Sebastian Mercier · Chief Human Resources Officer · Canada

What I would bring to a board with a large hourly workforce

My contribution to a board

A board that oversees a large hourly workforce usually sees it through two numbers: total labour cost and turnover. I would help directors see what lies underneath. I have spent thirty years in warehouses, plants and stores where most people are paid by the hour, many are covered by collective agreements and a schedule matters as much as a wage. I know what a bargaining mandate looks like when it has been costed honestly, including the cost of a stoppage, and what it looks like when management has only costed the settlement.

I would also bring experience of operating in Quebec from inside a company run from Ontario. Many boards with Quebec operations treat language as a legal compliance topic for the general counsel. I have seen how it decides who is promoted, which training is completed and whether a new system is used, and I can help a board ask the questions that show whether its Quebec operations work in French or merely comply.

My natural committee is human resources and compensation. I have prepared its papers for seven years and know where they are likely to be thin: frontline pay below the executive level, the cost of compression as minimum wages rise and the evidence behind succession ratings. I would want to serve a full annual cycle as a member before chairing. I am not a financial expert for audit committee purposes, and I would say so. I could contribute to a health, safety and environment committee where warehouse or plant operations carry real risk.

Committee contribution

Chair and member readiness
Capacity	Committees
Ready to chair	Human resources and compensation committee, after one full annual cycle as a member · Human resources committee of a not-for-profit board
Ready to join	Human resources and compensation committee · Governance and nominating committee · Health, safety and environment committee of a company with plants or warehouses

Capacity and preferences

Time available: 22 days per year
Current directorships: 1
Sectors: Food and beverage manufacturing outside farm inputs and pet food · Transport and distribution businesses with unionised workforces · Health-care and long-term care providers with large hourly workforces · Large co-operatives and not-for-profits operating in Quebec
Company type: A TSX-listed small or mid-cap company, or a large co-operative or not-for-profit, with hourly or unionised operations in Ontario or Quebec
Company stage: An organisation facing a labour-cost reset, an automation programme or an expansion into Quebec, where pay, bargaining and language need board attention together

The seat I am pursuing

I am looking for one non-executive seat on the board of a Canadian organisation with a large hourly or unionised workforce in Ontario or Quebec: a listed small or mid-cap company, a large co-operative or a not-for-profit. Food manufacturers outside our product categories, distribution and transport businesses, and health-care and long-term care providers are the settings where my experience carries over most directly. I would expect to join the human resources and compensation committee and, after a full cycle, to chair it if the board wished. I would also be glad to serve on a health, safety and environment committee. I am not interested in a seat offered for my title or my network, or on a board that wants a labour-relations specialist only for a single bargaining round. Before taking a conversation further, I would want to understand the chair's view of what the board lacks, the company's labour-relations history and how its committee hears from employees below the executive level.

Governance learning and readiness

IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered

The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian register for people seeking independent directorships of Indian companies. It does not apply to the Canadian appointments I am considering, and I have not registered with it. A Canadian board would assess my independence under the governance rules that apply to it.

A four-module director education programme for prospective board members, completed in 2024
Annual briefings from the Grangemont committee's own compensation consultant on executive pay practice and shareholder expectations
Not-for-profit board service since 2021, including chairing a human resources committee from 2023
A course on the governance of pension and benefit plans for employers with unionised workforces, 2025

Judgement in practice

Putting the cost of a strike in front of the board

When I presented our 2023 bargaining mandate, the draft from management showed only the cost of the settlement range. I added a page on the cost of a six-week stoppage in spring, including the effect on Quebec feed and seed sales and the fact that Quebec's labour code would prevent us from replacing striking workers. One director said the page would encourage the board to settle too generously. I argued that a mandate approved without the cost of a stoppage was not really a mandate at all, because the board would be deciding without the alternative. The board kept the page and widened the mandate slightly, with a ceiling I was expected not to approach. We settled within it. As a director, I would ask management for both sides of that calculation, and I would be wary of a mandate that showed only one.

