Alison Hill, Queen's IRC Research Associate

In August 2011, I moved from Kingston, Ontario, to Copenhagen, Denmark. I've been fortunate to continue working remotely for the IRC while living in Europe. The past five months have been a learning experience, as I've continued to transition and adjust to work and life in a foreign country. (More)

By Elaine Newman, Arbitrator and Mediator

I can't tell you the number of times I have found myself in the midst of a labour arbitration hearing, asking myself, "Why are we doing this?" "Why are we having this hearing?" "What goal do the parties hope to achieve by investing in these expensive days in hearing?" Often, I am sure that the parties themselves do not have an answer to these questions squarely in mind. The results of the Queen's IRC research (Juniper & Hill, 2011) prove me right. It appears that human resource practitioners have identified a strong need to develop analytical, critical, and strategic thinking - the kinds of skills necessary to ensure that their grievance handling becomes more effective and "strategic". (More)

By Patricia Allen

About seven years ago, while working in our human resources branch, my manager recommended that I take a couple of the Queen's Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) Organization Development (OD) certificate courses. Thus began a journey, which this year, culminated in me being awarded a Queen's IRC Master Practitioner in Applied Organizational Development certificate and standing as a Master OD Practitioner. The Queen's IRC's programming has been invaluable to my work, and I want to take this opportunity to share my perspective on the value of the IRC's programming and the ease with which the tools, resources, and learning can be applied to the workplace. (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott

"We trained hard but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized... I was to learn later in life that... we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be of creating the illusion of progress while producing inefficiency and demoralization." (Charlton Ogburn, (1957), reflecting on his experience as a soldier during WWII). (More)

By Tahreem Raza

Transactional leadership focuses on the transactions between leaders and their followers (Bass, 1990). Transformational leadership, in contrast, is a leadership approach that inspires change in individuals (Bass). This paper examines transformational and transactional leadership styles individually and then compares the underlying philosophies of both of these forms of leadership. By making reference to, and providing evidence from existing literature, this paper will argue that transformational leadership is more effective. (More)

By Amelia Moslemi

This literature review examines the topics of change management and leadership by exploring how leadership attributes contribute to and/or hinder the successfulness of a change initiative. The main question undergirding this report is: What are some of the essential attributes and behaviours of an effective change leader? (More)

By Alison Hill

In 2009, the IRC conducted a survey of LR professionals to glean their insights on the level of skills, knowledge, and abilities required for the profession. The survey also explored the amount of time LR professionals were spending on certain LR tasks. Based on this research, led by Anne Grant and Stephanie Noel, the IRC determined that Mastering Fact-Finding and Investigation is a critical skill that LR professionals must hone. Accordingly, earlier this year, the IRC launched its inaugural Mastering Fact-Finding and Investigation program. The program is part of the IRC's new Advanced Labour Relations certificate, which builds on the skills and knowledge acquired in the Labour Relations certificate series. The Advanced Labour Relations certificate includes three programs: Mastering Fact-Finding and Investigation (launched in April 2011), Strategic Grievance Handling (launching in May 2012), and Optimizing the Labour-Management Relationship: Leadership Skills for LR professionals (launching in 2013). (More)

By Stephanie Noel

It is an exciting time at the IRC. Not only are we continuing to expand our programming options, we are also exploring new locations to hold our programs. Most recently, the IRC's program team headed to Fort McMurray, delivering our Managing Unionized Environments program in October. As the IRC evolves our programming options to best meet the needs of HR, LR, and OD professionals, we also aim to offer programs in locations that are convenient for our participants and their sponsor organizations. The resounding success of the October Managing Unionized Environments has encouraged the IRC to consider offering additional programming options in Fort McMurray during our 2012-2013 program season. Having grown up in Sudbury, Ontario, a mining town, I felt very much at home in Fort McMurray. Conversations that I had with participants during the program were positive; it seems that Fort McMurray is a desirable location for IRC programs moving forward. (More)

By Brendan Sweeney

The labour relations environment in Ontario's education sector 1 is both fascinating and dynamic. The late 1970s and 1980s marked a period of relative stability. Conversely, the 1990s were marked by turnover in provincial government, legislatives changes, new policy initiatives, and labour disputes. Not surprisingly, these phenomena dramatically impacted the working relationships between teachers, school administrators, 2 school board staff, educational support workers, and school trustees. A series of new initiatives in the past decade reduced the incidence of labour disruptions significantly and provided some stability, and there is still progress to be made. What is apparent amidst this contextual background is the importance of labour relations to the education sector. Accordingly, this report outlines the key components of the IRC's Education-Labour Relations in Ontario research initiative. (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott

In today's fast paced world, organization design is an essential competency. As leaders strive to become more efficient, customer focused, and/or innovative, organizational forms must necessarily adapt in support. Paraphrasing Gary Hamel and Bill Breen in The Future of Management (2007), expecting a traditional bureaucracy to be speedy and flexible is like asking a dog to dance the tango - it simply is not in the dog's, or the organization's, DNA. Good design, therefore, defines more than the structural boxes and lines found on an organization chart. While those lines and boxes describe an organization's basic frame, they reveal very little about the nature of the core work, protocols for how work gets done, and the social expectations for how units are meant to relate. What are the performance drivers? What capabilities need to be developed and honed? How do resources need to be shared? Who needs to link with whom? What mindsets and protocols are required? Who decides? Good design incorporates these relational, procedural, and social elements - the DNA so to speak - to ensure that people are grouped and linked, as well as led and supported, to focus on the core work. (More)

By Heather Swartz, M.S.W., C.Med., Partner, Agree Incorporated

The increased diversity in Ontario workplaces, the benefits and challenges that diversity presents to organizations, and initiatives to increase awareness and make our workplaces more inclusive have been an important focus of Canadian businesses and their human resource professionals over the past several decades.  (More)

By Alison Hill

Queen's IRC has now successfully delivered several iterations of our Advanced HR programming. During the program, participants are often engaged with the material and the discussions. But, to what extent is this engagement with learning maintained outside of the classroom? To answer this question, IRC Research Associate, Alison Hill, spoke with Dave Urquhart, Team Lead, HR Advisory, Staffing and Development at Encana. Dave has been a participant in the Advanced HR programming, and has sponsored several of his employees to attend as well.  (More)

By Amelia Moslemi

At the most general level, organizational change is present when a workplace experiences a difference in its functions, members, leaders, or form (as cited in Weick and Quinn, 1999). This change subsequently requires an adaptive response on the part of employees (Jex, 2002). Evidence suggests that perceptions of stress in the workplace result from an employee's cognitive appraisal of their work environment; empirical findings show that during organizational change in the form of a merger, employees consistently report feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and job insecurity (Jex). Upon consideration of the fact that change often creates these negative feelings among employees, it is reasonable to infer that change is a precursor to higher levels of stress in the workplace, which give rise to tensions that require a certain mode of leadership.  (More)

By Alison Hill

Deloitte and Queen's IRC are co-delivering an HR Governance Symposium to be held on December 1, 2011. In preparation for this event, Queen's IRC Research Associate, Alison Hill, sat down with Ian Cullwick from Deloitte to discuss HR governance, its meaning, constituents, and implications for organizations. This article provides an overview of that conversation.  (More)

By Diane Locke

The ubiquitous term "war for talent" was coined in 1997 by management consultants McKinsey & Co. The consultants had conducted a year-long study and had concluded that the most important corporate resource over the following two decades would be talent.1 The demand for smart, technologically savvy, and globally astute businesspeople, they said, would outstrip the supply. The search for the best and brightest was to become an ongoing battle; not only would organizations need to become better equipped to recruit skilled talent, they also would be challenged to retain them. (More)

Last year, OPSEU brought together business, labour, government, and community agencies for an in-depth exploration of the possible futures for Ontario with Ontario 2020. The Ontario 2020 Delphi forecast has now been released, which shows that experts are concerned and pessimistic about the future of the province.

IRC Director Paul Juniper was a member of the steering committee for the Ontario 2020 project, which included a two-day conference in Toronto. Experts in four areas - community services, the economy, education and health care - were invited to evaluate how the province will develop in the next decade. Four possible scenarios of the future were assessed for each of the key areas. (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott

People working collectively make organizations hum. No matter the task - a radical productivity improvement, a breakthrough innovation, the development of an exceptional customer service culture - people must join together and invest their heads, hearts, and wills to get the job done. When people, with various and relevant skills and perspectives, join around challenges that matter, their collective efforts produce innovations that get implemented. (More)

By Alison Hill

One of the ways in which the IRC is ramping up our communication strategy is by speaking directly with participants in post-program interviews. Recently, I conducted brief interviews with a small sample of participants from the IRC's inaugural Managing Unionized Environments (MUE) program.  (More)

by Paul Juniper and Alison Hill

In response to increasing demands from organizations, the skills and knowledge that HR professionals require in the workplace continue to shift. As many of our program participants are likely aware, HR professionals are now more involved in strategic roles that help to shape organizational culture, effectiveness, and design. (More)

By Paul Juniper and Alison Hill

The Queen’s University Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) is committed to increasing our research portfolio. Recognizing that the state of the human resources (HR) profession is changing, in Canada and around the globe, the IRC sought to explore both quantitatively and qualitatively how Canadian practitioners view their profession. In February 2011, we launched a 53-question survey, "An Inquiry into the State of HR in Canada." The purpose of the survey was to describe the HR profession in Canada, based on the perspectives of practitioners.

