Ideas, opportunities and growth mean an awful lot to Helen Bozinovski. They’re important themes in her philosophy on life and have shaped a successful HR career, spanning more than two decades.
“I’d like to hope people think of me as someone who has created new ways of looking at things, who encourages big thinking and big ideas. Someone who helped make the impossible possible,” says the vice-president of HR at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.
Bozinovski, 42, is the type of person who isn’t afraid to ask “Why not?” and is always looking for ways to broaden her horizons professionally and personally. As a matter of fact that’s how she landed her first job in HR, although that “opportunity” was accidental.
As a recent graduate of the University of Toronto in the early ’80s — with a degree in economics and political science — Bozinovski was looking for a job in the communications field because she had a keen interest in writing. But finding jobs proved to be quite difficult because she graduated during a recession, when organizations were downsizing and reducing their communication departments.
She calls it a “fluke” that someone offered her an entry-level, contract position in the compensation department at Honeywell Controls. At that time Bozinovski didn’t even know HR departments existed.
“I thought the job was an entry point (into the workforce), then from there I could scout for other opportunities,” says Bozinovski as she reminisces.
Getting an HR job with no real experience or knowledge about the function was not unheard of in the ’80s. It was mostly a backroom function that mainly dealt with personnel administration, she says.
“It was more about touchy-feely service, making sure employees felt good and not so much how HR served the business function,” she says. “It was a green field for new people coming out of school with fresh ideas.”
Three months into her contract, Bozinovski realized she liked what she was doing and had many fresh ideas to offer, even though she was just getting to know the ins and outs. Another “opportunity” fell into her lap when the director at Honeywell moved to Manulife Financial Canada. She offered Bozinovski a position as a job analyst.
“I decided in that moment to take a detour and try this work out. Why wait around for a corporate communications job if this work interests me and there’s an opportunity.”
Transferring her communication skills over to HR, her duties consisted of writing and revising job descriptions in preparation for evaluations. It was a fantastic entry into HR, it was a great way to become oriented with the business and provided a glimpse into the influence HR can have on the business, says Bozinovski.
Her first permanent job at Manulife lasted 16 years. Bozinovski quickly moved up the ranks holding such positions as compensation officer, training and development consultant, director of HR operations, and assistant vice-president of global leadership development. She kept moving into different jobs and the pace at which she was moving kept her interested, she says. Along the way Bozinovski was picking up some valuable lessons in HR — such as the importance of compensation.
“You’ve got to equip managers with the tools to ensure that they are rewarding and paying for performance,” she says. “That isn’t a motivator (per se) but it can be a powerful de-motivator. If my job grade or my salary is not in synch with my expectations or perceptions of what is reasonable and equitable, then there’s a problem.”
Training and development was also a lesson to be learned by Bozinovski. She spent three years designing and delivering management training. She experimented with action learning and it had a real impact on training work teams, she says.
Another lesson learned was how to shift gears and take on more of a business partner role in the firm.
“There was a shift in the early ’90s away from HR as a corporate function to HR being decentralized and inside the business, translating corporate programs into more customized solutions for the front line.” To achieve this, Bozinovski established an HR function in the investment division at Manulife.
Her final move was into the company’s corporate offices. She was the assistant vice-president of global leadership development. However, by that time she wanted to explore new horizons and was quickly scooped up by the Bank of Montreal as the director of retail banking.
Bozinovski admits things didn’t just fall into place at BMO. There was some culture shock, she says. It takes time and patience for people to get to know you, trust you and understand the language that you bring. It didn’t take long for her to adapt to the change in environment and she put all that she learned at Manulife into action.
“What you know stays with you wherever you go,” says Bozinovski. That’s what gave her the confidence to bring new ideas to the table and get management and employees to buy-in.
With little formal background in HR, Bozinovski has become immersed in leading-edge thinking on the role of HR. Some may wonder how she has excelled so dramatically in a career that wasn’t even her first pick.
“I’m an avid reader,” she says, revealing her secret to success.
“I go out and create a reading plan for myself and do the research and take the things I like, that I think make sense intuitively, back into my job in some way.” This actually makes an idea more credible by having research to support it, she says. HR is served by evidence-based approaches, if we’re not evidence-based then we can rightly be accused of being flaky, fad-driven and unprofessional.
Rick Gallop, president and CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, has worked with Bozinovski for the last four years and says he’s never seen her without material to support an argument.
