Teknion

Margo Gordon

Organizational Value Shaper

Emigrating from South Africa 31 years ago, Margo Gordon started her career in employee relations in Canada. Over her 25-year HR career, she moved through various verticals, playing different roles. With such experience, she set out to build her company ‘Margo Gordon Consulting,’ an independent consultancy dedicated to excellence, partnering with organizations to provide strategic HR services in areas related to talent and performance management and productivity systems. Later, Margo was recruited as VP of Human Resources at Teknion, a leading office furniture manufacturer, where she has guided people strategy for almost eight years. Her experience spans retail, pharma, manufacturing and consulting, holding senior roles and leading major initiatives. Margo has a law degree from the University of Cape Town and an HR/business diploma.

Through this article, Gordon aims to highlight the importance of holistic HR practices that align with and enable overall business strategies while emphasizing the need to adapt to emerging workplace dynamics and leverage cross-functional experience to drive organizational success.

With your blend of operational experience and external consulting perspectives, how do you balance internal organizational knowledge with integrating fresh external viewpoints?

I guide the people strategy and operations across the organization. My diverse background across multiple industries, including retail, pharma and manufacturing, provides valuable perspectives. Operating on the business side before moving into HR ensures a practical viewpoint, complemented by experience in consulting.

Before transitioning into HR, I operated on the business side, which gave me a practical viewpoint that’s complemented by my consulting experience as well.

The company I work for is Teknion. We are Canada's largest contract furniture manufacturer, with around 3,700 employees globally. We have a major footprint in the Greater Toronto Area with eight plants, plus operations in Calgary, the U.S., and Malaysia, and we'll be opening up in the U.K. soon, too.

My team supports every department–sales, design, development and marketing. We’re involved across the whole organization. Our HR model is tied to driving corporate success. We take the broader business strategies and objectives and translate those into actionable people plans and programs on the HR side. It’s about aligning all our people initiatives to help achieve those overarching goals.

How do you leverage emerging practices in human resource planning to ensure that your organization remains agile and responsive to evolving business needs?

Our corporate culture is a competitive advantage with low turnover rates. We’re intentionally strengthening our culture post-pandemic by fostering employee connections through various activities tailored to different demographics and work arrangements. We prioritize supporting our managers with upskilling and development, including courses on topics like generative AI’s implications. We’re taking a cautious approach to integrating AI into HR operations, piloting use cases in learning and development. Given the scarcity of external talent, we focus on internal talent mobility, providing career development opportunities that align with emerging business needs and capitalize on our internal talent pipeline.

“It’s crucial to gain operational experience early to understand how businesses truly function. Without this understanding, maximizing impact within an organization is challenging.”

Is there a project or initiative you would like to discuss where you have successfully implemented the latest trends?

In 2021, we introduced the Just label, a voluntary disclosure tool demonstrating our commitment to diversity, inclusion and social justice values. Awarded by the International Living Future Institute, it tracks Teknion’s performance across six key areas of social equity. While HR oversees the metrics, implementing these initiatives involves multiple business functions, reflecting our holistic approach. The label fosters real transparency and ongoing improvement, challenging legacy practices and prompting enhancements across policies, programs and culture. It aligns every part of Teknion around this critical priority in a measurable way.

How do you envision the future years with all these potential disruptions and transformations?

One critical challenge we face is maintaining leadership development amid remote work arrangements. How can we preserve spontaneous office exchanges and informal learning opportunities crucial for workforce development? With virtual work, we risk disrupting our carefully nurtured organizational culture. How do we recreate insightful moments and strengthen cultural connectivity as physical connectivity decreases? Ensuring proper development of high-potential talent, historically identified through in-person exposure, is essential. We need intentional strategies for virtual coaching, learning and talent visibility to address this challenge and sustain our success amidst evolving workplace dynamics.

What advice or suggestions would you like to give to your peers and upcoming professionals in this field?

It’s crucial to gain operational experience early to understand how businesses truly function. Without this understanding, maximizing impact within an organization is challenging. If given the opportunity, explore roles outside HR to find joy in problem-solving, innovation and learning from failure.

Align HR initiatives with business needs by actively listening to the organization. HR professionals have the privilege to influence workplace culture profoundly and should leverage every opportunity to contribute positively. Operational experience provides vital context for advancing strategic people initiatives that add value to the business. Continuously learning about operational realities beyond HR strengthens one's ability to be an impactful HR partner in the long run.