When the survey closed on February 28, 2011, a total of 451 complete responses were collected. This Executive Summary presents an overview of some of the survey data. (Download)

By Richard A. Russell, Principal, Agree Incorporated

Jean passed the talking piece to Kimberly. You could see her shoulders straighten, a deep intake of breath, a glance around the circle of her assembled colleagues. She was steeling herself to say what was difficult but necessary. Kimberly explained that, for her, the constant putting down of customers and negativity around workplace conditions was unacceptable and made it difficult to enjoy and take pride in her work. She asked that the team demonstrate professionalism toward clients and respect the fact that everyone ought to be able to come to work and expect a reasonably supportive environment.  (More)

By Dr. Carol A. Beatty, Senior Research Fellow, Queen's IRC

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
— Albert Einstein

People management professionals are often exhorted to become more knowledgeable about business strategy but many are discouraged by the jargon and the apparent complexity of the field. While it is true that a radical rethink of your organization’s strategy involves creativity and specialized skills, most regular strategic planning exercises do not require that level of sophistication. In this article, I will follow Einstein’s advice and aim to demystify the organizational strategy process by removing the jargon and boiling it down to five simple questions. Answer these questions and you will be able to meet the challenges of most strategic planning situations.  (More)

By Sharon Parker

Every organization is DOING change management and many even have a dedicated change team.  In the past 20 years, the practitioners and researchers in the field have seen a shift from hiring change management consultants to developing change management teams within an organization. Based on my experience, I provide my insights on the change process and suggest a practical approach to managing change in an organization. (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott

Take this challenge. Ask fellow employees if they have ample opportunity to learn and apply what they learn at work. Chances are their answers will be varied, with many answering with a sometimes or it depends. This is a conundrum. One does not have to look far to find support for the notion that learning in organizations is a critical capability. In our disruptive world, an organization's capacity to facilitate learning—to acquire, apply, and spread new insights—has been touted as the fundamental strategic capability and a leading source of competitive advantage. (More)

By Anne Grant

A key component of fact-finding is the gathering and reporting of evidence. The fact-finding report is intended to be a reliable resource for labour relations practitioners. Thus, the following DOs and DON'Ts should be considered when preparing the evidence section of the fact-finding report: (More)

By Gary T. Furlong

In almost all organizations today, both public and private sector, managers are looking to deliver better results and greater productivity. And within these same organizations, the union is often seen as a barrier to management effectively achieving these goals. From the union's point of view, management views the collective agreement as an impediment to achieving results, leading to frequent violations of the collective agreement. This dynamic leads to ongoing conflict between management and union, further draining the organization's energy and resources, eroding the very productivity and results the company is seeking to achieve. Both management and the union need to revisit how the collective agreement is used, and could be used more effectively, within the organization.  (More)

By Alan Morantz

It is a sunny day in June 2008, and in the Calgary office of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), a gathering of senior managers of ENMAX Power Corporation and members of IBEW Local 254 is getting animated. The lively discussion centres on the hot-button topic of discipline: when should managers invoke it and how can it be made fair and transparent? The discussion falls along party lines, and neither the managers nor the union members hold back.  (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott

With organizations and their environments in a state of constant flux, organizational development scholars have been challenged to create and practice methodologies that enable fast, yet comprehensive change. In answer to the call, a wide range of large-group change techniques has emerged to promote whole-systems adaptability. While the technologies differ in their focus and approach, all share a common assumption base, stemming from a deep intellectual root system.  (More)

by Alan Morantz
Queen's IRC Thought Leadership Consultant

If it takes a village to raise a child, then perhaps it takes co-workers to help trainees shine.

Management development experts have long known that organizations get the most out of their training dollars when employees are supported before, during, and after training. Few organizations, however, actually follow this advice.  (More)

by Alan Morantz
Queen's IRC Thought Leadership Consultant

Organizational development and change management more than ever before are being linked to learning and talent development, according to a report recently published by the UK-based CIPD.

"It is clear that organizational development and design will become increasingly important as organizations seek to change, innovate and to link learning to organizational goals," according to CIPD's 2010 Learning and Talent Development survey report. But the report also noted that "practitioners are less involved in discussing the design, delivery and impact of learning with other managers. This alignment issue is a key one as L&TD seeks to build its reputation and impact."  (More)

According to social network theory, people are on average only a few connections away from the information they seek. But in large organizations, this theory falls apart: some employees clearly have longer search paths than others in locating the knowledge they require. Is this simply because they have an inferior network?  (More)

You can see it in the streets and smell it in the air: signs of economic recovery are beginning to emerge. But according to the latest estimates from the Conference Board of Canada, it will take up to five years for the economy to return to full capacity. For workforce planners with an agenda for change, now is the time to strike.  (More)

By Kirsteen MacLeod

How can human resources professionals bargain and build meaningful relationships with the union during tough economic times?

