I settle a telecom company's hardest people questions in the collective agreement and on the work floor rather than in a policy manual, because a rule the crew does not trust will be worked around on the first stormy night.
I am senior vice-president and chief human resources officer of Keswald Communications Inc., a regional operator headquartered in Moncton that provides fibre and copper broadband, wireless, television and business connectivity across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. I am responsible for human resources, labour relations and field safety for 7,400 colleagues, including 2,450 in our craft bargaining unit and 1,520 in our clerical and customer-care unit, and for C$842 million of annual compensation and benefits expense. I report to our president and chief executive, Kathleen Moorcroft, prepare the papers for our board's human resources and compensation committee and present to its health, safety and environment committee.
I did not arrive by the usual road. I grew up in Edmundston and began in 1990 as an apprentice line technician at Pellerin Cable TV, a family-owned cable company in northern New Brunswick, where I became a union steward in 1994. I studied business in the evenings and crossed to employer-side labour relations at Keswald in 1998. Later I led field labour relations for Redwillow Telecom in Manitoba, including communities reached only by air, and ran HR at Quillon Contact Services, where I opened an offshore centre in Cebu. Keswald brought me back in 2016, and I have led its people function since 2021.
Four questions have occupied me since. How does a non-union cable workforce join a unionised telephone company without either side feeling conquered? How do we protect technicians who work alone in winter without turning safety equipment into surveillance? Which customer calls should be answered close to the crews, and which can go elsewhere? And how do we train the splicers a rural fibre network needs, in the communities it reaches last? My answers have cost money, some speed and at least one saving our owners wanted.
One bargaining unit after the cable acquisition
In 2023 we brought 610 Bracewood cable technicians into our craft unit with their service recognised and no cut to anyone's base pay. Their voluntary turnover fell from 23% to 8% by 2025, at an added labour cost of about C$7.1 million a year.
Truck data that cannot be used for discipline
After a technician went missing in a 2018 blizzard, we fitted check-in devices to 1,300 trucks and agreed with the union that their data would serve safety, not discipline. Alerts found fourteen people in genuine difficulty in two winters.
The night queue outsourced, repair calls kept at home
Instead of moving 45% of voice calls offshore for C$18.6 million a year, we outsourced overnight and simple billing work for C$10.1 million and kept repair calls near the crews. Agent attrition fell from 41% to 26% with no layoffs.
Splicers trained where the network runs
Since 2022, 128 apprentices have started a joint union and company splicing programme, forty-one of them in community-based positions. Average fibre restoration for coastal Labrador communities fell from fifty-eight hours to fourteen.
Current focus
I am preparing the 2027 renewal of our craft agreement, which expires in December 2026. It is the first renewal since federal restrictions on using replacement workers during a strike or lockout took effect in 2025, which changes how both sides think about the weeks before a deadline. Alongside it, I am planning succession for the 31% of our splicers and senior technicians who can retire within five years.
Conversations I welcome
I am not seeking another executive appointment before the 2027 agreement is settled. I would consider one non-executive seat at an electricity utility, a transport operator or a Crown corporation with field crews, on a human resources or safety committee, with my chief executive's consent and our owners' agreement. I take a few advisory and speaking conversations a year where the subject is specific.
