When most people think of the financial services industry, cold words like clinical, analytical and mathematical tend to spring to mind. Investors Group president and chief executive officer Murray Taylor is hoping his company will warm up that public perception with a unique sense of engagement between Investors Group consultants and clients, as well as between staff and community.
 
With a national sales network of 4,400 consultants and a staff of 1,500 people — 1,000 of them employed in the Winnipeg head office alone — Investors Group has tuned in to its employees’ desire to make a difference to the world around themby introducing an innovative approach that provides an opportunity for people to get more involved in their workplace and in their community.
 

Q: Has Investors Group put greater emphasis on its people practices in recent years?

A: In the last four years, our consultant network has grown by 36 per cent, so the answer is yes; although people have always been our priority, we have certainly seen that focus increase. We’ve moved forward on a number of fronts — improved communication, additional training and e-learning options as well as clearer job classifications, so that there is greater certainty of where people are positioned and their potential career pathing. In 2005, we instituted semi-annual employee surveys to take the pulse of our company and see what’s on the minds of our people.

Through an external company, we survey half of our employees in the spring, half in the fall and then I report back to everyone in public meetings. We use the survey results to help further our human resource projects and other company efforts.
 

Q: Can you provide an example of an initiative that came from employee feedback?
 
A: Although we believe Investors Group has always been a caring corporate citizen, we have significantly escalated our community efforts in direct response to the interest our employees have expressed. We have createdmore opportunities for our people to give back and in general, have better organized our overall focus through an initiative called Employees in Action.
 

Q: What does Employees in Action do?
 
A: Many of our community endeavours, including our annual UnitedWay workplace campaign, employee drives and fundraisers as well as an employee-driven granting program, now flow from this committee. Their purpose is to look for new opportunities and to engage our people. For example, each year in December our employees put on a series of community dinners both in our cafeteria and at several inner-city agencies. We get 100 employee volunteers or more to buy and wrap presents and serve dinner to hundreds of people in our community who would not otherwise be able to celebrate the season in this fashion. This wonderful event is entirely volunteer-driven and employee-donation supported. Another great example is our participation in theWorld Record Food Drive and CanstructionWinnipeg, to collect the most food in a 24-hour period in October 2007.
 
Not only were our employees hands-on with all aspects of this project, they alone donated five tonnes of food and encouraged other companies and individuals to be involved.
 

Q: Have you found that this concentrated effort has helped you recruit and retain employees?
 
A: What we’ve found is that people feel very, very proud to be part of our company because of the many things we are doing in the community. Of course, it’s a matter of choice as to whether they want to become personally engaged or not; we don’t bring any undue pressure to become involved. But if people are interested in becoming involved, we provide a way for them to pitch in.
 

Q: As a national company, what are the advantages of being based in Winnipeg?
 
A: We really like being inWinnipeg; it gives us an opportunity to put our own stamp on things. The stability of the city’s workforce and the friendly attitude of the people give us great values andmaybe the stability that we wouldn’t have as much of elsewhere.
 
The fact that we are inWinnipegmeans that we are central; not only geographically, but in thoughts, issues, economics and political persuasion. It’s like the CFL: they can’t figure out if we’re west or east and often, others can’t either. It is a huge advantage for us to be more of a neutral voice, but having said that, it’s also important that we understand the needs of others and have appropriate empathy for people in other parts of the country during this current economic environment, especially those who are in more challenged situations such as southern Ontario’s auto industry.
 

Q: What or who would you say has had the greatest influence on your leadership style?
 
A: When I was a teen, I was involved in our church and a camp called Faith Bible Camp. I moved on to be a volunteer camp director and their general director for six years. During this experience of "volunteer leadership" I learned that you must show people due respect and you need to capture their passion to be able to motivate them. Whether you’re dealing with volunteers or people being paid to work, what really creates a difference is ensuring that they are doing something they feel is important and is advancing a cause they believe in. To me, those two things — capturing passion and conveying respect — is really what effective leadership is about.
 
Geri Thomas, the individual who started Faith Bible Camp, was the big, big reason I became involved to begin with. He was an aboriginal gentleman who grew up near Victoria Beach and had lost a leg in the SecondWorldWar.
 
Now here was someone who rose above his disability to reach forward and displayed incredible passion for what he wanted to do. His leadership style certainly had a profound influence onme.
 

Q: What management books have you read recently that you would recommend to others?
 
A: The books that stand out for me are really about personal management. Me to We by Craig and Marc Kielburger embodies a lot of things I feel strongly about. It is about ensuring our lives are more focused on the community rather than on personal gains and how that has the power to affect change. Around the same time that came out was Bill Clinton’s Giving, which I also thought was a tremendous book. I would also choose Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis, whose big theme is generally emotional intelligence. As it suggests on the cover, this bookmakes a compelling business case for benevolence and compassion, optimism and hope – it’s about how employing compassion and respect is a key to creating success.
 

— With reporting by Barbara Chabai
 

JohnMcFerran, PhD, CMC, C. Psych., F. CHRP, is founder and president of People First HR Services Ltd. For more information, visit www.peoplefirsthr.com.