As part of our ongoing Leadership Connect Series with Teranet’s thought leaders, our latest feature is with Shaun Dell, Organizational Development Manager.
Can you tell us a little bit about your career and how it brought you to your current role?
Oblivious to the adventures the world would take me on, I initially studied and practiced corporate law in the High Court of South Africa. In the late 2000’s I decided it was time for something new and taught and traveled in Asia. That is where my addiction to learning and development started. Upon landing in Vancouver, I combined my recent teaching experience and my almost forgotten law degree to train lawyers, judges, and law students at using online legal research tools for LexisNexis Canada. Some of these online products were direct competitors to the products of Teranet’s former subsidiary DoProcess. At LexisNexis I eventually transitioned to an internal training role, certifying sales, training, and customer care teams on our products, and onboarding new employees. I finished up my tenure with LexisNexis heading up the Product Adoption and Learning teams in Canada and the Philippines. Early in 2019, I decided to focus my career on employee growth and the strengthening of organizational capabilities, when I joined Teranet as its Organizational Development Manager. The role change did not mean my love of learning changed, and since joining Teranet I have also built my own skills as a Certified Training and Development Professional, a certified Change Professional, and completing both the OPEX Green Belt program and a Mental Health in the Workplace certification.
What are you and your team focused on for 2023 and what programs you have in place to encourage continual growth?
Over the past four years, the Strategy, OD, and Change Team answered the call for standardized internal programs, unified processes, and advanced growth and development opportunities. We implemented automated performance and calibration processes in Workday, built out employee onboarding opportunities and development mapping, enhanced and refreshed our intranet InTeranet, and made available a host of leadership training opportunities. Additionally, we’ve implemented the Workday Learning LMS with a LinkedIn Learning integration and built out the framework for a robust Inclusion & Diversity program.
In 2023, our focus is on integrating these resources and opportunities directly into the experience, workflow, performance, and growth journeys of our employees. We have amazing programs available to Teraneters, and the focus now is ensuring these programs are supporting their goals in the moment and growing their capabilities for the future.
Additionally, we will continue to build on the “Social” pillar of Teranet’s Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) program, which includes our Inclusion & Diversity and Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
Tell me more about why learning and development is such an important piece of Teranet’s culture?
Organizations that succeed are the same organizations that listen to their employees. For four years running, “Professional Growth and Development” was identified by employees as the #1 key driver of engagement in Teranet’s annual employee engagement survey.
This is not surprising given our continuously evolving environment as a trusted technology partner to businesses, banks, and government. However, it also means we must regularly stay up to date with the rapidly changing technology landscape, as well as evolve how we understand, develop, and integrate this into our ecosystems.
Finally, new organizations that join the Teranet family, such as Collateral Management Solutions and Foster Moore Canada, continue to mould the way we work and the landscape of what we need to know. Continuous learning and development are what allows us to make these integrations successful.
What inspires you and what are you most excited about at Teranet on the learning and development front?
I am excited for what lies ahead for Teranet in the coming years. In one word I can summarize it as “acceleration”. Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, technological advancements and the future of work will continue to accelerate how we work, what we deliver, and how we consume knowledge.
On the learning and development front this means leveraging these changes to better understand how people absorb information, and delivering that knowledge through AI, interaction, and microlearning. This is what inspires learning.
