying to enter back into the workplace right now. Some of those said very challenges are probably what we can address in the onsite, this hybrid working remotely and those challenges for recruiting and onboarding. So Joseph and I are going to give you the lens of the CEO. So I'm really privileged to have a co-presenter today that I look up to, to seek to understand what does a CEO actually think about in any given day because I think it is a little bit different than what the HR lens looks like. Joseph and I are just going to bounce back and forth. I hope you guys don't mind that we are going to kind of interview each other along the way. But, Joseph, I want to ask you as a CEO, how would you describe these unprecedented times?
Joseph: It's really funny because we've got the unique lens of also being really deeply entrenched in sales culture. So one of the things that jumps out are the way companies interact with each other. It's really similar to the recruiting side of things and so it's been fascinating to me as a CEO seeing those parallels. One of the things that we saw, for us as well as for a lot of companies, and, Lisa, I'm sure you'll agree as well, is there is that period of an immediate reaction and then a little bit of denial. Hey, let's deal with this current crisis. Let's figure out what the plan is until things come back to normal. But then for us, and I think about the peer groups that I'm in, the investors that I chat with, as we got into the mid-summer, as we got into really August is when I think it sunk in, we recognized that this wasn't about a temporary change and a lot of the ongoing language, is this a V shaped recovery, a U shaped recovery, whatever weird shaped alphabet, but it really was a step function change. For me, as a CEO, one of the big things that we're spending a lot of time thinking about is what are the roles that are now completely changed? A lot of it anchors around talent. As I think about not just what are the specific actions around recruiting, what's our strategy around talent? Do we think about one location? Do we think about fully remote? Do we think about certain demographics, certain skill sets, going to market? All of that. Everything. It's kind of like everything's on the table. That's the, I think, single biggest change as we think about these unprecedented times. All of the 2020, all of the 2021 and in many cases, 2022 plans, are out the window because everything's being re-written. That's exciting. Terrifying. Plain and simple.
Lisa: Joseph, is there anything specific that you guys are dealing with that might be unique to your company or do you think it's kind of a shared a experience how you're approaching it and handling the situation?
Joseph: There's likely some experiences there, similar. Like the ghost town effect, if I come out, yeah. It felt like overnight everyone's out of the office. 2/3 of the people took their monitors so it looked like we were robbed. Dealing with just that office space reaction I think is true for a lot of tech companies. I think we share that. For us, something that's unique to us is that we have the two sides to our business. We had our traditional what you would expect from a software company but then it is services. This training and replacement offering. To a certain extent got stalled. Sales sold down. We retained our customers but it wasn't growth, growth, growth. It was kind of like let's retrench. But on the other side it took off like wildfire and, for us, what we saw was that not just tech companies but a lot of quasi-techs, like financial tech, manufacturing tech companies, were looking to hire people with remote selling and remote business skills. So that part of our business really took off. One of the things that's been interesting for us, and I don't know if it's the same for you at Vidyard, is that internal conflict of the fact that it is such a challenging time for so many of our customers, our partners, our suppliers, although there's an ecosystem but we have this huge opportunity and this huge tailwind that's benefiting the business in so many ways. There's an interesting almost survivor's guilt that you need to deal with as a company and struggling with that has been an intricate cultural phenomena.
Lisa: Still from the lens of a CEO, I'm curious how do you navigate and continue to adapt. You talk about talking to investors and keeping a sort of pulse on what's happening but what do you lean on or draw from to navigate properly?
Joseph: A really big part of it, I love Jackie's comments earlier about the more reflective you are the more effective you are, and that honesty and candor are so important. That comes into the way we talk to our clients, the way we talk to our team. Sometimes that's little details, like our monthly all hands, we share way more information now. We always pulled out highlights from our board meetings but now we're pulling out more. We're being much more candid about where we're uncertain and where we're ... So as a CEO I call it about what do you share when you're in front of the whole company or in front of the whole audience. That equation has changed and we felt the need to be much, much more candid about what the unknowns are and what the challenges are and it's been amazing to see how the teams responded. It's been galvanizing. I love the fact that we got a chance to float this around, so I'm going to turn this back to you because I have the delight of being able to work directly with our team and be that kind of translation layer, but I know that as a CEO the way you communicate things, the way you ask things, the way you direct things, can cause other stressors. So I've always wanted to ask another executive, from another company, what are the things that we can do well and not? I'd love to hear from your perspective in the company how these uncertain times impacted you. How would you describe them from your lens and from Vidyard's lens?
Lisa: Yeah, well, first of all I'd say that every HR and CEO on this particular call can probably say that you haven't dealt with the pandemic. I think maybe many of us were around during SARS or different issues but we always have our emergency preparedness, our business continuity plan and it's sitting on a dusty shelf. I feel like I was kind of ready for something. The news back in January and February was kind of creating some awakening, I don't know the right adjective there to describe it, but you're starting to pay attention and turn it aside. But everything came sort of fast and furious. With the blink of an eye it was kind of like everybody go home. I think if I was to describe these times I came to realize that my own agility and resilience and preparedness needed to be sort of top of my game. I didn't know what to expect. One day it felt like I was glued to the television making sure that I had all the right facts and figures to help the employee population. I think that the focus on employees was further increased. Talking about empathy of our managers. We had helped dial that up right away and be able to react and respond. We had sort of this immediate feeling of was it safety first, health first? But let me just sort of describe. Once March and April kind of got under our belt, we started thinking a little bit differently. It wasn't that the business shutdown. We certainly didn't, you talk about survivor's guilt, but Vidyard was actually really like tailwinds of COVID, again being a video for business company, if somebody wasn't using video, like Zoom we're on today, or a synchronized video like Vidyard, you're kind of thrust into it because there was no other means to create this human connection without the use of video. But I think what I have learned through these times is that we kind of forgot about recruiting and onboarding because things kind of came to a stop and very, very quickly we had to adjust and get back into hyper focus. Things started to take off a little faster than we were expecting so I wasn't necessarily super prepared for the vulnerability that my employees, or the Vidyard employees, would be sort of vulnerable to a global market. With borderless hiring all of a sudden I think some top talent in Canada, against sort of a US market, was top of mind. We also started realizing that the new hires that we brought on in March and April timeframe didn't have the same experience. So I had to get very quickly, and my team very quickly, kind of hyper focused on the things that mattered.
Joseph: One of the things you mentioned in our earlier conversation was how the flow of applicants really changed with COVID. You can break that down for us? What would that look like?
Lisa: We happen to use a recruiting tool called Greenhouse. I'm sure a lot of people do. We hadn't seen the spike in applications. I think we did during the COVID period so, again, as other companies were maybe downsizing or have to do a degree of layoffs, there was certain roles that maybe would have attracted us from a brand attraction in Kitchener, Waterloo, maybe about 100 employees and very quickly we started seeing applications of 300, 400 and this actually was something we had to muddle through. We weren't super prepared for a higher number of applications coming in how to make sure we dealt with it. We've always really focused on a really high white glove experience to our candidates, high attention to detail with each candidate and all of sudden we were doing sort of the generic no thank you, no thank you, no thank you, and it didn't feel good. Our recruiter, her brand reputation felt at risk because it just wasn't in sync with our values and the type of company that we want it to be. So we've been on top of that, thinking about what technology improvements can we put in place, how can we be doing things differently.
Joseph: So, I know we're going to dig into recruiting more so I'm going to put that one a bit on the backburner. But that last question, the navigation, we'll continue with that. You spoke about how you needed to be really agile and there's so much there, I'd love to hear. I've always wanted to know how I can have a better relationship with my executive team. I'd love to hear as a team how did you navigate those changes? What were you looking for from your CEO and what did you get or not get?
Lisa: 100%. So you know I probably will ask for as much time as I can get with our executive suite just to understand and I notice when I don't get the information. So you had talked about just strategically where we are going to start to hire? What location? I needed access to that information and one of things that was kind of an interesting side note is that I think our management team sort of claimed that we wanted to be able to hire the best talent. I remember thinking best is a relative term. I don't know if there's an absolute definition of what best is. To be honest it's different for everybody. So we started into this recruiting space where being questioned is this the best available talent? I had to do a lot of partnership with the executive team to understand what do they mean by that? Because, to be honest, I think I dropped a joke about being a fisherman and if I only had to fish in the Grand River, great, but if all of sudden you open it up to every ocean and lake it's an endless task searching for talent out there. I needed time with the executive team to understand what was our bigger picture and what we were trying to achieve because we were going to spin ourselves in circles if we attempted to go after this sort of undefined term. That is definitely one thing so if you're working with your HR team and other executives, take the time. Jackie, we're going to steal lots of what you put in your presentation, but this reflective, don't forget that HR also needs time to reflect on some of the big picture decisions that the executives are talking about. What your hearing from your board of directors and other stakeholders, because we need time to also reflect on how we're going to adapt and change our processes, and especially our go to market strategies for recruiting and onboarding.
Joseph: I think that's a great topic. I want to make sure that we save some time for that. Why don't we dig into some of the recruiting things. Let's come back to that one because I think that will be really fun.
Lisa: So let me ask you, because I don't know how close you are to your recruiting process, Joseph. I think you are but how would you say your recruiting has changed since COVID?