“She knows when to put her best foot forward and is both articulate and influential,” he says. “She has the combination of having terrific materials and programs coupled with her ability to sell.”
Work-life balance
As a single mom with two children, trying to find work-life balance was becoming a challenge for Bozinovski at BMO. Throughout her career, Bozinovski’s mother had been a primary caregiver for her kids, but as they got older they needed more of mom’s time.
“As they hit their teen years, it became much harder to juggle their demands because their needs were more complex,” she says.
In 1998, after spending two years at BMO, she was ready for another move and wanted a job that would give her more flexibility to take care of her daughter Natalie, who was 14 years old at the time, and her 12-year-old son Michael.
Which is why the offer from Heart and Stroke seemed to be the answer to her problem, but jumping from private sector to not-for-profit wasn’t what Bozinovski had in mind.
“This job came along and it didn’t look like anything I would have considered at first blush. But the person who contacted me said, ‘Take a second look at this,’ and I did. When I thought about my criteria — top job, an organization that cared about HR, best in class and a product I cared about — it all came together in a career move that made sense to me.” She also appreciated the fact that her position as VP of HR gave her the freedom to meet her children’s demands.
And that’s Heart and Stroke’s marketing pitch for attracting top talent to the company. We know we’re competing with every other organization in Toronto and so we have to offer something unique and different, she says.
“Balance has become the new currency. We’ve created an organization that cares about its cause, its mission and purpose but it also creates ways for employees to satisfy their needs for learning, for creativity and for (work-life) balance.” This balance includes three-week holidays for new hires and long weekends through the summer months.
HR at a non-profit
Still, sometimes it can be hard to lure top talent to Heart and Stroke because of the stereotypes associated with working for not-for-profit organizations. Some people believe that working for not-for-profit means being a volunteer, says Bozinovski. In fact, 300 people are employed at the foundation.
That said, volunteers do play a large role at Heart & Stroke since there are 40,000 of them across Ontario helping lead fundraising or health promotions or sit on board committees. Bozinovski is also responsible for all of them. That’s one of the biggest differences working for not-for-profit versus private, she says.
“So one achievement has been to really build an integrated function, which has never been done before, one that serves both staff and volunteers and enables them to focus on a shared set of objectives and goals.”
What makes Bozinovski’s job easier than if she was working for a private sector company is that she doesn’t have to influence people to accept the organization’s vision. The employee group is completely aligned with the values of the business, she says. They’re very passionate about the purpose they serve.
This passion has helped Heart and Stroke achieve more than $100-million in revenue that goes towards research and health promotion.
“Everyone really feels the mission is important here,” says Gallop. “We’re not making money for shareholders, we’re saving people’s lives and that’s a pretty motivating environment to work in.”
Gallop says Bozinovski’s work is just as inspiring. This past year, she headed up a governance review leading to the restructuring of the board and governance model that also reshaped leadership focus and strategy. During a recent meeting, Gallop acknowledged Bozinovski’s role as the co-ordinator of this initiative and there was a round of spontaneous applause from every volunteer at the table.
“I think that in itself would perhaps be the greatest recognition, when your peers applaud you in such an unexpected way,” he says. “That sort of recognition speaks to the lady that she is and the support she gets here.”
There is one person who has supported Bozinovski throughout her career as her mentor. Bill Hamilton, Bozinovski’s former boss at Manulife, always believed she would go far in the world of HR.
“I have seldom met anyone like Helen that has the energy, the commitment and the passion to do an outstanding job. There is no half-way with her, she’s always trying to stretch herself in the organization, really pushing the envelope and it reflects in her work,” he says.
Hamilton also noticed her flare for communication.
“She can ask the toughest damn questions,” he laughs. “The kind of questions that other people don’t have the guts to ask and that’s carried over to her media career.”
Bozinovski is currently in her third season as host of her own cable show on Rogers Television, Politically Speaking. It’s a weekly call-in show dealing with city politics in Toronto. She has a panel of councilors and experts on hand each week to converse about the topic of choice. As the moderator of this show, she fulfills a more personal calling.
“My mission when I sit down on set, in front of the cameras is to facilitate a way of gathering ideas to support positive change in the city.”
If being a host isn’t enough, there’s more to add to her list of extracurricular activities. Bozinovski is on the HR advisory committee for George Brown College and she’s also involved in curriculum planning with the Canadian HR Planners.
