‘It has been so enriching’

With a resume stretching back more than 25 years that includes some of the biggest names in Canada — Bell, TD and Rogers — Nancy Nazer is a well-known name when it comes to HR in the country.

And her five years as CHRO at OMERS have only solidified that leadership, in leading a global team of more than 3,000.

“I’m really excited to be in HR,” she says — despite a colleague in the early days who suggested the job mostly involved hiring and firing.

“It has absolutely been so much more enriching than that for me.”

HR career started at Bell

Nazer’s background includes studies in organizational development and social network theory. And while not a traditional path into HR, she says it has helped.

“[That] truly has been a differentiator for me in my career, because I do take a data-first approach in what I do, and always try to learn the lessons of my earlier career: anticipate, think about the foresight and what is the data that you can bring into the conversation to have impact and influence?”

Nazer attained both a Master of Arts and a PhD from the University of Toronto, but her career in HR formally began at Bell in 2000, when the organization was at a crossroads, she says.

“I believe in people, and I really have a passion for people, and I've always been attracted to organizations that are going through change, and they want to invest in people and think about how they invest in their people differently, so that it differentiates the future of the organization, the culture of the organization.”

Putting people first at OMERS

Overall, Nazer worked seven years at Bell, followed by another seven at TD and nearly six years at Rogers Communications.

Nazer says there are three things that have defined her career: investing in people, so having a people-first organization; ensuring there is purpose and values in those organizations; and using data to influence strategy.

When it comes to OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), that people focus is at the heart of the organization, she says.

“Back in June 2020 — I joined during the pandemic — Blake Hutcheson was appointed as our CEO, and one of the first things he said to our people was that ‘You are our most important asset.’ And being there in this virtual setting, hearing that, I stood up, I did my happy dance because it was real: I heard our CEO say people matter.”

As for the focus on data, that’s defined her pathway, says Nazer.

“[It’s about] having data to influence the strategy, the impact, so that HR has a seat at the table and viewed as a strategic function versus just having a function that is mostly centred around policy and programs.”

It was up to the HR team at OMERS to define what that meant, she says, so they established the first enterprise-wide strategy to define their north star.

“That is key to any organization, is ensuring that you have one strategy that aligns to the business — so it's outside-in versus inside-out — and you have metrics that you're measuring, and more sophisticated metrics that you can really predict, align to the business performance.”

EVP and shared ownership

It’s also about ensuring that you have a model that aligns with employees, by listening to them to understand what matters to them  — which evolves, says Nazer.

“It’s understanding what your promise to your people is, because any organization can say, 'We have talent, we have leadership programs, we have training,' but what is it, seat by seat, that [is] going to attract and develop the best people? Because there's always going to be a war for the right talent.”

Finally, the ‘how’ of that is going beyond strategy and having an employee value proposition and shared ownership model, says Nazer.

“What we mean by that is we will set up the foundations in an HR function for people to have the right programs and solutions and just to drive that impact — but they need to own it, to put the right pieces together for themselves, and their leaders need to support them.”

She uses the analogy of a quilt, in giving people guidance about their purpose at OMERS.

“They own each of those patches, and those patches tell a story about them in terms of their learnings, their experiences, their impact. And their leaders will guide them as well in putting those pieces together, and HR will give them the tools, the resources to make it happen.”

Passion for inclusion after immigration to Canada

When it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, it’s an area that Nazer has a lot of passion for, she says, having immigrated to Canada.

“I immigrated from a country that was in revolution, so identifying where I came from — which was Iran in the 70s — was very hard. I didn't belong there; I didn't really belong here. And it was important for me, and it's a quest for me to always understand it better in terms of our people, and we are a global organization.”

At OMERS, leadership takes an approach that driving a culture of inclusivity matters, says Nazer.

“In fact, inclusion is in our values, it’s core to who we are, and it is part of our listening strategy. So, we listen to our people at all levels to understand what matters to them and we also have… engagement surveys that have an inclusion index, asking things like ‘Am I respected? Do I trust my people leader? Do I have psychological safety? Do I have a sense of belonging?’”

 That way, the organization can see how it’s doing by different demographic groups, she says.

“We can see how we do externally… around external best-in-class scores. We also can see how we do in comparison with generational differences, global differences. So, data really matters for us, because it gives us different senses of truth, and then we can put the right solutions in place.”

The next stage is about looking at how to create greater engagement and ownership, says Nazer.

“Over time, for different teams, it may vary, and that's why we have a customized approach as well — we have a team scorecard that we work with leaders to identify how they're doing, not just in inclusion, but in trust, in safety and engagement, and put the right actions [in place] for them and their impact within their teams to take a shared ownership model that will drive ultimate impact at an enterprise level.”

Measuring success in HR at OMERS

While the strategies and initiatives are impressive, measuring their success is also key.

And that’s about looking at the data, says Nazer, such as the level of gender diversity and women's growth in investment roles.

 “We put a program in place, and we saw over 50% of those who have been identified were promoted, and their engagement was on average 17 percentage points higher than those who had not gone on the program.”

The same is true when it comes to leadership development, says Nazer, by measuring impact. That means not only whether someone attended a program, but their level of engagement and if it lead to improvement in term behaviours, at an aggregate level, afterwards: “Then we know the program is having impact,” she says.

Using different lenses, OMERS is looking to have a balanced scorecard “that I know no one else has done because we trademarked it terms of having the same formula for our people metrics and aligning it to the business metrics,” says Nazer.

“These are just some things [where] we can see the impact and really create that science of understanding.”

In the end, Nazer and her team want to ensure that they have the right solutions, while not overloading the system, she says.

“It's not a checklist, it's embedded in everything you do, and you have sponsorship from the top of the house, but you also have people that are demonstrating it and living it at all levels.”