Joseph: I am. I'm intimately involved. Were a small team so just for reference for the folks, our team here is about half local in Kitchener, Waterloo, and we're about 20 people. So really on the small side. I'm involved in just about every hire. The things that have really changed for us have been, yes, an increase in talent, in terms of applications. But since COVID we've hired about 5 people and the number of applicants for each role has grown by about 20 - 30%. So it's manageable. Noticeable but manageable. I think a couple of really big things is the geographic spread of our applicants. It's all over the map. It's Tuesday and so far this week I've had interviews with people in India, Australia, US, Canada. I ran through the list earlier and I'm missing one country. Crap. But a very, very global. Oh sorry. Argentina. There we go. Very global applicant pool. The part's that been really interesting is, I'm sure you're seeing the same thing, people who are leveraging, really good sales tech is showing, it's highlighted. It's really showing up. So people who are using video in their outreach, but people who are following up, who are reaching out via email, who are reaching out via LinkedIn. We're seeing both a bigger pool but a greater stratification. So the stand out candidates stand out even more and the ones that aren't on the list in terms of their fit or the roles, that's becoming more apparent. That's been interesting to see.
Lisa: I think we have ... more into that. I mentioned something about having 400 applicants on one job. It wasn't actually that particular job but I had an experience. A recruiter came to my organization so I had to sit in the recruiter's seat and actually it's been a wonderful experience because I think when you step away from it you tend to forget some of the nuances and areas of opportunity. So I've been in the recruiter's seat for the last 4 weeks and I have had candidates that, maybe just in a resume review, I would have possibly dismissed. We tend to be looking for some of the traditional are they B2B? Are they SASB based? Do they come from an industry similar to ours? We are getting sort of differentiated resumes but one candidate that was I about to dismiss, just because of the application pool, had forwarded the hiring team a video. That was a massive differentiating. We are a video company so it kind of made him stand apart that way. He used our product. That was great. But he was really able to articulate what made him different and stand out from the crowd. I think if you're in the job market today you need to figure out a way to identify yourself differently. But I also think we, as employers, the market place is much, much bigger and the competition for employment, and us getting the best talent, and I'll kind air quote that, is that it's more challenging so as an employer you have to also think about your employee value proposition or your brand. We're trying to think of new ways to get identified on things like LinkedIn or different job boards. I don't have all the magic answers but we are continuing to dabble and try new things. Just one of the things, I'm going to take us back to another question you just asked, what do I need from the CEO and our executive team? I need permission to try out some new things and it's okay if they don't work. Let me keep trying some because we will find what really works for our company and what sticks. So that might be something that you need to also give your team as well, if that helps.
Joseph: I appreciate that. Yes. That idea of experimentation is so true. There's a fantastic question in the Q&A about some of the best practices and the tips an ... used and one of the things that's jumped out to me, as a CEO, is when I'm sitting in peer groups very often the other leaders I'm chatting with are asking questions that, to me in our actions, feel like common practices because we've always been very remote centric. Before COVID almost half of our team was remote. So there's a lot of practices that we saw as common place that weren't as obvious to some of the other companies that I work with. I'm sure even more so. You've got multiple locations, a very distributed team, so maybe we can touch base on just what are some of the techniques and some of the best practices that you and your team have followed even if they seem like basics. If you can punch through some of them because some of these may be new items for some of the folks on the call today.
Lisa: Yeah. I want to really put it into through the digital first because I think COVID has presented the opportunity for us to be digital. We do a lot more connection with the candidate to not only create that environment of, hey, you're interview is coming up but also the follow through with it. So when somebody gets through the interview process the recruiters right there to ask the question, like, how was it? So let's not assume that we're the greatest employer out there. Let's actually follow up with the candidate to make sure that they got what they needed out of the interview experience. We're big believers that we're interviewing you, you're interviewing us, so we've really upped the treat candidate extremely well through the process. Even if you're planning on declining them a little bit later to that. We've tried to implement, again Jackie, I didn't see your presentation before but, man, can I steal lots of stuff from it. All the tips and tricks about your presenteeism on video I think is super important. So yeah, make sure you are listening. Make sure that you're creating an environment that the candidate can ask lots of questions. If you do need to take notes or reference information, if you're asking the candidate to do anything prep in advance, make sure that you're creating that respectful timeframe to allow them to, and create the right, whether it's a whiteboard opportunity, digitally, that they can actually present and bring their best self forward. So those are just some tricks. I think candidate experience is the differentiator, hands down, so that's where I think you can dial up some of the best practices.
Joseph: Keeping an eye on our schedule ... as well, maybe we can jump into some of the onboarding because I can reflect on some of the things we're doing and, we saw or received, I've got a couple of questions for you because I'd love to hear what you're doing on top of what we're doing.
Lisa: Sure.
Joseph: Let me share a bit about what we've done that's been well received and highly effective. One of the things that we do is we measure, very closely, the rate time of these sales reps. It's that onboarding experience is really measurable in a sales role and we're lucky in that we've had some great success. Not just internally but also with our clients and where those grads go on. A couple of things that we've done, first one I'm pretty sure will be familiar to you is, more pre-boarding and using on demand video for that. So all of our candidates, we don't rely on just day one, sit in a session, kind of bums in seats, we send pre-boarding packages with sets of videos about things like our ... program, onboarding, our teams communication preferences, what they're going to need and we do personalized onboarding playbooks. We've got the advantage of using our own software for that but you could use Google ... tools, thinks like that. But tailored for each role using the, not just the documents and the processes they need, but the videos for their team members. So before someone starts they get this very well structured guide of what the days will be like because they can't rely on a buddy right beside them. So we spent a lot of time thinking how do we translate that buddy effect into a cheat sheet for them and they get that before they even start. I'd love to hear on top of that, what are you doing? Because I think there's a lot that we could learn.
Lisa: We relied a lot on our physical location. When we're recruiting talent we would sell, "It's a beautiful building downtown, Kitchener. Lunch!" and all these other things. We had to really rethink that, but when I pivot to now the onboarding experience, we also relied too heavily on the human. We had a great day one experience but you had to come into the business. If you're in Vancouver and other location we Zoomed you in and it probably wasn't the best experience because it was designed for the on-prem experience. But we've always had something called a v-buddy, a Vidyard buddy, and we re-coined it sort of the V2-buddy. It's now your Vidyard buddy but your virtual buddy and he or she is somebody that is meant to also bridge some of the human connections. So invite you to meet and greet some people that maybe aren't always in your inner circle. Get you connected to something we use which is our slack donut, do not be shy we call it. That V-buddy is also the person that will check in on you a couple of times on your first day, your second day and really get you started. We always leverage the use of video and put it, what we call an essential ... people can go back, but we've actually tried to redesign it in a more tangible bite sized component so that it wasn't just here's 14 videos. Go at it. But to actually put a storyboard together to outline how to digest the content over a right amount of time. As an example we used to sort of force benefits discussion onto our new hires on day one. We recognized that is probably not what you need on day one. There's a two-bit sized video you can watch and understand it at the right time when you need that content. So my team has done a really good job to actually sort through what is really the biggest connection on day one and what can come later.
Joseph: That idea of choosing what you include in day one, I love that one, I'm going to take that away as one of the things to review. What's in our day one checklist to make sure it's only the most crucial.
Lisa: Another tip, and this probably isn't a digital transformation from COVID but something that has really worked for us is we introduce the new hire to the company about a week before. Obviously making sure that they've given notice to their other employer. We're not breaching any confidentiality, but what happens is you kind of announce like, "Hey! Bob's going to be starting, new role, blah, blah, blah." and then employees start sending Bob welcome notes or welcome videos. Every single employee that starts with us says that is hands down one of their best experiences. They feel so included and welcomed before they even start.
Joseph: That's a nice segue. Maybe we can jump to the next topic because we talked a bit about video and one of the things I hear from a lot of folks is they're not sure the right way, or sometimes they're a little bit intimidated about what's the level of effort, and it really can be ridiculously easy. I grabbed a couple of examples so may be we can pull some of those up.
Lisa: Absolutely. I'll pull yours up first here. So these are just quick, like Joseph said, a quick video. You can see his background matches what it looks like today but let's have a look.
Video: I know we didn't get a chance to chat too much during the interview process but I wanted to record a quick video just to let you know how excited we are to have you join the team. I know that you're start date still a few weeks out but I wanted to send you this video just to let you know that if you have any questions, please reach out. I know the team's got you covered but if there's anything top of mind or anything you don't want ... ... the direction, let me know. My cell phone is in the signature of this email, and I also added a link to my calendar if you just want to book some time, or just reply and let me know. It's an open offer. Happy to chat even outside of regular work hours if that's going to be easier for your schedule. I know we've got some time booked, dedicated one on one, during your first week. Don't worry. It's not the only opportunity. But, again, I just wanted to let you know how excited we are to have you join the team. I can't wait to spend more time. Anyway, I hope you're having a great day. Sorry for the long video and looking forward to chatting. Talk soon. Bye.
Joseph: Sitting watching that is super awkward.
Lisa: Don't be because if I applied to your company and got a job and the CEO made that personal of a connection and welcome me, that would have sealed the deal if I had any hesitation.
Joseph: ... set out. We gave the close rate on our office and much higher as we started doing this more. But want to see yours too.
Lisa: Mine is not nearly as welcoming but I had a new start. This is back.
Video: Hi Sarah. Welcome to the team. We're so excited to have you on board. My name is Lisa ... If you need anything reach out to me. Surprise, surprise, I've got more people. <people exclaiming YAY!> See you soon.
Joseph: Oh, I love the energy. That's so good.
Lisa: Uh oh. Let me stop it. So my video, honestly, took my team like no time. One take. The new hire, Sarah, talked about that video so many times and so I just really encourage you to embrace trying some new things that differentiate you and your company and really make that onboarding that people made the right choice to join your company.
Joseph: Absolutely. I want to emphasize that one. I know we talked about video and that same thing was like one take, really quick and easy to do but, I found as the CEO one of the things that we did with our team to make this really easy is the team, be it our sales, our recruiting team, will book just 5 minutes in my calendar to record the video. Okay, here's who it's for. Here's what it is. It's a great way to leverage my time and get it into a priority list. It's scary the first time. It's still scary the second and third time but it gets easy really quickly.
