Why should other business units have all the fun in today’s modern organization? It’s unfortunate that Human Resources (HR) is still synonymous with governance, mandated policies and required programs. And despite HR expanding its influence to include things like talent development, recognition and health and wellness, it continues to be regarded as a department incapable of change, creativity and innovation. Now don’t get me wrong, someone steering the ship of order is necessary, but I believe that today’s HR is capable of so much more.

As increasing numbers of HR professionals become trusted business partners, they are not just being invited to the table; they are relied upon for strategic advice and counsel to move the business forward through a relentless focus on engaging and enabling the organization’s most cherished asset — its people. Nowhere has this been more evident for me than in the organization I have had the privilege of working with over the past 3 years. After spending the early part of my career as an HR generalist within a leadership and talent practice at a management consultancy, I joined TELUS — a leading national telecommunications company in Canada, with $11.3 billion of annual revenue, 13.3 million customer connections and over 42,000 employees.

My decision to go in-house and offer my talents to a significantly larger organization was based on good role fit with personal research interests, the opportunity to directly observe the impact of my employee development efforts and a desire to be part of a strong and vibrant culture. I accepted an opportunity to become the Learning Consultant for TELUS’s largest business unit — TELUS Customer Solutions, which at the time employed about 18,000 team members across 6 very different customer facing business units. Despite sitting on a corporate Learning & Development team, I supported a large integrated HR team who provided strategic support to line leaders across the business. My role focused on the promotion and adoption of organizational-wide learning and development opportunities, the alignment of our TELUS Leadership Philosophy and the identification of individual learning and leadership development needs for director and VP teams.

It was evident early on while working at TELUS that our HR professionals were best in class and the HR function in general had become a true leader in driving innovation and business results through an investment in people. In fact, over the past decade our HR department has championed many critical human capital programs that have kept our employees engaged, our customers happy, our bottom line results strong and industry analysts singing our praise. A few of these are mentioned below.

Personalized learning for all

TELUS’ approach to employee learning and development is something special to behold and one of the main reasons I joined the company. While many organizations today continue to rely on the instructor-led classroom model, as early as 2009, TELUS introduced a connected learning model that enabled team members to learn at their own pace and on their own terms through a large collection of formal, informal and social learning opportunities.

Whether its reading user generated blogs on SAP Jam, learning excel macros from Skillsoft’s vast elearning catalog, sitting in on a fireside chat with a senior executive, attending an on-boarding class in Avaya’s virtual world or coaching a team of speed skaters to practice leadership behaviours (more on this in a future post), TELUS team members have an ocean of possibilities at their fingertips to shape their individual development plans.

Our Courage to Innovate (one of our core TELUS values) in the learning space has been admired by other organizations and recognized by the Association for Talent Development (formerly ASTD) with nine BEST awards. These awards ‘recognize organizations that demonstrate enterprise-wide success as a result employee learning and development.’ TELUS is only one of two organizations globally to have won the award nine times since ATD began handing them out in 2003.

Emphasizing the importance of career development

It’s no surprise to anyone anymore that attracting talent is a challenge for organizations today. But once you have successfully attracted the best and brightest, what’s keeping them from leaving you for your competition? In the fiercely competitive Canadian telecom space, TELUS has gone to great strides in recent years to develop a career development strategy that supports team members.

Career development portal — An online resource that provides TELUS team members with a one stop shop to research job families, sub-families and individual roles across the organization. The portal contains an A-Z glossary of jobs at TELUS, job family maps to visualize both lateral and upward career moves and helpful career guidance tools like career assessments or tips on how to improve one’s interviewing skills or resume before applying for that next internal (or external) job.

Customized career development plans (CCDPs) — An important part of TELUS’ annual performance development cycle, the CCDP is a shared process between a team member and their manager to identify and document development opportunities. Development opportunities are balanced for both in-role development (“a right”) and development for the purposes of career growth (“earned”). This distinction is important for leaders to understand in order to drive meaningful career development for the team. While the CCDP can be thought of as a blank canvas to be shaped by team member and leader, TELUS’ recent installation of SuccessFactors is providing an online tool for employees to track development goals, their measures of success, time frames and what learning opportunities are available to support the development goal. Today there are 30,000+ customized career development plans documented at TELUS.

