Systems are designed by people to support people

18
May 2023
209
A group of people are putting their hands together in a huddle.

Author: Jesse Adams, President and Founder of Ember Experience

Over the last few years, we have had the opportunity to speak with, listen to, or coach hundreds of leaders and employees throughout multiple industries across Canada. In these conversations, we have observed a recurring theme. Whenever workplace challenges arise (e.g., productivity issues, inefficiencies, cultural friction), individual behaviour is often first to be blamed for the problem.

This translates to the belief that there must be some deficiencies in individual resilience, technical skills, or motivation and willingness to “go above and beyond”. While we encourage organizations to create opportunities for individual growth, and believe that individuals have a responsibility to contribute to a thriving organization, blaming or judging individual deficiencies as the problem seems to overlook a significant issue. Design flaws within the workplace environment.

Time and time again, we find that workplace environments, specifically the systems, structures and culture in place, are not amplifying individuals, but instead creating systemic barriers that hinder the delivery of desired outcomes.  When organizations or leaders focus primarily on individual deficiencies as the source of the problem, it can increase defensiveness within cultures, widen the divide between leaders and staff, and prevent organizations from making long-lasting changes.

We believe that organizations have the responsibility to create the work conditions, leaders have the responsibility to facilitate the work conditions and individuals have the responsibility to contribute to the work conditions. When these three elements work in synergy, organizations will thrive.

Creating a thriving workplace environment requires the development and alignment of the organization’s systems, structures, and culture. We define systems as a set of elements or activities that work together to create an interconnecting network or method to achieve a specific business outcome. This can include organizational processes, policies, practices and defined key performance behaviours. We define structures as the elements within the organization that make up the business infrastructure. This can include team or department design, equipment (e.g., IT platforms), function mapping, and business plan. Culture is what brings the systems and structures to life. Culture is established by social norms, values, and interpersonal relationships of the people inside the organization.

While many organizational environments are designed with the intention to best support people's optimal work, the last few years have brought to light some of the underlying and unaddressed issues and challenges within the workplace. Employee turnover, psychological health and safety, employee burnout, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) are increasing at a rapid rate. According to a study done in 2022 by Mental Health Research Canada, 33% of employed Canadians experience burnout. In some professions, however, it is much higher (e.g., 66% of nurses, and 61% of the mental health workforce). We find these challenges have been exacerbated for a few reasons:

  1. There has been, for many years, a reliance on individuals pushing past their personal boundaries (e.g., working on weekends).
  2. There has been a culture of celebrating people who push past these personal boundaries while judging or shaming those that work within the boundaries of their employment contract.
  3. The systems, structure or culture have not been examined or updated in many years.
  4. There is a tendency to hold onto legacy norms (e.g., this worked in the past, it is the way we have always done it).

These challenges often do not exist in isolation but compound on top of one another. We recently faced such challenges within our business. In executing a recent client deliverable, a staff member gave feedback about the project. They informed me that the way we executed the work was less than an ideal experience.  In delivering this client project, we had defaulted to the “way things were done before”. We went with this approach for multiple reasons:

  1. It was a major project for our new company and we had to deliver quickly.
  2. We had several other deliverables and internal development work happening simultaneously.
  3. We had team members that had transitioned with me from a previous organization and I assumed they would know what to do.
  4. I was confident about its design as it had worked very well in the past. 

Although important context, we did not take the necessary time for a proactive and honest conversation. In choosing the path that we did, we inadvertently overlooked the unique needs of our current organization and team.

As a result, the project was choppy, confusing, and frustrating for all involved. I found myself micro-managing the team and being more directive than usual.  I even found myself pointing to gaps in team members’ skills as well as my own as a leader. After debriefing with the team, we realized that there were significant gaps in the process, norms and structures used in this situation. Some staff were not fully familiar with the previous system, while others had outgrown it. Our methodology and perspectives had organically evolved over time as well.  I realized that as the leader of a new organization, or any organization, norms and functions need to fit the structures and processes we build, and that we need to build them proactively to ensure we are creating a culture where individuals feel amplified and therefore, thrive.

The responsibility to stay in tune with your people, and create an environment that best suits your team can feel overwhelming and never-ending, especially when it involves large-scale items, such as business processes, policies, organizational design or infrastructure.