Lisa: Oh yeah. That one took me one take because it was fun and frivolous but I have put company communications together where I have been known to take 14 takes. Just because I stumble on my words. But to be honest, this is a live presentation and if I stumble on my words I just carry on. I encourage it, if you 're going to use a synchronized video, just carry on. Nobody cares. In fact the more authentic you look and real the better the content is received, I think, from the audience that you're intending it to go to.
Joseph: Totally. I know that we're tight on time but we've got some of the key thoughts there. If anybody has any questions they want to hit on just toss them into the Q&A. But, Lisa, I'd love to, hit, you know kind of that big question on what are you worried about next? If I think about it as a CEO how do I support my talent team? Were closing in on 2020, what are you worried about next?
Lisa: Yes, so mine isn't a process or a system that I need to put in place. Mine is actually the fight for talent. This isn't a presentation about attrition but I do think that we as companies, I mentioned before, I think that Canada has some of the brightest talent out there. But we're also now competing against the global market, and I'm already seeing sort of signs of push on salaries and different things, so the competition is starting to present itself in a new way that I have to be ready for. One of the things, maybe some advice for everybody, is just try to stay on top of what, there's our timer. Our 30 minutes. But try and stay on top of the changing market and, you know what? Make sure that you have great recruiting processes, and when you onboard somebody, make sure that they know darn well that they've made the right decision to join your organization because I think you want the people you bring in to stick.
Joseph: The early and honest feedback is absolutely fantastic. I don't think there's much we can add on top of that because for me, my biggest concern is, what the legal implications of saying hire the best talent especially when we're hiring internationally. I mentioned how global my interviews have been so as a CEO one of my biggest grace is how do we close that best talent? How do we not compromise the business by hiring in a jurisdiction we should enter falling offside. So I'm super eager to hear Neena's comments, as well.
Lisa: Just really quickly, I think I already said it, but find what works for your company, be prepared for change because we're not slowing down and my shameless plug, embrace video.
Joseph: Totally.
Jill: Well, that was wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Joseph. If there's any questions please put them in the Q&A. Let's do our silent clap. Thumbs up. Raise the roof. Awesome. Thank you, guys. Okay. So now we're going to take a very quick 10 minute break. We're going to be back at 10:33 but I have something that I want to show you really quickly. We're going to DROM again but check this out that I just got from one of my team members. Look at her DROMing this morning. Is that not adorable? This is baby Victoria who's the daughter of one of my team members. I just thought that is the cutest thing ever. Anyway, I am going to turn things over to Val. We're going to take it down a notch with DROM.
Val: Hi.
Jill: We're going to take it down a notch and I'll turn it over to you, Val.
Val: Alright. Oh my gosh. That is the best thing ever.
Jill: We'll do DROM for 5 then we'll take a 5 minute break as well. So you've got 10 minutes. Okay.
Val: Okay. Can you hear me? I'm good, right? You can hear me? Yes. Okay, good, good, good. Alright. I want you to clear off a little bit of space on your desk. Just clear off a little bit of space. I'm not going to make you stand this time. We're going to stay seated and we're just going to kind of reset everything. Just get you re-energized, refocus. So much amazing stuff going on this morning. Alright. Let's start by just sitting nice and tall. Just feel yourself almost floating off of your chair but imagine the top of your head could touch the ceiling and slide those shoulders down away from your ears. Check in. Where are those shoulders? Slide them down away from your years. I want you to take a big breath in, send that breath down into your belly. Again, pass those stress receptors. Take it down. Fill up like a balloon and exhale. Softening the shoulders and now this time on your inhale I want you to bring the arms up overhead. Give me a big stretch. Reaching up to the ceiling. Big stretch and exhale. Float those hands down. Awesome. Are you ready? We're going to drum on our desks. Let's go. These are going to be our singles. You can just your hands. You can use your sticks if you want to or your spoons. But you can just use your hands. We're going to do your signals. Go a little faster tempo. You can do DROM anytime, anywhere. You can do it in the car sometimes. We're going to go super tempo. Come on. As fast as you can. Get those hands moving. Now, I want you to take it to the side. You have some space move to the side. Back to the center. Go on. Keep going. Other side. Center, okay. Take it to the side. This time cross your hands. Cross your hands. Cross that mid-line and open. Now take the other hand on top. Keep them going. Stay open. Back to the center. Come on, the other way. Go. Cross. Now see what hands on top. Open up and keep your other hand on top. Yeah, open up. Bring it back. Give me two hands. These are doubles. We're going to do this. We're going, we're going to go double, cross, double, and clap. Ready? 1, 2, 3, ah you got it! I know you do. One more slow. Ready? Let's go a little bit faster. Let's go. 1, 2, 3, up. Crossing that mid-line. Engaging both sides of the brain. You've got it. One more. Alright. Bring it back. Reach, 2, 3, and 4. Just like that. Reach, 2, 3, 4. Reach, 2, can you do a big reach ... of your desk. You may have a really long desk. Go a little faster. Can you do it? Reach, 2, 3, 4. Maybe you can cross that hand. I know. It's getting too complicated. Bring it back. Other way. Ready? Brace yourself. Reach, 2, 3, and 4. A little faster. Reach, 2, 3, 4. Reach, 2, 3, 4. Reach, 2, 3, 4 and a little faster. Ahhhhh! Okay, bring it in. Let's do our open, cross, open, now cross. Open, cross, open, cross. Ah-ha. Ready? Pick it up. A little faster. Let's go. Open, cross, open, cross. Your brain is going, "Wow! What?" Okay. You've got it. You look awesome. Last one. Ah-haha. I want you to take those hands together. I want you to draw me a lazy eight in the sky. This is a figure 8. This is a great brain exercise right here. Going one way. Now go the other way. Same thing. Draw that nice 8 in the sky. Bring in the arms and I want you to bring me arms up. Bringing your hands together over your head. Bringing them down the mid-line. Ready to drum? 1, 2, 3, boom. 1, 2, 3. Boom. Okay. Now, you're going to add the feet. I'm going to move back so you can see me. Then it will be 1, 2, 3. You don't have to do them that high. I want you to see my knees. Your feet are going to do the 1, 2, 3. Boom. 1, 2, 3. Boom. Stomp it out. That's it. 1, 2, 3. Okay. Guess what's next? We're going to put them. We're going to sit up tall. We're not going to put them together. You need to sit up nice and tall. Close those eyes and just bring yourself back. Bring your awareness to your breath, sitting nice and tall, reaching the crown of the head up to the ceiling. As you exhale soften those shoulders, sliding them down away from your years, just a tiny bit more. Inhaling, scanning your body, breathing in any areas that feel tight, that feel tense. Relax your mind. And exhale. Soften and slowly coming back to the room. Opening your eyes. See? That was quick. That was easy. Bring those arms up overhead. I want you to pack all this amazing energy, again, in between your fingers. Bring it down. Squish it into your heart and we're going to do this one more time because it's always good to have a reminder. Right? Give yourself a great big hug and on the count of 3 a nice loud, I am awesome. Here we go. 1, 2, 3. I Am Awesome! Yay! You were awesome. Now you can go have a little break. Hopefully you are refocused and re-energized again and I'm looking forward to the rest of the session. Thanks, Jill. I'll turn it back over to you.
Jill: Thanks so much, Val. We'll see everybody back in 4 minutes. Okay. See you shortly.
Okay. Welcome back, everybody. Let's get started with the rest of our session this morning. First off, Lisa and Joseph, thank you very much for that presentation. My newest hire just sent me a text and she said she's expecting an onboarding video from me this week. From your presentation. So, hey, it's working and I need to connect with you and figure out how we do this. So amazing. Amazing. Okay, now we're going to turn it over to my co-host/partner and someone that most of us have on speed dial these days, Neena Gupta, partner at Gowling WLG, who will provide us with a legal update. So over to you, Neena.
Neena: Hi, Jill. Can you just confirm that everyone can hear me? Perfect, and that I have successfully shared my five. Okay, perfect. So, as you know it has been different times and very difficult times and so I had, for the first time ever, I had all my slides completed last week before the deadline and then yesterday the Ford Government launched its framework for COVID response and so I had to completely re-do it. So, here is the revised slide show and I will let Michelle monitor the chat line while I'm speaking. If there's any questions we'll try to deal with them, perhaps at the end. I'm going to briefly deal with two things that are non-COVID related which is the attack on written employment contracts and the AODA and the balance of my program will be, to quote the current President of the United States, on COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. In particular Ontario's framework or response to it that was announced yesterday. Or over the weekend as well. So some of you may have attended our operation update that Gowlings gave which was purely on law so you will have seen some of this. But it truly is worthwhile reviewing again. The case that I wanted to talk about is Waksdale versus Swegon North America. Now the reason why this case is very important is that Waksdale employment contract contained both cause and without cause language. This is very common including in the contracts we've written for your guys in the past. The without cause language was admitted to be enforceable. But the with cause language probably violated the Employment Standards Act and everyone conceded, including the employer, that it did because it had a long shopping list of stuff that was cause, some of which we wouldn't disagree with. Like fraud and defalcation. Other things like breaching the policy manual which, while it might be irritating, would not be cause for termination. The contract was actually relatively well written and had what's called a severability clause which said, "Judge, if one portion is illegal please just ignore it and focus on the stuff that is legal. So focus on the without cause clause." Swegon was terminated without cause. At trial, or really on summary judgment, the initial court held that the cause provisions were unenforceable but they didn't really care because it didn't impact the without cause portion. So, there's no common law and the ESA applied. The Court of Appeal disagreed and said that the termination provisions have to be interpreted as a whole and if there's even one insy little bit that's invalid the whole termination was invalid and therefore common law prevailed. So this is just a call, a beacon call. You may have heard my colleague, Chris Andree, talk about this or my colleague, Khiam Nong, talk about this last week but please, it is a really important thing that contract templates are reviewed annually and when new employees, or employees are even promoted or given a substantial raise, you need to think about whether it's time to get them on more enforceable contracts. The courts have really declared war on Employment Standards Act clauses. Now, one thing is, keep it simple. So I often say instead of trying to get funny just keep it simple in accordance with the Employment Standards Act. If you want to give something else, give something else, but the more convoluted your termination provision the more susceptible it is to attack.