External Learning Financial Assistance — The purpose of the External Learning Financial Assistance (ELFA) program at TELUS is to cultivate knowledge and skills that enhance the business by providing team members an opportunity to pursue educational development outside of the organization. External learning is comprised of leadership, business and technical development through universities, colleges and technical schools as well as attendance at conferences, conventions, seminars and memberships to associations and societies. Using current performance in one’s role and tenure as eligibility requirements, each year TELUS sets aside budget for team members to pursue individual courses, certificate/degree programs and even Masters, MBA and EMBA programs.

Working when and where its most effective

In a time where other organizations are bringing employees back to the office (see Yahoo), TELUS is leading the way in demonstrating that flexible work arrangements really work. This was a huge draw when I joined TELUS in 2011. With my leader in British Columbia and my team scattered across 4 provinces and 3 time zones, we collaborated using available technologies and social tools to deliver high quality work for our internal customers. As a mobile worker at TELUS, I average about 2-3 days a week in the office with the remaining days at home. I also tend to work longer hours since I can start earlier and end later when my daily commute is scrapped.

Formally introduced to the organization in 2006 as a collaborative project between HR and Real Estate, the Work Styles™ program gives TELUS team members the flexibility to work when and where they are most effective so they can focus on supporting TELUS customers in the most effective manner.

Today, we continue to move towards our target of having 70% of the TELUS team member population working in a mobile capacity or from a home office by 2015. Through solid program governance, support of senior leaders and quarterly surveys to ensure continued team member satisfaction, it is becoming very evident that our industry leading Work Styles program is fostering greater productivity and team member engagement. We have even partnered with the Richard Ivey School of Business to measure the effectiveness and impact of Work Styles on our culture and organization. We will be announcing the results of this research to the public soon.

Keeping the customer top of mind

Once far removed from the customer, our incredible HR team has also been an important part of helping to drive TELUS’ number one strategic priority– putting customers first. With a stated goal of becoming the most recommended global company in the markets we serve, many philosophies and frameworks appeared over the years. While these were important to guiding overall strategy and direction, there was still something missing to galvanize all team members toward what it meant to put a customer first. Put another way; was the customer’s first mantra clear and simple no matter where one sat in the organization?

Led by HR in 2012, the Customers First Commitments program was unveiled which invited team members from across TELUS to submit ideas on what their personal pledge would be to our customers. Over 1,000 ideas were collected and summarized into 20 themes which were then validated and consolidated to a top 10 list through the efforts of 650 team members. Later that year, over 500 senior leaders, representing all business units, further validated the themes and voted on the top four which were then submitted to the CEO and the executive leadership team for final approval. Putting customers first was enhanced for all TELUS team members by the formal introduction of TELUS’ Customers First commitments.

Like the TELUS corporate values, the Customers First Commitments help to guide the daily actions of 40,000+ team members and align them to a positive customer experience.

Today, every team member is encouraged to reflect on these commitments by thinking about how they will fulfill them in their roles.

Bearing the fruits of our labor

It’s always a bonus to join an organization firing on all cylinders and my timing couldn't have been any better when I joined back in 2011. The above programs and projects described are only a small part of the TELUS Story. It’s been a humbling experience to be part of an organization where culture has become its competitive advantage. TELUS has shown that possessing a strong and differentiated culture can drive strong business results. The entire TELUS team has come together to demonstrate a passion for growth with respect to innovation and our client and team member experiences. The results have been nothing short of impressive.

TELUS’ total returns have consistently outperformed our global peers, generating a leading 286 per cent return for our investors over the past 14 years.

# of customer complaints reported for TELUS by the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services has decreased by 27 per cent in 2013 while overall industry complaints increased by 26 per cent year-over-year

Overall team member engagement of 83 per cent in 2013, ranking TELUS #1 globally among all employers of its size and composition (according to survey administrator Aon Hewitt)

Work Styles program contributing an estimated $14 million in travel savings, 20,000 ton reduction in carbon emissions, one million square feet reduction in real estate footprint and better work-life balance without sacrificing productivity and team member engagement

Inducted into the Canada’s 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures Hall of Fame by Waterstone Human Capital, one of just six organizations in Canada to have earned this important honor

Recognized as having the best employee recognition program in the world by Recognition Professionals International

Earning a place among Canada’s Top 100 Employers, Best Diversity Employers, Best Employers for New Canadians, Best Employers for Young Canadians and Greenest Employers for multiple years by Mediacorp