In navigating how to decide the best path forward, the following steps to be helpful:

  1. Identify the original intention and purpose of your system and structures.
  2. Evaluate the current performance.
  3. Identify the root cause or problem within the current system.
  4. Explore the feasibility of the system.
  5. Commit to action.
  6. Implement change and monitor progress.

Register for the panel discussion Wednesday, June 07, 2023 at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm featuring Jesse Adams, Aishwarya Jayaprakash and Norah Marsh, to explore more about creating and how to implement systems and structures that can amplify the people inside your organization. https://www.cphrab.ca/professional-development/structures-and-systems-ember-experience-panel-discussion


The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.



Before the Title: HR's Role in Growing Leadership Capacity

By Jessica Jaithoo • August 19, 2026
Author: Kanwaljit Chaudhry We often begin developing leaders after we have given them something to lead. Someone is promoted into their first supervisory role. They join a leadership development program, receive coaching, attend workshops, or are paired with a mentor. All of these can be valuable. But by then, leadership development has already been happening. Long before the title arrives, people are learning how to exercise judgment, influence others, navigate disagreement, take responsibility and make decisions when the answer is not obvious. The question for HR is: Do we have to wait for the title to help those capabilities grow? Create opportunities, not just programs Some of the most valuable leadership development happens through work itself. A stretch assignment. Leading a small project. Presenting an idea to senior colleagues. Coordinating people who do not report to you. Navigating competing priorities. Being trusted to make a decision rather than simply carrying one out. None requires a management title. HR can help organizations look at development as not only as courses people attend, but as experiences people need. That may mean encouraging managers to distribute meaningful opportunities rather than repeatedly turning to the person who is already proven. It may mean designing project work so different employees have opportunities to lead. It may mean making mentoring, coaching or job-shadowing available before someone enters a formal leadership pipeline. The objective is not to make everyone a manager. It is to give more people opportunities to build capabilities that will serve them whether or not formal leadership is their eventual destination. Make room to learn from experience Experience alone does not necessarily create development. Two people can go through similar experiences and take very different things from them. What often makes the difference is the opportunity to reflect: What worked? What didn't? What did I notice about myself? What would I do differently next time? HR can help make those conversations part of development rather than leaving them to chance. A manager checking in after a difficult project can ask more than, “Did we deliver?” A mentor can help someone examine why a conversation went differently than expected. A performance discussion can explore not only what someone accomplished, but how they influenced others, exercised judgment or responded when things became uncertain. These are relatively small interventions. But they help turn experience into learning. Notice leadership before it becomes obvious There is another role for HR: helping organizations broaden what they notice. Potential does not always announce itself loudly. The person who volunteers to coordinate a complicated piece of work may be demonstrating leadership capacity. So might the employee who brings people together when a team is stuck, asks the question no one else is asking, helps a colleague succeed without needing credit, or remains thoughtful when everyone else is rushing toward an answer. If we look for leadership potential only among those who already resemble our current leaders, we may keep finding the same kinds of people.  Creating broader opportunities allows capability to become visible before we decide who has it. Pay attention to what the organization teaches Organizations are also developing future leaders when they are not deliberately trying to. Employees notice who gets promoted. They notice what behaviour gets rewarded, whose ideas receive attention and what happens when someone makes a mistake. They notice whether managers share information or protect it, whether difficult conversations are avoided or handled respectfully, and whether asking for help is treated as good judgment or weakness. These observations become lessons about what leadership looks like here. HR influences many of the systems through which those lessons are reinforced e.g., performance management, recognition, development, succession planning and promotion among them. That makes an important question worth asking: What are our people learning about leadership from the way our organization actually works? The answer may tell us as much about our leadership pipeline as any competency framework. Before the title Leadership development does not have to begin with a leadership program. It can begin when someone is trusted with something slightly beyond what they have done before and supported while they figure it out. It can happen when a manager shares the reasoning behind a difficult decision rather than only communicating the outcome. It can happen when someone gets to lead a project before they have people reporting to them. And it can happen when an employee has someone who helps them make sense of an experience rather than simply move on to the next task. HR cannot manufacture leaders. But HR can help create workplaces where people have opportunities to practise judgment, responsibility, influence and reflection long before a title makes those things part of their job description. Perhaps the question is not only “Who are our future leaders?” It is also: “What are we doing today that gives future leadership capacity a chance to emerge?”