Continuing on that theme, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Groves, because it is a case which involves a transaction. What does that mean? Mr. Groves founded UTS and after 20 - 25 years, as part of his succession plan, sold the business. New ownership, right? New ownership bought the business and there was an employment agreement which essentially said if you're terminated we will essentially count your service from the date of the deal. And implicit in that, quite frankly, implicit in that is we're paying you a huge lump sum of money to buy the business from you and any prior obligations, that's your problem. We will pay you for the service that you accrue from the date of the deal. Problem is Employment Standards Act does not allow you to waive prior service. So that's what this bullet is. You cannot waive prior service. Therefore, go back to Waksdale and similar cases, the entire termination provision is unenforceable. So instead of getting maybe, I don't know, 3 weeks under the ESA or 3 months under the common law, Mr. Groves was awarded 24 months notice for the entire period of service that he had with the company he had founded and, quite frankly, sold at a significant profit. Language in the corporate share purchase agreement, or even the release that was given at the time of closing, not effective. So, one of the things that if you're involved in a transaction, or your consulting on a transaction, is thinking about whether or not we need post-dated resignations from the vendor if they're going to continue on service. Now that only works if you know how long you want the vendor. Alternatively, maybe we need to have indemnities that are much longer than the corporate norm, if there are any claims relating to the seller's termination of employment. So, interesting times, as we were.
Continuing on the theme that contracts has been a concerted attack on language on contracts and I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of Matthews and Ocean Nutrition. Now, I will say as a lawyer though that when you read appellate decisions, and this one was at the Supreme Court, a CC level, you get a very almost abstract version of the law. You have to read the trial decisions. This is the only case I've read in which the evidence said, "Mr. Matthews was considered to be an asshole." Was actually written in the trial decision. That is not considered to be judicial language. In any event the shorter version of the story is that he was a key employee. New investors come in. There's clearly personality issues between the new management and Matthews. Matthews resigned and took a job with a competitor and still turned around and brought a claim for constructive dismissal. The most important thing in this case, or what I call variable incentive compensation entitlements and not the base salary which is easy to figure out, but sort of the variable compensation stock option. Often there's an element of reward and retention because somebody has taken a business to a certain point. Matthews resigned well before the business was sold at a significant profit, and of course he wants his stock options because he would get millions, at least a million dollars out of his stock options. It was worth fighting over. So, there's all sorts of language in the agreement that I think is particularly clear. But I'm not a Supreme Court judge. It was the employee had to be full-time. The employee had to be active and so I don't think there was ambiguity. But what's really interesting is not whether the language was ambiguous or not, although that's important, it is that if there's a harsh provision, they felt like this was a forfeiture provision. During the notice period you're not entitled to this variable compensation. You need to draw attention to those provisions to the employee even if the provisions are common or industrial standard. The other thing it emphasizes is stuff that we probably already knew which is during the notice period it's a total compensation basket. That's your starting point and, of course, employer's side lawyers have to have virtually perfect drafting. Now, I want you to think about when you go to the car rental office. Remember when we traveled and we actually rented cars to go places? Well then, you remember how you have to initial certain things, like you're waiving insurance or if there's an accident, you're obligated to pay the entirety of the value of the car. That's based on the fact that those are harsh provisions and have to be brought specifically to your attention. I'm anticipating we're going to need to do that for employer drafted incentive agreements and stock options.
Battiston and Microsoft Canada is almost the exact case as Ocean. It's a Lower Ontario Court of Appeal. It's an interesting case because it's talking about bonuses. What I like about this case is sort of an anomalist decision. The court agreed with the employer that because the employee had a bad performance rating in 2018 they weren't entitled to a 2018 bonus, in accordance with the plan, because it was a performance bonus plan. Okay so that's good. But the court essentially said, "No. Well, that's okay but on the notice period they still get an average of a bonus." They also had to deal with the stock award agreement which everyone acknowledged unambiguously excluded the right to invest its shares following termination. There was like the language was crystal clear, in fact it was identical to language that had been brought to the courts attention before, and had been found to be unambiguous. We copied what the judge had said was good. Now, still they said they weren't entirely sure that Battiston, the plaintiff, actually knew about it and had agreed about it. What I'm going to warn you against, I know there's lots of tech companies on this call, you know this click through agreements? When you're downloading something or uploading a licenced product we click through. Be aware that I'm not sure that a judge is going to accept a click through agreement for these types of provisions. So you may have to actually have the old fashioned signed agreement, have records of presentation so that people know about it and explicitly draw to the employee's attention that you do not got the stock options or bonuses post-termination and get their agreement. So, bottom line? Contracts have been under attack. So that's my first theme and if you have any questions about that you can throw them into the chat or Q&A or shoot me an email and we can talk about it later.
One other thing I wanted to remind everybody, and in COVID it's hard to remember some of those regular compliance things that we had to do, and the first thing I wanted to remind everybody about was the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Some of you may have remembered that December 31, 2020, so I don't know, what? 6 weeks from now. Boy it's been an odd year. We were supposed to be filing our compliance report. The companies that have to file that compliance report are people who have 20 employees in Ontario or more. That deadline has been moved to June 30, 2021. So we've gotten an extension. Everybody got the extension. They didn't have to ask. Everybody got that extension. I still think that you should use the additional time to make sure you are compliant and ready. The portal is actually set up so you just have to type one of those filing my accessibility report and you'll get it. You might want to go through it and see, okay, am I okay on all of these things and if not can I get okay by June 30, 2021? One other thing, if you are a large employer and you have a website in Ontario, and large employers is 50 plus in Ontario, and you control a website you will have to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA by January 1, 2021, excluding live captioning or the prerecorded audio descriptions. There is a defense where it's not practicable, but we don't know what that means because there's no case law, and it's unclear whether that requirement applies to areas that are truly not available to public because you have to login. Again, there's no case law on point but I just wanted to flag that for you. What I understand is that in COVID times there is a real recognition that it's probably not realistic to go after employers that are trying to comply but, nonetheless, the law still is on the books and I wanted to flag it for you.
Okay, now to quote President Trump, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. One of the things that I wanted to go through, very briefly, there's some very good materials on the website, is the new framework. You'll see that there are a whole bunch of colour. The entire Province is under prevent and then, depending where you are geographically, you can be in a stronger or more stringent area protect with strict control and then lockdown. I'm happy to say that no part of the Province is currently under lockdown but essentially, and there's no specific description of what a lockdown would mean, but I think it means something similar to what we experienced in the middle of March and April. So back to pretty well significant closures. So the entire Province is under green. Okay? So this is another way of looking at it and another way to think about is everybody's in the green, right? So we have to do that. Then as the colours get higher up on the scale you do everything in the prior level plus whatever is applicable to your new level. So, for example, I live in Wellington. Many of you live in Waterloo and as of Monday we're in the orange level. So we have to do everything that's required in the green, everything that's required in yellow, everything that's required in orange. Some of you listening in and have operations in Toronto and so that will be everything that is in the red zone. Right? So, this is sort of our summary. I have this actually printed out and scotch taped. So that's my equivalent of high tech and essentially that tells us what the various standards are that will be used by public health authorities to move you up, and hopefully down, from the various levels. I won't go through it because I'm not a public health expert but that gives you the sense of how we move through and what the standards are. It's not arbitrary and the public health authorities are essentially looking at averages that are collected over a 2 week period. But if the sense things are going really bad they don't have to wait for that. One other thing that, I don't know if anyone was online when Jill and I were chatting at the beginning, is that this is what the Provincial government has essentially announced. Your local medical officer of health has the right to impose additional restrictive measures, whether that be on a per business basis or per industry basis or in certain areas, if he or she thinks it's necessary to protect your county, city or area.