“I’d like to hope people think of me as someone who has created new ways of looking at things, who encourages big thinking and big ideas. Someone who helped make the impossible possible,” says the vice-president of HR at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.
Bozinovski, 42, is the type of person who isn’t afraid to ask “Why not?” and is always looking for ways to broaden her horizons professionally and personally. As a matter of fact that’s how she landed her first job in HR, although that “opportunity” was accidental.
As a recent graduate of the University of Toronto in the early ’80s — with a degree in economics and political science — Bozinovski was looking for a job in the communications field because she had a keen interest in writing. But finding jobs proved to be quite difficult because she graduated during a recession, when organizations were downsizing and reducing their communication departments.
She calls it a “fluke” that someone offered her an entry-level, contract position in the compensation department at Honeywell Controls. At that time Bozinovski didn’t even know HR departments existed.
“I thought the job was an entry point (into the workforce), then from there I could scout for other opportunities,” says Bozinovski as she reminisces.
Getting an HR job with no real experience or knowledge about the function was not unheard of in the ’80s. It was mostly a backroom function that mainly dealt with personnel administration, she says.
“It was more about touchy-feely service, making sure employees felt good and not so much how HR served the business function,” she says. “It was a green field for new people coming out of school with fresh ideas.”
Three months into her contract, Bozinovski realized she liked what she was doing and had many fresh ideas to offer, even though she was just getting to know the ins and outs. Another “opportunity” fell into her lap when the director at Honeywell moved to Manulife Financial Canada. She offered Bozinovski a position as a job analyst.
“I decided in that moment to take a detour and try this work out. Why wait around for a corporate communications job if this work interests me and there’s an opportunity.”
Transferring her communication skills over to HR, her duties consisted of writing and revising job descriptions in preparation for evaluations. It was a fantastic entry into HR, it was a great way to become oriented with the business and provided a glimpse into the influence HR can have on the business, says Bozinovski.
Her first permanent job at Manulife lasted 16 years. Bozinovski quickly moved up the ranks holding such positions as compensation officer, training and development consultant, director of HR operations, and assistant vice-president of global leadership development. She kept moving into different jobs and the pace at which she was moving kept her interested, she says. Along the way Bozinovski was picking up some valuable lessons in HR — such as the importance of compensation.
“You’ve got to equip managers with the tools to ensure that they are rewarding and paying for performance,” she says. “That isn’t a motivator (per se) but it can be a powerful de-motivator. If my job grade or my salary is not in synch with my expectations or perceptions of what is reasonable and equitable, then there’s a problem.”
Training and development was also a lesson to be learned by Bozinovski. She spent three years designing and delivering management training. She experimented with action learning and it had a real impact on training work teams, she says.
Another lesson learned was how to shift gears and take on more of a business partner role in the firm.
“There was a shift in the early ’90s away from HR as a corporate function to HR being decentralized and inside the business, translating corporate programs into more customized solutions for the front line.” To achieve this, Bozinovski established an HR function in the investment division at Manulife.
Her final move was into the company’s corporate offices. She was the assistant vice-president of global leadership development. However, by that time she wanted to explore new horizons and was quickly scooped up by the Bank of Montreal as the director of retail banking.
Bozinovski admits things didn’t just fall into place at BMO. There was some culture shock, she says. It takes time and patience for people to get to know you, trust you and understand the language that you bring. It didn’t take long for her to adapt to the change in environment and she put all that she learned at Manulife into action.
“What you know stays with you wherever you go,” says Bozinovski. That’s what gave her the confidence to bring new ideas to the table and get management and employees to buy-in.
With little formal background in HR, Bozinovski has become immersed in leading-edge thinking on the role of HR. Some may wonder how she has excelled so dramatically in a career that wasn’t even her first pick.
“I’m an avid reader,” she says, revealing her secret to success.
“I go out and create a reading plan for myself and do the research and take the things I like, that I think make sense intuitively, back into my job in some way.” This actually makes an idea more credible by having research to support it, she says. HR is served by evidence-based approaches, if we’re not evidence-based then we can rightly be accused of being flaky, fad-driven and unprofessional.
Rick Gallop, president and CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, has worked with Bozinovski for the last four years and says he’s never seen her without material to support an argument.
