From Bay Street to the boardroom: Jennifer Bond of OPG

Few HR leaders can claim to have “swam deeper in the deep end” of labour and employment relations than Jennifer Bond, vice president of human resources operations at Ontario Power Generation (OPG).

Her journey from Bay Street private practice to the heart of one of Canada’s most complex, unionized organizations is as unconventional as it is impactful.

"Combining the skill set of a labour and employment law background with Human Resources has definitely been beneficial," she says.

Deep dive into HR

Bond worked in labour and employment law for nearly five years in Toronto, dealing with wrongful dismissals, grievance arbitrations, and human rights litigation, amongst other things. But it was the desire to “dive a little bit more into the labour side of things in a unionized environment” that prompted her move in-house to Toronto Community Housing.

There, Bond started with the employment and labour relations portfolio as well as health and safety and, organically, took on more aspects of HR.

“I think some people call that performance punishment, but I ended up taking payroll benefits and recruitment and onboarding, organizational learning and development. So, my portfolio expanded into the HR realm that I wouldn't have been exposed to in private practice.”

Combining HR with labour law

After more than 10 years at TCH, Bond made the switch to Ontario's largest power producer, OPG, where she has worked for more than five years in HR at the approximately 12,000-employee organization – and is grateful for her Bay St. background.

This skill set enabled her to be a bit less reliant on the legal department, she says: "I have a good gut feel as to whether or not I need to call [legal] counsel or whether I can figure this out myself and can say, ‘We should go right rather than left.’”

And from a leadership perspective, Bond strives to enable her team to also “swim deeper in the deep end,” so they don't have to constantly call legal for what might be uncomplicated employment matters.

The mixed demands of the job appeal to Bond, she says.

“If you live in the [labour relations] space, you're having some of the more emotionally heightened conversations with your counterpart union reps or tough conversations when you're dealing with a workplace investigation or misconduct circumstances.

“And then you have this other side of HR that deals with talent and high-performance programs" and leadership training.

Bond also has the ethics portfolio that handles day-to-day workplace investigations, so again her legal background is a bonus.

“I have done workplace investigations myself. I know what good looks like. I understand the concepts of credibility... reliability and things of that nature and so … I find it's created more efficiency in the HR group as a result.”

It’s about finding “the money spot” between managing the business in the most efficient way and adhering to the body of case law, and applicable legislation, she says.

For example, with workplace surveillance, Bond understands what amounts to a privacy breach, because she has good baseline knowledge of the legislation and case law.

Leading HR in unionized environment

With nearly 90% of the workforce at OPG unionized, amounting to 24 collective agreements across multiple unions, Bond’s legal acumen is once again a strategic asset.

“I always say if you can manage labour and employment relations at OPG, you can manage it anywhere,” she says.

What may seem easy in a non-unionized environment can be more challenging and more protracted in a unionized environment, says Bond.

“At a very basic level, you have more cooks in the kitchen, you have more players in the game who have different agendas.”

That’s why relationship management is fundamental, she says.

If you look at something as simple as managing misconduct, says Bond, you have somebody on the other side of the table with their own agenda and you are working to find common ground. "So [it’s about] how we train and equip both our human resources team and leaders across the business."

Digital advances in union environment

The complexity of today's labour landscape is further heightened by the rapid digitalization of the workplace and the rise of artificial intelligence.

This is a further challenge when restrictive language in collective agreements, around “technological change,” can prevent workforce changes as a result of AI, says Bond.

“Things like agility and moving resources across the organization — you're going to have more challenges if you don't have the right levers in your collective agreement that enable mobility,” she says.

“Getting the right people with the right skills in the right role at the right time is critical for OPG’s growth strategy and with that comes a need to focus on reskilling in a digital environment.”

People health at OPG

Bond is also focused on improving the employee experience, through metrics that drive data-informed decision-making.

“We have shifted to telling our story through data," she says. OPG introduced a people health dashboard that includes workforce planning data, talent health metrics, absenteeism and performance management insights, with the results presented to business unit leaders on a quarterly basis.

“There has been an enhanced focus on upskilling HR. The skill set, historically, wouldn't necessarily be that of data analyst [who] is able to pull data, read the data,  identify trends, draw insights, and turn those insights into actions.”

OPG is also focused on building early careers programs and expanding its recruitment outreach program, participating at over 80 career events this year.

“[It] has expanded our candidate pool and really solidified what we feel is OPG's reputation as an employer of choice,” says Bond, who is also a board member of Electricity Human Resources Canada, helping to build talent pipelines for the energy sector nationwide.

Bond says she is grateful for the experiences throughout her career as well as her leaders, peers and teams, particularly at OPG, who inspire her to bring her best to work each and every day: “While there is no dull day at OPG, it takes a village and exceptional leadership to continue to move the needle and I am fortunate to have that”.