So just a couple of things that we wanted to talk about. We're all probably doing this, oops, I may not have remembered to do it today so I'm in trouble, but the daily workplace screening. So anybody who works in your premises, or is an essential worker who's coming in, has to do a workplace screening. I want to give a shout out to H2R because they've made this very easy. They've got a little app. I'm not sure how it works but it goes right into an Excel spreadsheet. In the beginning, literally, I had to do an email everyday to my office manager. Now it's boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, send and she gets it and it goes into an Excel spreadsheet. So I think she's happier with me. One of the things they've talked about is a communication or public education plan. This is very vague right now. But it's really like how you're telling your clients and your guests about your requirements on site. There's limits on social gathering. There's obviously, there's worker protection masking, eye protection, physical distancing and, please, let's not travel unless you have to do it. Again, there is in the yellow, we just moved away from yellow but businesses must have a written safety plan. We've already done this, right? We already have done the plan. It's just making sure it's in writing and available for audit. What we don't know yet, because this is literally real time, is where do we put this plan? Do we have to email it to all our employees? Does it go on our intranet? Do we even have bulletin boards anymore? But it must be available on request in some format and this is essentially to show how we're taking care of our workers and our guests. You'll see I've listed some businesses. Now, some businesses, dentist offices, personal care services, have very detailed requirements. Not just from the Ministry of Health, in some cases from a professional body. Where we get into orange is it's no longer enough to screen your employees and essential workers. You must also screen patrons. So I've been seeing more of that. Essentially you have to have somebody at the door screening patrons. Like you saw in March. Finally, for those of you who are in a red zone, is you will see significant restrictions. Number of patrons in restaurants, number of patrons in gyms and fitness studios and I think there's going to be some clarifications because we know that gyms can be like the small neighbourhood gym or it can be a huge multi-plex, and I'm expecting some clarification today in fact, about when you have essentially different areas or rooms in your gym. So if you look at the local Y there's the fitness studio. There is the weight lifting room and does that mean there can only be 10 people in the entire 2 storey complex or does it mean that it's 10 people per area? I'm not sure this was as well thought as it should have been. There you go. And lockdown, we don't know what the lockdown's going to look like. So, I'm not going to go through daily screening. We're all familiar with it. There is no requirement for paper form but you need to prove your performing this screening so, again, a shout out to H2R. I know there's other services. So I, as a lawyer, like to have the audit trail so that if the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Labour comes in and says, "Prove to me you're doing your screening. That you're screening your patrons. That you're screening your employees and essential workers.", I've got my form. You know the standard questions. Now I have to admit, I have never been so self-involved about my body and how it's doing, since COVID struck. Not even when I was pregnant. I swear to God COVID has made me a virtual hypochondriac. You know like because every little symptom could be a symptom of COVID. So I'm totally out of shape. I'm being very candid with all of you, and yes I know, there's things I could do at home to keep in shape. Not motivated but I can try. So go up a flight of stairs, I can feel it now. Pretty sure it's just because I haven't done anything in 8 months rather than COVID, but anyway, you have to do this. So there you go.
The new requirement I mentioned is this communication plan. We phoned our public health officer just to say, and they said, "Look, we're not asking you to reinvent the wheel. It's just making sure that you've got what you're doing, and all the up to date COVID-19 measures for your particular workplace, in one place." So you'll see restaurants post stuff on their doors. That's probably enough. I did ask whether or not it should be posted on the website. They kind of said, "Well, we haven't gotten to that yet.", and they're working on that. On the safety plan, so anybody who moved in orange we now need to make sure, so that's Waterloo, Wellington, we should have a written safety plan. It has to be available on request and it has to be posted. I'm not sure where it's supposed to be posted because, I'd say employee bulletin board but then we're virtually not here, so that's not particularly useful. So what our firm is doing is putting it on our intranet and then sending out an email to the safety plan. So we all know what's in it. It's the screening, the distancing, masks and face coverings, cleaning, disinfection, the wearing of PPE and it should really be detailed to your location. So, for example, the Gowlings plan, we've closed our common kitchens, we've closed the coffee maker, the water fountains are closed. We have additional chemicals being used for cleaning and disinfecting. We have sanitizer dispensers everywhere. I mean, seriously, I could advertise for dishpan hands. For those of you who are in my age group, Palmolive. Remember those ads? Well I could be the pre-manicure hand model. This is new for Toronto. I know this is a Waterloo/Wellington heavy but some of you do advise businesses in Toronto. Each workplace needs to have a compliance officer. One compliance officer per physical location so you can't have somebody who does 5 or 6. There's going to be additional training requirements for these compliance officers. Right now it's very unclear and, of course, time spent in learning about COVID-19 compliance requirements or essentially discharging duties as a compliance officer, is obviously paid time. Those of you in Toronto should really have it. Just wanted to give a couple of shout outs. Much of the information that you saw on our website, or on presentation, is from the Ministry of Health. I've bookmarked that for you. For those of you in Waterloo I have to give a shout out to their website. It's really, really useful. I also have to give a shout out to my colleagues who've created a COVID-19 site that's very useful. I invite you to subscribe. If you can't figure out how to do it email me. I'll send you the link personally and, of course, you can always contact me. Those are my formal prepared remarks and I am going to stop my slide show there. I'm going to look through the questions, Michelle, if you don't mind and keep them coming. Your obligation, Michelle, is to tell me when to shut up because as all of you know I'm a talker, so I could talk forever. So your job is the, okay, got it.
So Shawna ... asked, where can we find the indicator and threshold chart that you shared? So first of all, we do share slides at the end of the presentation. I've given you the URL and in that site, the Ministry of Health site that URL, you'll see the chart which showed the different colours and what the standards are for each colour.
If your workplace remains 100% closed and you are an orange do you still have to post? That was the question I actually asked the public health officer and their answer was sort of, yes, because that's how. But what does posting mean, right? Putting it on the bulletin board is pretty silly if nobody's been in the office for 8 months. So what we've been recommending is send an email and post it on your intranet. Then put on your door, if you don't already have it, something like because of COVID we're closed and call so and so and if you want our safety plan here it is. We're closing. And Sanj asks, can it be in an email communication? Does it need to be in a formal document? No. I mean there's no regulation saying how it's supposed to be, I'm just saying, and it can absolutely be in an email communication.
Then, Joanna Wu asked a great, can we ask screening questions that are outside the guidelines? Can we ask if anyone has traveled outside of Ontario instead of Canada? And the answer is, yes. So the law is the minimum floor. You can ask more. You do then have to be a little bit more sensitive to the fact that you may have to deal with the yes's individually. Right? So you know that if somebody says I've gone outside of Canada it's an automatic 14 day quarantine, by law, unless it's an exemption. You don't know that for Ontario travel so I'm just flagging that to be careful.
Health units adopt compliance officers. What are the chances seeing in Waterloo Region, Wellington? That's an infectious disease question. If you looked carefully, and I won't put it up again because I think it might be a little bit beyond my skill level to get the presentation up again, it really depends on our infectious disease results. How many positive COVID cases do we have per 100,000? What is the rate of positivity to testing? What is the average rate of transmissions, each one infecting another one, or less? So I think there may be, if we can't smash the curve down, I can see that. Right?
So, for the specific form do I have to ask a specific question? In the US we can't ask specific screening questions. I think you should be asking the specific questions. There could be an option at the end saying no to all but you should actually use the Canadian form in Canada. Jill has a really easy, I'm sorry Jill, but you're going to get inundated. She's actually done a really good job as a service to our industry. It's not that hard to do this, honestly, to have the system set up. Jill did you want to say something?
Jill: Thanks, Neena, yeah. We've got a Google doc set up with a QR code. We're going techie because we've learned all this stuff but it's a really, really easy process, as Neena said. It can be done from your phone for screening in each day. We suggest, recommend, like Neena is saying, follow what the government has put out. Don't alter the questions just don't. They're very simple questions and we can help folks with it in about 30 minutes. So happy to help if you need us to.
Neena: Right.
Michelle: You just have about 2 more I think, Neena.
Neena: Okay. Sure. Patty is saying we've given everybody the questions, and they know what the answers are and they've signed off saying they'll self-screen, and they'll call in if they describe. Does this comply? I actually don't think it technically complies. So, Patty, they're really asking people daily to call in and be conscious. Robin was laughing at me, I think, when I said I've never been more conscious of my body because you're asked, every day, Robin's like
Jackie: Neena, one of my clients had a visit from the MOL very recently and they asked the same question, and you're right, you can't do that. It has to be an every day. The MOL is mandating that.
Neena: Yeah, and so there's lots of great suggestions, thank you in the Q&A box about easy ways to do this. You're not going to get tech advice from me but you can definitely go to Jill's team or one of your colleagues and they'll be happy to help you. We're all in it together. One of the things I've learned is just how much as a community we've pulled together to try help each other survive this pandemic. It's greatly appreciated because none of us have all of the answers. I hope I'm on time. I'm going to leave it there and somebody's trying to reach out to you, Jill, so you'll answer that one. I'm looking forward to the rest of the presentation and I'll be around for some extra questions at the end, if I didn't get them this time.
Jill: Go right around the sound of applause for Neena. Thank you, Neena. You're actually ahead of schedule so way to go. I mean, our speakers, we have just kept this thing on track this morning. Wow. I'm impressed. So keep those questions coming using your Q&A button if you'd like because we've got time at the end, about 15 minutes allocated for additional questions, if you have them for any of our speakers. Okay, so now, we are going to turn things over to Robin Bender, last but not least. Robin Bender is the owner of Mega Health at Work and Robin is most well known for her amazing mental health, it's a 2 day Mental Health First Aid workshop. Which, by the way, I believe has just been launched virtually. Is that correct, Robin? Is it out virtually? Oh, awesome, awesome. 2 day workshop. There's not a better time for this to be happening for you to take this right now. Managers, leaders, employees, this is just absolutely an amazing workshop. So Robin's going to talk to us this morning about change your mind, create new results. So, over to you, Robin.
Robin: Thank you so much, Jill. Thank you for having me this morning. It's been such a great day and I'm learning so much from all of you. I'm just going to quickly share my screen here, pull up the presentation, let me know if we're good to go. Everybody can see? Yay. Alright. So, here we are today to talk about proactive approaches to mental health resiliency. Let me say that in the last 8 months mental health skills have become more important than pretty much anything else in our world. I just wanted, before I dive into the content of the presentation, I just want to say a couple of things. First and foremost, if in the last 8 months you have felt anxious, you have felt worry, you have felt concern, you have felt scared, you have felt uneasy, you have lost your temper, you have felt irritated, you have felt depressed, you have lost energy, if you have felt this way in the last 8 months I'm just here to let you know that you are completely, 100% normal. There is nothing wrong with you. How many of you can actually accept that thought because many of us have created a story around our experience of this pandemic. But let me tell you we're doing it. We're making it. We're surviving it. If you look at past times in your life that were really challenging, really difficult, and you might have had this thought like I'm never going to get through this. Or how am I going to get through this? Or this is so hard. I'm here to say that you did it. You've done it. We're doing it. Right? So this is about really getting proactive around our mental health and now is the time, there is no better time in history, to make sure you have mental health skills. Not only for yourself but to help other people. We want to make mental health resiliency the biggest goal of 2020. Okay?
