career paths
and Learning about being ready to take on
more responsibility.
“She told me, ‘I have a job at BMO
and I want you to come over.’ It was one of
those happy accidents. One of those fortuitous
moments,” said Reid.
Since joining the BMO team in June
2014, she has excelled at helping the
company identify their training and educational
needs and making them happen.
HR Professional chatted with Reid, who
holds project management and certified
training and development professional
designations, to learn how all these fortunate
instances have impacted her work today.
In your current position, what are your
main responsibilities?
Jenn Reid: In a nutshell, it’s working with
partners within the business at BMO to
develop the right learning strategies for
their teams.
Specifically, my portfolios being change
management, project management and
technology, it’s looking at those from an
enterprise perspective as well as the wants
or needs of individual groups and seeing
how those might be the same or different
from the rest of the enterprise, and how to
meet them while still focusing on the overall
organizational strategy.
What does a typical day at work look
like for you?
JR: We have a fantastic training facility,
the Institute for Learning (IFL), and I’m
there probably one or two days a week.
Sometimes I’m observing training sessions
that I’ve helped to make happen
in some way – whether that’s designing
them myself or working with vendors or
other instructional designers from within
the organization. I’m there to watch them
come to life and make sure the content and
activities are landing while I’m evaluating
the programs. I’m also meeting with other
folks at the IFL to make training happen
and make sure we’re coordinating across
different teams in the organization.
When I’m not physically there, I’m
usually working directly with teams that
are looking at a specific training or strategy
need. I’m helping them to assess what
that need actually looks like, what it is,
who the people are, why they need it,
where we’re going to find the budget to
make it happen, whether it’s going to be
an in-house solution or external – all of
those decisions we have to make together
and try to arrive at something that makes
the most sense for that particular group
as well as BMO as a whole.
What do you love about your job?
JR: I love the moments when I see light
bulbs going off, when you know that what
you’ve designed is going to have the impact
that you want it to have. I love to hear
people starting to speak the change management
language across the bank – and
then seeing the actual results. Like when
you go into a branch and you see what you
were talking about in the classroom with
that particular business group and you see
it happening with the customers. You see
how those interactions are happening and
how it’s making us a better bank overall –
it’s exciting.
What are some of the day-to-day challenges
you face in this position?
JR: When you’re looking at 47,000 employees
and you’re looking at something
like change management, which is somewhat
decentralized since there are pockets
of people that work in change management
all over the bank, one of the biggest challenges
is seeing why those differences exist
and trying to pull things together. We try
to make sure that what we’re doing from
an organizational and strategic standpoint
makes sense for the whole bank. It’s
tough when you’re dealing with different
geography, different time zones, different
languages – you have all kinds of different
factors at play.
What skills do you possess that make
you a great fit for your role?
JR: There are a ton of skills from my library
and information studies education that I rely
on regularly. Things like information seeking
and retrieval behaviours – how do people
look for the information that they need, how
do they want to retrieve it, how do they want
to interact with it. That has huge transferability
in training and development.
Also, relationship management skills,
like knowing how to ask really good questions
to get at the heart of things. It would
be really easy to be an order taker and have
someone come to me and say, “We need a
one-day program on ‘X,’” and I say, “Sure,
we’ll make that happen.” But it’s about asking
really good questions to make sure that
you’re understanding the underlying need,
and not just providing a Band-Aid solution.
What are your ultimate career goals?
JR: I can see myself in three very different
end-states for my career.
I could see myself leading a training
and development or change management
group – having a team of like-minded
professionals working within a big organization
to drive great learning experiences.
I could also see myself eventually, closer to
retirement, setting out on my own and having
my own consulting practice. And third
would be leaving the training and development
role somewhat behind and looking
more at the talent side of things in terms of
HR management.
I’d be happy with all three of those, so
it’s really a case of when and where I end
up making my next move. Maybe I’ll have
a great conversation with someone that’ll
make me say, “Oh, that’s what I want!” n
ecco/Shutterstock.com
“I LOVE TO HEAR PEOPLE STARTING TO SPEAK THE
CHANGE MANAGEMENT LANGUAGE ACROSS THE
BANK – AND THEN SEEING THE ACTUAL RESULTS.”
– JENN REID
HRPATODAY.CA ❚ MAY/JUNE 2016 ❚ 59