What HR Leaders Are Telling Us Their Organizations Need Right Now

By Marina Perkovic • July 22, 2026
At the CPHR Alberta Conference, we asked HR leaders one question: What leadership capability matters most for the future of your organization? Leaders picked up a star and placed it beside their answer. By the end of the conference, HR leaders cast 131 votes across 16 capabilities. Three stood out, with two tied for first place. Here is what they told us. What the Data Showed The capabilities on the board came from Bright Wire's PLUS Leadership Framework, a proprietary model built to define what effective leadership looks like across every level of an organization and is organized across four dimensions: Courageous Coach-Like Disciplined for Results and Relational The results below reflect the capabilities HR professionals believe matter most. 

The Business Case for Sleep: What HR Professionals Need to Know

By Jessica Jaithoo • July 9, 2026
Author: Robin Daultani Mental health support. Fitness benefits. Stress management resources. Workplace wellness programs have evolved significantly over the past decade. Yet one foundational pillar of employee health and performance remains conspicuously absent from most wellness strategies: sleep. The cost of this gap is staggering. A landmark RAND Corporation study¹ found that insufficient sleep costs the Canadian economy up to $21.4 billion annually, through a combination of absenteeism and reduced productivity. A Gallup study² reinforced this finding, showing that poor sleepers report more than double the rate of unplanned absences compared to other workers. And a 2026 Wellhub study³ found that 83% of employees identify poor sleep as a contributing factor to burnout, a figure that demands attention when nearly nine in ten employees report burnout symptoms annually. Consider what this looks like in practice. A team member who slept poorly scrolls through emails at 7am already feeling behind. By mid-morning, a decision that should take minutes stretches into a 45-minute deliberation. After lunch, focus drops sharply, not because of the workload, but because the brain is running on insufficient rest. By 3pm, a second coffee masks the fatigue but does nothing for the impaired judgment underneath. Research shows that after 17 hours of continuous wakefulness, the equivalent of a normal waking day ending at 11pm, cognitive impairment matches that of someone who is legally intoxicated⁴. This is not an unusual day. For many employees, this is every day. Sleep rarely appears on the wellness agenda, leaving a significant and measurable performance gap unaddressed. The reason is partly cultural. Sleep is still widely perceived as a personal responsibility. But the research suggests otherwise: sleep is not a personal indulgence. It is a performance lever that affects every metric HR professionals are already tracking: productivity, absenteeism, burnout, and retention. The same RAND study¹ that quantified the cost of insufficient sleep also found the flipside: if Canadians who sleep under six hours started sleeping just one hour more per night, it could add $12 billion to the national economy. The returns are not theoretical. They are measurable, achievable, and waiting to be captured. The good news is that addressing sleep does not require a major overhaul of existing wellness programs. Organizations can start by simply putting sleep on the wellness agenda. Most workplace wellness surveys ask about stress, mental health, and physical activity. Adding questions about sleep quality or duration to existing wellness assessments can provide baseline data to identify and measure the scope of the issue within their workforce. Leaders and managers who openly prioritize rest and recovery give permission for the rest of the organization to do the same. Small cultural shifts like discouraging late-night emails or respecting boundaries around after-hours communication can quietly improve sleep conditions across an entire team. None of these require a budget. They require intentional inclusion. Now consider what becomes possible. A team member, after two weeks of consistent, quality sleep, arrives at work already focused. The mid-morning decision is made in minutes. The afternoon dip is manageable, not debilitating. The second coffee becomes optional, not essential. Nothing else about their workload or responsibilities has changed. They show up more empathetic and more present for their customers, peers, and family. The only difference is how well they slept. The performance gap between these two versions of the same employee is not marginal. It is the difference between surviving and thriving. The question for HR professionals is no longer whether sleep affects organizational performance. The research has answered that definitively. The question is whether sleep has earned a place in their wellness strategy. And if not, what that gap is quietly costing their organization.
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