“She knows when to put her best foot forward and is both articulate and influential,” he says. “She has the combination of having terrific materials and programs coupled with her ability to sell.”
Work-life balance
As a single mom with two children, trying to find work-life balance was becoming a challenge for Bozinovski at BMO. Throughout her career, Bozinovski’s mother had been a primary caregiver for her kids, but as they got older they needed more of mom’s time.
“As they hit their teen years, it became much harder to juggle their demands because their needs were more complex,” she says.
In 1998, after spending two years at BMO, she was ready for another move and wanted a job that would give her more flexibility to take care of her daughter Natalie, who was 14 years old at the time, and her 12-year-old son Michael.
Which is why the offer from Heart and Stroke seemed to be the answer to her problem, but jumping from private sector to not-for-profit wasn’t what Bozinovski had in mind.
“This job came along and it didn’t look like anything I would have considered at first blush. But the person who contacted me said, ‘Take a second look at this,’ and I did. When I thought about my criteria — top job, an organization that cared about HR, best in class and a product I cared about — it all came together in a career move that made sense to me.” She also appreciated the fact that her position as VP of HR gave her the freedom to meet her children’s demands.
And that’s Heart and Stroke’s marketing pitch for attracting top talent to the company. We know we’re competing with every other organization in Toronto and so we have to offer something unique and different, she says.
“Balance has become the new currency. We’ve created an organization that cares about its cause, its mission and purpose but it also creates ways for employees to satisfy their needs for learning, for creativity and for (work-life) balance.” This balance includes three-week holidays for new hires and long weekends through the summer months.
HR at a non-profit
Still, sometimes it can be hard to lure top talent to Heart and Stroke because of the stereotypes associated with working for not-for-profit organizations. Some people believe that working for not-for-profit means being a volunteer, says Bozinovski. In fact, 300 people are employed at the foundation.
That said, volunteers do play a large role at Heart & Stroke since there are 40,000 of them across Ontario helping lead fundraising or health promotions or sit on board committees. Bozinovski is also responsible for all of them. That’s one of the biggest differences working for not-for-profit versus private, she says.
“So one achievement has been to really build an integrated function, which has never been done before, one that serves both staff and volunteers and enables them to focus on a shared set of objectives and goals.”
What makes Bozinovski’s job easier than if she was working for a private sector company is that she doesn’t have to influence people to accept the organization’s vision. The employee group is completely aligned with the values of the business, she says. They’re very passionate about the purpose they serve.
This passion has helped Heart and Stroke achieve more than $100-million in revenue that goes towards research and health promotion.
“Everyone really feels the mission is important here,” says Gallop. “We’re not making money for shareholders, we’re saving people’s lives and that’s a pretty motivating environment to work in.”
Gallop says Bozinovski’s work is just as inspiring. This past year, she headed up a governance review leading to the restructuring of the board and governance model that also reshaped leadership focus and strategy. During a recent meeting, Gallop acknowledged Bozinovski’s role as the co-ordinator of this initiative and there was a round of spontaneous applause from every volunteer at the table.
“I think that in itself would perhaps be the greatest recognition, when your peers applaud you in such an unexpected way,” he says. “That sort of recognition speaks to the lady that she is and the support she gets here.”
There is one person who has supported Bozinovski throughout her career as her mentor. Bill Hamilton, Bozinovski’s former boss at Manulife, always believed she would go far in the world of HR.
“I have seldom met anyone like Helen that has the energy, the commitment and the passion to do an outstanding job. There is no half-way with her, she’s always trying to stretch herself in the organization, really pushing the envelope and it reflects in her work,” he says.
Hamilton also noticed her flare for communication.
“She can ask the toughest damn questions,” he laughs. “The kind of questions that other people don’t have the guts to ask and that’s carried over to her media career.”
Bozinovski is currently in her third season as host of her own cable show on Rogers Television, Politically Speaking. It’s a weekly call-in show dealing with city politics in Toronto. She has a panel of councilors and experts on hand each week to converse about the topic of choice. As the moderator of this show, she fulfills a more personal calling.
“My mission when I sit down on set, in front of the cameras is to facilitate a way of gathering ideas to support positive change in the city.”
If being a host isn’t enough, there’s more to add to her list of extracurricular activities. Bozinovski is on the HR advisory committee for George Brown College and she’s also involved in curriculum planning with the Canadian HR Planners.