Now, why should you care? Why does it matter if people are resilient? Because resilient employees help build the business. They keep the organization thriving with their own health and their own resiliency. Now, when you think about resiliency I always think of it like a ball that bounces. Right? If you're resilient the ball bounces and it comes back. So even though these challenges happen outside of us, these things happen that we can't control, well we do have control over is how we respond to the things that are happening outside of us. So what resilient people do, and what resilient people know, is that when they're doing something over and over again and it doesn't change, they recognize or have the awareness that they need to be doing something different. So you might have noticed, even at the beginning of the session, Val did a great job of demonstrating that mind/body connection. People who are resilient understand that in order to have good mental health we have to also look at our emotional health, our physical health, our spiritual health, all of those things are interconnected. They all talk to one another. So you would have likely felt better after we did the drumming session this morning because we moved our body. We created endorphins and when you understand that connection you understand how to manage your overall well-being. When we have a lack of resilience it can have serious implications on things like our motivation, cognitive functioning, emotional well-being and when we're not resilient what that results in is this helplessness and we start to not function. Right? Our functions starts to deteriorate. So we're seeing this among people when they don't have any mental health resiliency. Okay? But it means we can change things. It's recognizing that if something's not working we have the power within us to do something differently.
So, highly resilient people. This is what organizations should continue to promote and encourage with staff. But we have to recognize when we don't have that resiliency how do we build that resiliency? And why do want to be resilient? Well, right now it's important because it will help us to manage stress, it develops grit. This allows people to continue to working when they are having that balance. When they don't have balance and they don't have resiliency we see them lend their minds to this hopelessness, helplessness, this dysfunction that I can't do it. I can't make it. Nothing's working for me. Right? We want to be more resilient because our mind changes when we're resilient. We get inspired. We find meaning in what we're doing. We feel purposeful. We feel driven. We feel excited. We have more energy when we're more resilient, right? So it's not rocket science to understand that when you have more resilient staff you have a more resilient business. It's been a no brainer. Jackie kind of touched on it. It's like now's the time. If you've had this debate over whether it's important to invest in mental health, well, absolutely it is because your business depends on people being mental well. So resilience is not a sign of exceptional strength but a fundamental feature of normal everyday coping skills. So resilience, again, I use that analogy of the ball. It's our ability to bounce back when something outside of us happens that we have no control over we want to be able to manage our internal state of being. What people don't realize is that we have the power to manage our emotional reactions. Now, it's like why don't people know this? Well, one of the reasons is we've never been taught that. How many of us were brought up or were raised with mental health education, mental health skills? How many of us learned about what mental health is? What mental well-being looks like. How do you stay resilient regardless of what's going on outside of you? Most of us have never been taught those skills. Right? So when we look at what's happening right now we have been going along, we've been doing our thing. We've been managing up until February and then boom. Here comes the shock, an unexpected, unpredictable event that we had no control over. Now what happened to people when this event hit? Well, people went into immediate fight or flight response. What does it mean to be in fight or flight? It means I'm in survival. I'm not looking at the big picture. I'm not looking what other people are doing. I'm focusing on myself. I become selfish when I am in that fight or flight survival mode. I look to get everything for me to protect me, to protect my family, to protect my friends, and I dismiss everything that's going on outside of me because now I'm looking to survive. This is a natural built-in mechanism into the human being. We naturally have a fight or flight response. The challenge that has been going on in the last 8 months is some of us have been stuck in that fight or flight from the beginning which loses resiliency. We don't have resiliency when we're constantly in a fight or flight. So what we need to do is we need to rebuild our resiliency and we have the power to be able to do that. But it takes work, it takes effort, it takes awareness, it takes dedication, it takes all of those things to become resilient again. What's a wonderful thing is that we can all become resilient at any given moment in time. We just have to decide we're going to work on becoming resilient.
I'm not going to spend too much time on psychological health and safety but it does tie into what I'm speaking about. Of course your workplace culture plays a significant role in how workers respond. There's lots of research out there that says for every dollar that you invest into health and wellness, or psychological health and safety, there's $2.30 that you get back. Of course there's many, many benefits. I'm not going to get into them all. What our organization reaps from putting investment into health and well-being. But when we look at the general recommendations and things that you can do, education and training, number one thing is to inform people that you have the ability to become resilient. You have the tools, the knowledge, the skills. When you receive information you can take that knowledge and you can apply it in your real life and you can change your experience of our own mental well-being and supporting and helping other people with their mental health challenges. But we have to know how to do this. Right? When we look at mental health statistics 50% of people will develop a mental health or substance use problem in their lifetime. 50%. That's a lot of people. Right? Two of the most common mental health problems that we see are depression and anxiety and, of course, we know that depression is the most widespread mental illness on the planet right now. So when you step back and really think about that, every single workplace is going to be impacted by this, and in fact 50% of our workforce is going to be impacted by this. So of course we have to look at ways to address this. We have to look at being proactive when it comes to our mental health. It goes back to what I said at the beginning, resilient individuals and resilient workers is what helps the business to be resilient. Why? Because your business is made up of individual people. The sum of your culture is the individual health of all of your workforce. So I'm going to say that again. The health of your organization is made up of the health of the individuals, of resiliency of the individuals that work within that organization. Here is why we want to be investing in resiliency. Mental health. Mental well-being. We want to prevent these things from happening. So we want to get ahead of it. We don't want to wait and see what happens. We want to teach people up front. Here's how you get out of fight or flight. Here's how you become more resilient. Here's a self-care program that you can do that will influence and change your state of being. When we look at stress, of course stress, when people hear the word stress they even get stressed hearing the word stress. Well, stress ultimately is not a medical condition. I always make that clear in the Mental Health First Aid training. Stress is not a diagnosable mental illness. We often see as workplaces and leaders and managers, medical notes that come back and say this person is off for stress. They're not off work for stress. They're off work for another reason but stress is that acceptable term that we hear that people go, "Oh, that's a safe word to use. I'd rather hear the word stress than hear the word depression or hear the word anxiety." When we look at stress we have positive stress and we have negative stressors. When we lose resiliency, and when we are off balance, what happens with stress is that our stress then becomes straining. It becomes dysfunctional. We start to get burnt out. Potentially, if the symptoms don't dissipate, then we can be looking at potentially a disorder or a diagnosis. But it's understanding that balance of stress and knowing when is this good stress, when is this bad stress, and when are those symptoms appearing and they're not going away. They're getting more intense or they're getting worse over time. What we want to do is we want to prevent disability. We want to get ahead of the curve, if you will. We also want to flatten this curve. Right? We want to get everybody mentally resilient. We want to build balance back into people's lives, and I can share with you from the last 8 months, this has become the most important topic I think for most organizations. As we have gone through this process and been on this journey, mental health skills, what is more important right now? You can't do your job if you don't have good mental health skills. If you don't have good balance. If you don't have good resiliency how can you deliver outcomes and meet goals and expectations when you're not functioning as your highest self? As your most balanced person. Your most resilient mind set.
Where do you start? You've showed up today. You've attended this seminar and I think that's really important because you're here to get more information. What you want to do, and obviously a lot of businesses have the question around making the business case for this. How do I make the business case for this? Well you have to look at your numbers. You have to look at what is it costing you by not taking this action. That can include things like absenteeism and sick leave, turnover engagement, safety, all of these things. But I what I really want to spend some time on now is the Mental Health First Aid, now called Mental Health Standard, which has gone virtual. This is the training, in my opinion, it's just my opinion, but this is the training that everybody needs to have right now. So Mental Health First Aid Standard. So the feedback from the pilot that just was launched from the Canadian Mental Health Commission is that this course builds confidence in the ability to handle a mental health crisis. So we are looking around now and we're noticing and observing and seeing many people having a mental health breakdown. We want to know how to handle it, how to best support people. We want to know how to prevent it within ourselves and we also want to be that person where people can feel comfortable and safe to come to so that we can best support them. The feedback from the pilot has also shown that this reduces stigma, significantly, and all I can say is this pandemic has completely abolished stigma in the mental health industry which is the best thing that could ever happen to this industry. Why? Because like Jackie shared we are having a shared experience. Nobody is doing this different than anybody else in terms of what their experience is. We are all having to face this external threat that is outside of our control and we've had to manage and navigate and find our peace with it. Really our comfort with it in order to continue to adapt and move forward. This has been a wonderful positive of the pandemic when it comes to stigma. What stigma? Everybody is talking about their mental health right now. Everyone is talking about how challenging it has been. When can you think of a period in time when we've all been on the same playing field? Never. So this is a really powerful time right now because we are having the shared experience. Signs of declining mental well-being. This is what people want to understand and want to be able to better recognize. When is my mental health at risk? When am I starting to decline? When am I starting to go down that slope into dysfunction? Then, how do I get myself out of that? How do I rebuild so that I can become more resilient. Have better mental health skills and be able to manage not only my own mental health but others? The self-assessment. So this is a new part of the Mental Health First Aid Virtual. The self-assessment helps you to recognize and rely on the right path when it comes to my own mental health. Am I doing the things that I need to do? And often we know what we need to do. When we look at our overall health, and well-being I'll say, there's some very basic things that people I think now recognize they might have taken for granted. Things like nutrition. Things like sleeping. You're sleep habits. Things like exercise. All of these things, movement, really important. Exercise and movement. We know that that changes the chemistry in your brain. So yes, Val, Woot! Woot! This is why I'm sure Val loves to do what she does because she's constantly in motion which, when you're in motion and you're moving, you feel better. It's biology. It's neurocircuitry. It is science that when you move you're going to feel better. You're releasing endorphins. But what many of us are doing is we're getting stuck in that feeling of oh, I'm too tired. I've been in front of Zoom. It's too hard. I got to go way over there. I have dinner to make. I got the dog to walk. I got kids to look after and it's easy to come up with an excuse. It's easy to come up with excuses. It's harder to face yourself and say, "Listen. You've got to get up. You've got to move. You've got to do something." Because you're going to be more resilient. You're going to be stronger. You're going to be able to help more people. You're going to be there for your kids. For your dog. For your spouse. For everybody around you. Right? Your colleagues. That's what we need to focus on. We're missing the mark if we're not paying attention to these things right now. Let me just ask, when do you want to become more resilient? If you can become the most resilient in a pandemic think about your future. Think about the habits that you are creating right now that are going to serve you because what is going to be greater than a pandemic that you're going to have to face in the future? Hopefully, knock on wood, this is the biggest thing we're going to be in, that we're going to have deal with the biggest external threat, I'll say. But wouldn't you agree with me when now is the time to build your resiliency to get strong. To improve your habits to become a resilient human being. In my opinion, I'm a little biased but hey, now is the opportunity. You're not going to have any bigger challenge than this one to overcome yourself. Right?
