Michelle Dolan

Michelle Dolan combines HR leadership with a strong background in learning, facilitation, and organizational development. An MBA graduate of Royal Roads University, she has worked across aviation, recreation, and community-focused organizations, with experience spanning recruitment, instructional design, employee engagement, workforce planning, and workplace culture. Her professional interests include agile leadership, AI adoption in HR, talent development, and building adaptable teams within fast-moving operational environments.

Shaping Culture from Within

I often describe my work in HR as balancing operational excellence with the employee experience, particularly in an environment where workforce diversity, scale, and constant role transitions create ongoing complexity. At MNP Community & Sport Centre, that balance is not theoretical. It is reflected daily in how people are hired, supported, developed, and retained.

As Director of Human Resources, I work directly with the CEO and lead a team of five. We call ourselves the friendly HR team because we prioritize accessibility, making it easy for employees and leaders to connect with HR whenever they move through different roles, responsibilities, or life stages. Our work spans HR strategy, employee engagement and relations, total rewards, learning and development, workforce planning, and talent management. Alongside this, I oversee health and safety strategy, including our joint occupational health and safety committee and emergency response programs.

One initiative that significantly reshaped our operations was the implementation of a new HRIS system in 2019. It improved how we manage workforce information, strengthened decision-making, and enabled leaders to act on more consistent and timely insights. As a result, leaders are better equipped to make informed decisions around hiring, development, and workforce planning. This reinforced a key principle: people perform best when systems are designed to support decisions and actions, not simply manage processes.

That clarity began to shape the employee experience more broadly across the organization. When we chose to include community in our name in 2022, it reflected a closer alignment between how we operate internally and the role we play externally. It was not a cosmetic shift, but a reaffirmation that our responsibility extends beyond operations into the lived experience of both employees and the community we serve.

Creating Pathways to Opportunity

Operational HR forms the backbone of our work, but its role extends beyond consistency into enabling access at scale. Recruiting, onboarding, workforce planning, and compliance are not only foundational processes but also mechanisms through which individuals connect with opportunities at different stages of work and engagement.

Through partnerships, including the City of Calgary youth employment fair, we actively remove barriers for individuals entering the workforce for the first time by creating accessible entry points and structured onboarding experiences. Our organization spans a wide age range, from volunteers as young as 13 to employees well into their seventies. This creates a shared environment where early workforce exposure and long-term contribution coexist.

What has stayed with me over time is how often we are present at the beginning of someone’s professional development. Communication, critical thinking, and the ability to navigate workplace interactions are developed in real operating environments, from program delivery to frontline service. As these early experiences unfold, they build capability and readiness for more complex roles, forming a foundation for long-term career progression.

“We Believe Organizations need to Keep Humans in the Loop so Technology Supports Better Decisions without Eroding Trust, Accountability, or Responsibility.”

Toward Values-Based Development

Inclusion is a core area where HR and the community intersect, and it is operationalized through everyday decisions across hiring, development, and employee support. We design HR practices so that evaluation processes, team environments, and employee interactions reflect the diversity and expectations of the community we serve. I often ask my team how our HR operations can drive community impact, keeping social responsibility embedded in everyday actions rather than as a separate layer.

That focus shaped a leadership initiative called the career pathing program, developed in 2024 and later redesigned as leadership fundamentals. At the time, we noticed inconsistencies in how leaders conducted developmental conversations, with varying approaches to feedback, communication, and team development. While the intention was strong, delivery varied, and actions didn’t always align with expectations. This highlighted the need for a more structured approach to leadership development.

Rather than adding complexity, we focused on simplifying expectations and creating consistency. In partnership with a consultant, we developed a program centered on values-based leadership, communication, feedback, and leading diverse teams. Our mission, vision, and values were embedded directly into how leaders were taught to communicate, coach, and support their teams. To ensure sustainability, we implemented a train-the-trainer model and engaged our executive team from the outset.

We invested more than 300 hours in leadership development, translating structured learning into consistent day-to-day behavior. Leadership alignment improved, engagement scores remained strong between 74 and 89 percent, and turnover declined as more employees chose to grow within the organization. Over the same period, average tenure increased from two to four years, particularly among frontline teams, reflecting more consistent leadership practices and clearer development pathways.

Technology in Service of People

As leadership practices became more consistent, attention shifted to how systems and technology could scale that impact. Since 2016, I have been actively involved with AI, starting with academic research during my MBA. In recent years, my work has expanded to applied projects and collaborations with organizations including World at Work, CPHR, Alberta Occupational Health and Safety, and academic institutions.

With the emergence of generative AI in 2022, the opportunity became practical. AI enables a shift from manual coordination toward faster, more informed decision-making, while also allowing HR to personalize employee experiences at scale. This includes tailoring support, development pathways, and communication in ways that were previously difficult to deliver consistently.

At MNP Community & Sport Centre, we applied these capabilities by building a closed internal GPT system. This tool supports leaders with recruiting templates, role-specific interview guides, and structured onboarding plans for the first 30, 60, and 90 days. It also extends to total rewards and employee engagement support, enabling more consistent, context-specific interactions across teams. As a result, leaders are equipped with tools aligned to their roles, improving both efficiency and execution quality.

At the same time, the risks are real, particularly the potential for AI to reinforce bias at scale if left unchecked. As adoption began, we chose to acknowledge AI early rather than restrict or ignore its use and defined clear parameters for its application. In 2023, we introduced an AI policy with defined guardrails, ensuring that transparency, accountability, and human oversight remain central. We believe organizations need to keep humans in the loop so technology supports better decisions without eroding trust, accountability, or responsibility.

Change as Behavior

Looking across these experiences, one consistent lesson for HR leaders scaling organizations is that change is fundamentally behavioral. Scaling requires more than introducing new processes or expanding teams. It requires individuals at all levels to adjust how they work, make decisions, and lead.

Effective transformation depends on clarity and simplicity. People need to understand why change matters and how it connects to organizational goals. By simplifying processes, removing friction, and providing practical tools, organizations can reinforce the behaviors required for consistent execution and sustained performance.