In her recent presentation at Queen's IRC's Labour Relations Foundations program, Ontario Nurses' Association President Linda Haslam-Stroud provided sound advice for signing off on successful collective agreements. In the following excerpts from her talk, Linda shares her top 10 tips.  (More)

By Alan Morantz
Queen's IRC Thought Leadership Consultant

Although working women are piling up educational credentials and experience, in far too many organizations they are still butting up against a glass ceiling. These invisible barriers to upward mobility can come in various forms: lack of mentoring of women, gender stereotyping, and views that men make more effective leaders. In the U.S., women holding the titles of chairman, CEO, COO, and executive vice president remain at about 7 percent of the population of executives.  (More)

By Alan Morantz
Queen's IRC Thought Leadership Consultant

Trade union mergers in Europe and North America have been going strong since the Second World. It is almost always a question of survival: mergers or absorptions are thought to help unions maintain or grow membership to sustain their financial base and increase bargaining power.

While in the past mergers occurred among unions in the same industry or occupation, more recently unions from different parts of the economy have merged to create super-unions, such as ver.di in Germany and UNITE in the UK.  (More)

There is yawning chasm between practice and research. The gap is twofold: HR practitioners are generally not aware of the latest HR-related research findings that impact on their work; and HR practitioners and researchers are interested in different issues.  (More)

Leaders who excel over time utilize organizational networks in distinctive ways to compensate for weaknesses in formal structures, says Rob Cross (U of Virginia) and colleagues who conducted network analyses at more than 100 organizations.  (More)

By Alan Morantz

The modern HR professional looks a lot like poor Alice in Through the Looking-Glass, running feverishly with the Red Queen only to be staying in the same place, says Queen's IRC Director Paul Juniper.  (More)

By Brenda Barker Scott, Queen’s University IRC

While change theorists explore the process of planned change from various perspectives, most would acknowledge the intellectual roots of their work stem from Kurt Lewin’s laboratory. Scratch the surface of planned change theories and Lewin’s spirit and conceptual framework will not be far below. A German-born psychologist, Lewin was considered the "founder of social psychology." What follows is an exploration of how Lewin’s work provided the deep root structure from which planned change theory has evolved.  (More)

By Paul Juniper, Director, Queen’s University IRC, with Alan Morantz

You would think, in this money-mad society, that most people make their big work-related decisions on the basis of maximizing their compensation. And you would be wrong. In fact, social scientists will tell you that most people satisfice; that is, they choose an action that is merely “good enough” rather than optimal.  (More)

By Alan Morantz

The economic upheaval currently gripping world economies will profoundly alter the dynamics of labour relations in Ontario, says a senior official in Ontario's Ministry of Labour.

In a presentation in late March to Queen's School of Policy Studies, Kevin Wilson, Assistant Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Labour's Policy, Program Development, and Dispute Resolution Services Division, said the current recession has hit Ontario hardest: consumer confidence is the lowest in Canada; unemployment is headed for 9 percent; and the crucial automobile and parts manufacturing market has been decimated.  (More)

by Alan Morantz

When it comes to psychological harassment and bullying in the workplace, targets report that HR departments often make a bad situation much worse, says Jana Raver, Queen's School of Business Assistant Professor and E. Marie Shantz Research Fellow in Organizational Behaviour.  (More)

By: Kirsteen MacLeod

Increasingly, human resources practitioners are being challenged to help break down barriers to the participation of employees with disabilities. Those barriers, alas, are proving tough to overcome.  (More)

Employers may be relieved now that the Supreme Court of Canada has reversed steep punitive damages in a high-profile wrongful dismissal case involving a disabled worker. But accommodating the needs of employees who have disabilities - in particular depression - is not getting any easier, says IRC faculty member Anthony Griffin. Griffin is counsel for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which intervened in Keays v. Honda Canada, a case that has been watched closely by Canadian employers for the past four years. (The views expressed are his and do not purport to be the views of the Commission.)  (More)

At the City of Regina, two related factors have been driving the successful restructuring of its Community and Protective Services Division. 

The first is the Queen’s IRC Blueprint for Diagnosing Organizational Effectiveness, which has provided the map for change. And the second is the enthusiasm for the Blueprint tool from the City’s senior management.  (More)

By Paul Juniper and Alison Hill

The Queen’s University Industrial Relations Centre (IRC) is committed to increasing our research portfolio. Recognizing that the state of the human resources (HR) profession is changing, in Canada and around the globe, the IRC sought to explore both quantitatively and qualitatively how Canadian practitioners view their profession. In February 2011, we launched a 53-question survey, "An Inquiry into the State of HR in Canada." The purpose of the survey was to describe the HR profession in Canada, based on the perspectives of practitioners.

When the survey closed on February 28, 2011, a total of 451 complete responses were collected. This Executive Summary presents an overview of some of the survey data. (Download)