Let's look at now the Mental Health First Aid Standard. It used to be called Mental Health First Aid. It's now called Mental Health First Aid Standard Virtual. How has it changed? So many of the people on this call have taken Mental Health First Aid in the past. The course has been completely revamped. Okay? The Canadian Mental Health Commission of Canada redesigned the course. They have moved away from the medical model. They are very much focused on resiliency, on evidence based recovery, on what helps people, moving away from the medical models. Less about the diagnosing. More about how do we help each other. So the Standard Virtual now looks like this. it used to be a 2 day course. It's now broken up into 2 hours of self-directed learning. So that means you're going to be given a link. Once you register for the course you're going to get the course content online. You click that link. It's your personalized link. You get to do the 2 hours of self-directed learning at your own pace, at your own time. Once you complete the 2 hours of self-directed learning you'll get a certificate. Yes, you have to pass the quiz, which will then get you into the next 2 modules, module 2 and module 3, which is 6 hours of virtual facilitation. Now, I do want to share with you, the Canadian Mental Health Commission of Canada has done some research and they have recognized most people can't pay attention after of 3 hours of being on Zoom. Okay? I think most of us know that, right? We're getting close to the time. You can start to feel tired. That Zoom fatigue will start to set in and when you're tired is not particularly the best time to learn new information. Right? You're just like, "Well, whatever. Let's get through it and get done." So it's not the ideal time to learn. So what we've done and how it's been a little bit redesigned and rejigged, and anybody who's registered for the course as I've been going back forth with many of you, we're breaking it down into 3 hours for module 2 and on a separate day, 3 hours for module 3. So it's not going to be 6 hours all in one day. It is delivered over Zoom so you do have to have Zoom in order to participate in the course. There is a minimum of 8 people to a maximum of 15 who can participate in the course. Of course they've done that based on research and learning outcomes as to the number of people. We can't include more people in those sessions so, again, the maximum will be 15. For information about the course please contact me. You can email me at info@megahealth.ca. At this point I think I'm close to the, oh, I've got some time here so I am happy to take questions.
Jill: We are 15 minutes ahead of schedule, Robin, so we've got time. You've got time.
Robin: Okay. Let's do it.
Jill: ... ... Michelle in the Q&A. Michelle, you're on mute. Michelle you're mute.
Michelle: Thanks, Jill. So a question from Victoria, I want to take the Mental Health First Aid but it says minimum 8 people. How can I still go through the course? Shall I just give Victoria your email and you can follow up with her?
Robin: Sure.
Michelle: Perfect. There is one question for Neena, actually. Is now a good time to ask it, Jill? Yup, you're on mute too but I think I'm feeling a yes.
Jill: Story of my life. You think I'd have learned by now 8 months later, but, hey. No. Go ahead, Michelle.
Michelle: So, Neena, thank you. Regarding the red category, and I'm quoting here, gathering in ... places and face coverings, there are no changes to these restrictions or guidance under the restrict category but if the region moved to the red category, the Province would limit all organized public events and social gatherings to 10 people inside and 25 out. The question specifically is, workplaces. That's right in the title there. So, how does the red category impact employee's, specifically?
Neena: Honestly, in terms of a workplace I don't actually think they're going to go to 10 people indoors because it would be ridiculous to have the same standard for Gowlings as they do for Toyota. So there are going to be, you'll see when you actually get into the guts of the regulation, there are separate regulations for workplaces, as there are for businesses catering to the public. We probably need to do a deeper dive depending on your workplace as to how you're going to do it. So for example, we know about the face covering being mandatory but there's actually an exemption in a workplace if you can maintain the social distancing or you're behind closed doors. So we just have to be a little patient and work through those regulations, and maybe look at the specific workplace, to find out what's going to be the appropriate safety plan for that workplace. I can't hear you, Michelle.
Jill: You're still on mute, Michelle.
Michelle: Okay. How am I now? Then another question for Robin. So we're kind of bouncing around a little bit. Can you please provide examples of how managers, employers and HRPs might receive actionable items from MHFA for their employees? So the example is, we're struggling to support employees who are unwilling, unable, just sort of resistance to come forth with how we can accommodate them. That's the question.
Robin: I think it comes down to being proactive and having those honest conversations with people. Typically that is the most difficult part for most people. So the actionable out of Mental Health First Aid is it teaches you how to have those conversations. We get to practice that through case scenarios and video representations so that people get to see and observe and notice and practice. How do I approach this person? What I love about the new virtual course is it's very much focused on when people are shutting down and they're not open and they don't want to talk about it. How do you overcome that in order to assist through those conversations and then get them to the supports that they need. I think that another part of this, that I just want to mention is, as a business, as an organization, it's acknowledging how challenging these times are right now and not denying that or pretending like it's business as usual. The businesses that are not paying attention to the mental health of their employees, guess what? They're all paying attention. They're all noticing are you bringing it up? Are you talking about it? Are you, yourself as a leader, demonstrating your vulnerability? How difficult it has been for you? Alternatively I say to staff, "Have you asked your CEO or asked your manager how they're doing?" Because often the expectation as managers and leaders of the organization have to do all of this themselves. But the reality is, is that everybody has a role to play in this, and if we can just be transparent and authentic that's where the learning comes in. That's where the trust comes in. That's where the connection comes in. But if there's forever this us and them, or I can't talk about this because it this is a scary topic, then how do we ever overcome it? Somebody has to break the ice. Somebody has to say, "Look. I'm going to go into this hard conversation. I'm going to take a risk." But this is essentially what the course teaches you how to do, and I don't begrudge anybody who doesn't know how, because I didn't know how. I took this course and this program and I love teaching it because I believe people need to know how to do it and do it right.
Jill: It isn't easy, Robin, and I think I heard a Canadian stat and it probably came from you, Robin, about 40% of employees in Canada stated that their manager has not even asked them how they are doing since the beginning of COVID. 40% and what I'm hearing from a lot of my clients is that they're afraid to ask because they don't know what to do with the information if they get somebody saying that they're depressed. They're feeling isolated. Many of those things they don't know what to do with it. So please look into this course with Robin. It's so beneficial, folks. The other thing I will share, since the beginning of COVID my team has dealt with 3 potential suicide situations. We've never had to be involved in that sort of thing before. We're not trained for that. We're not suicide prevention folks. I will tell you, I think someone on my team yesterday, saved somebody's life for her getting involved in this. People are just not the same and not doing okay for the most part. I really think we need to have the tools to be able to support people that are going through a tough time. I really do.
Robin: Yeah, that's also why in the very beginning of the presentation I wanted to let everybody know, which is what a manager and supervisor can do. But if you're feeling all of these things, the long laundry list of things, to let them know they're normal.
Jill: Yup.
Robin: You're normal! There's nothing wrong with you! You're normal. We are in a global pandemic. Why would it be unreasonable to think that you wouldn't be depressed, anxious, scared, worried, fearful, irritated, annoyed? Why is that not normal? It's completely normal. But why do I know that? Because I've taken a Mental Health First Aid course. When a trauma happens outside of us, that we have no control over, that the reaction that we're seeing on a collective global scale is normal. So if you can let staff know when they're feeling this way this is normal. It's challenging. It is so challenging. Because we've had to face so many changes in the last 8 months that nobody could have predicted. When there's no certainty, that's what staff want, they want certainty. Right? They want to know my leader cares. My workplace understands what I'm going through. My workplace isn't denying that this is super challenging, really hard, very difficult, every day trying to put one foot in front of the other where some days I feel like I can't do anything at all and I'm wondering if I can make it. Well, how many of us have felt that way in the last 8 months? I would say most of us have. Right? Who hasn't woken up and thought, "Am I going to be able to make it today? Oh my gosh, this is hard." But guess what? We're here and we're doing it. So, as leaders and as workplaces we have to recognize that we are doing it, but we're also here for you and we want to talk about it, and sometimes you just need to flat out ask people. What is that you need? How can I help you? What resources are you aware of? What have you tried? What are you doing in your days that's making a difference? I often ask people on my calls, "What made you happy today?" Just simply reframing. People forget, actually there's a lot of good things going on, but we tend to have this negative bias where we focus on the negative. It's easy for us to default to the, a million great things could have gone on in your day but, the one bad one happened and then our brain just narrows in and focuses on that one bad thing. We are surviving this pandemic. Is that not something to celebrate? It is something to celebrate. We're doing it. Right?
Jill: Michelle, any other questions on your end? You're off mute. There we go.
