Team: National HR Team     

Team Size: 5 Senior Leaders 

Engagement Length: 18 months

Focus Area: Transforming a new HRLT from a group of individuals into a high-impact team

Background:

In the wake of a significant business transformation, a proudly Canadian company assembled a new Senior HR Leadership Team (HRLT) to support the evolving, complex needs of the business, including leadership transitions, structural realignments, and technology upgrades. This team, comprising of newly hired and internally promoted executives, was led by a new SVP Human Resources Officer with a bold vision: to reposition HR as a strategic driver of business value while ensuring operational continuity in a time of disruption. The new HRLT had to come together quickly, build trust, define their collective purpose, and demonstrate credibility to the business—all while ensuring HR service excellence in day-to-day operations.

Goal:

The team needed to quickly:

• Win confidence from skeptical business leaders

• Drive transformational HR initiatives with speed, precision and discretion

• Inspire and align the broader HR function across Canada

• Maintain employee engagement and talent continuity

Solution:

• Offsite Launch + Team Development Sessions: The SVP initiated a 2-day offsite to create space for authentic connection, reflection, and alignment. The team worked through personal leadership styles and strengths, a trust-building exercise based on vulnerability and accountability and joint reflection on past barriers to HR’s business influence.

• Establishing Purpose & Operating Norms: The team co-created a shared Purpose Statement and defined their working norms and accountabilities. 

• Strategic Cascading to the Broader HR Organization: Recognizing the importance of alignment across HR, the team developed a messaging and engagement strategy to cascade clarity and purpose throughout the HR function.

• Role modelled team effectiveness: Based on their experience as a team, they recommended the H3 team approach to other leaders within the organization who were going through transformation and change. 

Lessons Learned: 

• Real conversations build real teams, accelerate alignment and enable bolder and faster decisions.

• Co-creating a shared purpose provides a team with a clear North Star. A clearly defined 'why' helps teams stay focused on what truly drives business value.

• Establishing and living working norms helps prevent teams from falling into silos or reverting to legacy mindsets.

• Quick wins matter, but they must be strategic. Demonstrating business value early gives leadership teams the 'permission' to go deeper with more complex transformation efforts.

• HR must model the change it asks of others, what an HRLT practices inside the team, echoes across the organization.