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Talent Management

Practical recruitment, retention, and development strategies to build a high-performance workforce

Increasingly, creating and maintaining a workforce made up of high-quality, motivated and engaged talent is recognized as one of the only ways an organization can gain competitive advantage. Put simply, talented employees represent a factor that your competitors will be hard-pressed to replicate.

Yet, many do not understand how to effectively hire, retain, motivate, engage and develop talent - at all levels of the organization.

Join Dr. Shawna O'Grady as she discusses practical strategies for acquiring, retaining, and developing the right people. She will highlight not only industry best practices for effective talent management, but also common pitfalls to avoid.

In this free 60-minute session, you will learn:

  • Best practices for effective talent management
  • Practical strategies for recruiting and selecting the right employees
  • Evidence-based approaches for retaining your most at-risk talent
  • Critical issues to consider when developing talent
  • How to motivate talent to reach higher levels of performance

Following the presentation will be a period dedicated to Q&A with our speaker, allowing for real-world application of theoretical concepts.

Session Leader

Dr. Shawna O'Grady

Associate Professor

Dr. Shawna O’Grady is an Associate Professor of Management at Smith School of Business in Kingston. She is an authority on the strategic and cross-cultural issues involved in doing business in the United States and Mexico. Dr. O’Grady has been widely quoted in the media on the issues of cross-border retailing, and has addressed a number of industry and academic audiences around the world.

She co-authored a best selling book called Border Crossings: Doing Business in the U.S. which was a finalist for the National Business Book Award, sponsored by Coopers & Lybrand and The Financial Times. This book has received outstanding reviews in the media for five years. She has written numerous articles on cross-border retailing, which have appeared in top-level national and international journals such as the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, the Journal of International Business, and Business Quarterly.

She is also an experienced team facilitator, and serves as Director of Team Facilitation with the Queen’s Executive MBA program. Dr. O’Grady consults to a wide variety of clients in the private and public sectors in the areas of team building, human resource management, leading change, thinking and problem solving styles, and international business. She earned her B. Comm. and Master of Industrial Relations (MIR) at Queen’s University and her Ph.D. in Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Clients: Oracle, Alcatel Networks, Nortel Networks, MDS Inc., Bell Canada, House of Commons, Canada Trust, Xerox Corporation, Glaxo Wellcome, MDS Inc., Apotex Inc., Dylex, Baxter Corporation, RDS Data Group Inc., Organon Teknika Inc., The Economical Insurance Group, Acklands Grainger, Ontario General Contractor’s Association, Source Medical, MDS Sciex, Sprint Canada, Storage Tek, Consumers Gas, Interac Association, Telnet, UUNET, Battle Mountain Gold Canada Ltd., Hummingbird, GBC Canada Inc., Transcontinental Printing, Phoenix Systems, Melloul-Blamey Construction, Buttcon Limited, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, Strategic Planning Forum, Morneau Sobeco, Firemaster Oilfield Services, Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Ontario Power Corporation, Ontario Management Board Secretariat, Canada Post Corporation, Ontario Ministry of Labour, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Ontario Ministry of Finance, Community Care Access Centre, The Care Delivery Network, Parks Canada, and Industry Canada.