Michelle: There were a few questions, Robin, but I think you kind of nailed the range towards the end of your last few comments, which was really how to approach in a sensitive way that doesn't trespass on someone's right to privacy. In HR we're so concerned all the time about walking on eggshells and diving too deep into someone's personal life and what we've heard from you today is there are really effective ways of asking the question, "What is it that you need?" and "How can I be here for you?" Did you want to comment further on that?
Robin: I think it always, my view and my position is, as long as it's coming from an authentic place people know when you truly care about how they're doing. So even the question, "How are you doing?", it's not the question. It's how you ask it. People can feel it when you ask from your heart and you legitimately want to know. We've talked about active listening this morning. When you're totally present, Val talked about this, when you're truly present and in the present moment, and you're not distracted and looking at your phone and looking at all these other things, and you're there with somebody and you're asking them right to them, "How are you doing? How are you really doing?", and really mean it, people will feel it. But if you're asking, "Oh, hey. How's it going? How are you doing?" and it's just you feel like this transactional thing you just say. Like when we say good morning to people, right? You know when people say good morning and they mean it. You also know when people say good morning and they're just saying good morning because it's a habitual good morning that they give you. So it's knowing the difference. That's what Mental Health First Aid teaches people. You become more aware of who you are. You become more aware of how you speak. You become more aware of the language that you use. But like I say, I never begrudge anybody who doesn't have these skills because I didn't have them either. You have to learn and you have to practice what you learn, take that away and here's the point, our whole world is the opportunity to practice.
Jill: So, Robin, remind us the new course that you've got online how many hours is it, the first day and the second?
Robin: It's 3 hours. So the first is a self-directed 2 hours. You get 2 hours to do, you could do it in less than that time, but you're going to get around 2 hours to do the first module. The second module is going to be virtually delivered online. It's 3 hours and then the next day you'll complete the whole course, module 3, which is 3 hours.
Jill: Excellent. That's great. Thank you very much.
Robin: You're welcome.
Jill: Michelle, anything else from the questions?
Michelle: Yup. There's two more. So one is sort of a Neena and Robin hybrid. The question is really about performance coaching when it relates directly to mental illness. So, we are faced with the very delicate scenario of somebody who has excessive absenteeism as a result of an illness and the question coming from one of our attendees is, how do we navigate that?
Neena: I'm going to just start on the legal side and then maybe, Robin, you can talk about the more compassionate side. So legally, as an employer we have a obligation to accommodate employees who are suffering from any medical condition, and that includes the serious mental health issues that many of us are experiencing, quite frankly. The business has to treat it the same way they would treat a heart attack or stroke or a broken knee or a sprained ankle and essentially work through those issues. Where I think it becomes more difficult with mental health is that there is an element of denial. Part of mental heath issues can include a denial that a person is suffering from mental health issues. For those people you really have to have what I call a two door approach. One is we've asked you. We've asked you sincerely. We've pointed out our EAP, our accommodation policy, but you're not performing to our reasonable expectation. Door number one is the performance review process and the warnings and so on and so forth. Which quite frankly, if there's a medical explanation for this, we're encouraging you to go to your doctor, your health care provider, your therapist, our EAP people because we think you're really valuable and we think you don't realize how much you are suffering, and if there is a medical component to it, we're happy to work with you and listen to your health care practitioners. I'm not going to pretend, however, that that always works. I have a particularly intransigent situation where we have a fabulous HR, very experience person who herself suffers from mental health issues but she can recognize it, and has tried to work with the person and it is always this is not my problem. It is always A, B and C and has now created a toxic workplace for everybody else. In those cases you're just going to have to make the difficult decision to remove that person from the workplace. Sometimes it's not going to be risk free but it is the only thing that can be done to protect the other people's mental health issues, which is the irony.
So, I did want to actually answer one of the questions that was on the Q&A or chat line about whether or not leaders or functional leaders should be taking the, I know you don't call it Mental Health First Aid but that's what I grew up with, and I just want to tell you that our leaders did take it. Almost universally said it was the best training that they had ever taken. Yay, yes, Jackie's clapping. I, myself, have noticed a greater openness within our organization to talk about difficult issues. Not just mental health issues but just in general. The willingness to talk about difficult issues including things like Black Lives Matter or indigenous rights after talking the Mental Health First Aid. The fact that it's de-stigmatized difficult discussions in the workplace. I'm a real believer and I will give a shout out to the CEO of Gowlings, who just casually in a conversation, indicated that the reason why, this was in a partner's meeting, the reason why he chose to come back to the office was because for his mental health. That he needed that separation between home and office. I'm also one of the ones, by the way, that need to have that separation. I know your kitty is very lovely, Jackie, but I hate working around my kitties. We are all a bit different and just that openness to say, not because he was macho in coming back to the office, but because he needed it for his mental health was really an invitation to have those open conversations. I think, yes, everybody should take whatever the new MHFA is. How's that?
Robin: Yes. I agree.
Jill: Awesome. Thank you. Anything else, Michelle?
Michelle: Yes, just a quick one for Neena and actually this is a goodie because I've been asked this by some of my clients in the last couple of days as well. I'm an employee and I live in a red zone and I want to come to work in a yellow or orange zone. Is that an issue?
Neena: No, up until now it is not an issue. So we do not have the geographic lockdown. Obviously you have to follow whatever rules apply to your workplace and to your geographic place of residence. People are still allowed to commute. So we're not in the period of time, if you remember in March and April, where certain borders were shutdown, businesses were forced to shutdown. We're trying to avoid going back to that. So that's why we have the various zones.
Michelle: And if I say to you, my employer, I live in a red zone. I would like to be accommodated by being able to work from home, because I do live in a red zone, my response as an HR professional is? It's got dot, dot, dot.
Neena: I am encouraging all companies who have the ability to allow work from home to really try work from home unless there is a functional reason. Like obviously Toyota is not going to be building the RAV4 from a work from home model. But maybe we can try to be a little bit more flexible and try work from home even if it is, strictly speaking, not legally required. Also, I'm encouraging workplaces to be a little bit more flexible and understanding that when people are trying to work with 2 kids, 2 dogs, a husband working, all sharing bandwidth, things are simply not going to get done as efficiently as they used to be. That's not a performance deficit. That's a sign that people are doing the best they can. I'm now living off a farm and I can tell you I have bad internet. There are some days emails don't get responded to as quickly as they should. Documents don't get revised as quickly as they should and you know what? My clients' just putting up with it. I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can with the technology and restrictions I have.
Jill: Awesome. Anything else, Michelle?
Michelle: No.
Jill: Okay, good. Neena, can I turn it over to you to do a quick wrap up and the HRPA code as well.
Neena: Yes. Absolutely. So, first of all I want to thank each and everyone of our speakers. This is our 7th annual Hot Topics for HR. I have to tell you that without Jill Zappitelli's energy this would not get done. In particular, in 2020, I have to by honest. I don't know if I really wanted to do this and if I didn't get nagged and nudged by Jill I think I would have probably, honestly, given it a miss. That would have been so unfortunate because we had over 450 people register. Tons of people wanting the materials and so thank you, Jill. I learned from Jackie Lauer just the importance of trying to replicate what we do in a room in terms of communication. I learned from Val Shah that I like moving. It's really important so I'm going to try to incorporate that. I am going to stop, I'm such a couch potato. I'm going to try to be better. I am delighted to hear from Robin Bender that we now have a virtual option for MHFA because that's something we budget for every year and we weren't sure what to do so now we know all about that. I have to tell you, I am going to try to use those little video introductions or hellos or just even for greetings. Think about it. All of us have gone through a holiday where it's Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali and it's not just the same and those videos I think would be just such a great way of acknowledging people's holidays. Right? So, Joseph and Lisa, thank you for sharing all those awesome tricks. I honestly feel badly for those young people that are getting onboarded now because I really know they're missing the great atmosphere we have at Gowling WLG and I want to just thank you. I would be remiss, quite frankly, if I didn't thank all of the people at Gowlings that make it possible. We have amazing group of people, Chantal ... , many of you have met her, Shannon Wadsworth, all of whom very quietly in the background, make us look great. I always think that they are the setting that makes us look great and I give out a like virtual thank you to them for putting up with us.
So a couple of other things. I'm going to try to find, this is going to be my, we all know how good I am at PowerPoint. The answer is, not.
Unknown: I've got it Neena.
Neena: Can you screen share the HR
Unknown: I've got it. There is a backup. I've got it.
Neena: Okay, good, super. So a couple of things that I wanted to remind because, Jill, you wanted me to remind people that even if you guys have a COVID policy that's buried somewhere, you should still look at what the government enacted this week about having a public communication policy and a COVID safety plan. They are not what you are already have and as one public health nurse said, "Don't reinvent the wheel." Maybe all it is is re-labeling what you have and cut and paste but you should be looking what applies to your business, in the colour code that you are in, and just updating it. That's all we're asking you do to and Jill's team has great templates if you really feel like you need some extra help there. Couple of people have asked for more details on the case law. I actually wrote a paper for a legal audience but I tend to use plain language so I will get Shannon to distribute that or send the link. I am not asking all of you to read it. I'm just saying those of you that are the keeners and you want to read it please feel free to read it. And, anything else? Is there anything else, Jill, that I should have covered.
Jill: I'll just announce the HRPA code really quickly for those tracking points. The CPD code is 209915. So again it's 209915.
Neena: And because this has been offered by Gowling WLG, those of you who are lawyers, are able to claim my presentation for 45 minutes of CPD.
Jill: Amazing. Okay. Well look at us, right on time here this morning, this is amazing. I hope that everybody has a wonderful rest of the day and thank you for joining us this morning. It's been an absolute pleasure to host all of you. So thanks for showing up.