Removing a flattering number from an incentive plan

Our executive short-term incentive included a store labour-cost measure. When self-checkout was approved, I saw that the removed till hours would improve that measure whether or not the work had gone anywhere useful, and that shrink, which rose, was not in the plan. I recommended to the human resources and compensation committee that the labour-hour effect of self-checkout be excluded from the measure for two years. Two executives, whose incentives I was reducing, objected. The committee agreed, and the payout for fiscal 2025 was lower than it would have been. I think a director should look for measures that a management decision will flatter automatically and ask for them to be neutralised in advance.

Leaving the room when my employer was the sponsor

In 2024 Valdorée Rural Employment Network considered a three-year sponsorship from Grangemont that would have funded a retail-skills programme in two towns where we have stores. I declared the conflict, left the discussion and did not see the papers. The board accepted a smaller sponsorship on condition that the programme trained people for any local employer, not only for Grangemont, and that Grangemont had no role in selecting participants. I learnt about the conditions afterwards and thought them right. I would expect to handle any conflict on another board in the same way, and to make sure the minutes show it.

My first year on a board

I would spend my first months learning the company the way its hourly workforce experiences it. Before my first committee meeting I would ask to visit two operating sites, one large and one small, without a management escort for at least part of the day, and to read the main collective agreements or, if there are none, the scheduling and pay policies that stand in their place. I would read three years of committee papers and ask the chief human resources officer which questions the committee has never asked.

At meetings in that first year I would ask more than I proposed. I would want to understand how the company sets pay for the people it employs at or near the minimum wage, how it decides bargaining mandates, how it develops successors for site and store leaders and how it decides language requirements if it operates in Quebec. I would follow one full annual cycle before suggesting any change to how the committee works, unless I saw a labour-relations or safety risk that could not wait.

At the end of the year I would ask the committee chair two things: whether my questions had been useful, and whether my background in retail and food had helped or had made me see the company as something it is not. I would rather hear that early than late.

Conflicts and their management

Grangemont comes first, and I would accept no seat without Martine Ouellard's written consent, our board's approval and a review by our general counsel. Some seats I would not consider at all. These include any retailer selling feed, pet, garden, hardware or farm supplies in eastern Canada; any agricultural co-operative that sells inputs to farmers; any manufacturer or distributor from which Grangemont buys; and any landlord of our stores.

Other relationships I would disclose before a first conversation: my Grangemont share units, my directorship of Valdorée, which receives a sponsorship from Grangemont, and any professional relationship with the labour-relations and compensation advisers who work for either company. I have no shareholdings in competitors and would not acquire any while serving.

If a conflict arose during a board meeting, I would say so before the item began, leave the room and ask that the minutes record it, as I did at Valdorée in 2024. If the same conflict kept returning, I would resign. I would also keep what I know about Grangemont's pay, bargaining positions and people out of another board's discussions, however relevant it seemed. The twenty-two days a year I can offer would be agreed with my employer in advance, and I would not exceed them by taking on a chair role before both boards had agreed.

My independence statement

Whether I am independent is for the board that appoints me to decide, and I would give it everything it needs to decide. That means my employment at Grangemont, my Grangemont share units, my directorship at Valdorée Rural Employment Network and any commercial dealings between Grangemont and the company, its suppliers or its executives. I understand that Canadian governance rules ask whether a relationship could reasonably be expected to interfere with a director's independent judgement, and I would rather declare too much than leave a board to discover something later.

Board and committee exposure

Served as a director

Valdorée Rural Employment Network

Board of directors; chair of the human resources committee from 2023

June 2021–present

Director of a not-for-profit that runs employment and training programmes for rural job-seekers in central Quebec; chairs the committee that oversees the executive director's pay and staff policies.

Reported to a committee

Grangemont Farm & Home Inc.

Human resources and compensation committee

September 2019–present

Prepares and presents the committee's papers on executive pay, incentive design, the store-manager bench, pay equity and labour relations; attends all meetings apart from in-camera sessions.

Presented to the Board or a committee

Grangemont Farm & Home Inc.

Full board

2022–2024

Presented the 2023 bargaining mandate with a costed stoppage scenario, the French-first plan for Quebec operations and the workforce plan for self-checkout.

Presented to the Board or a committee

Brisfield Home

Board of the fund-owned company

2016–2019

Presented the people plan for 19 store closures and the labour-relations position after the 2017 certification application at the Brampton distribution centre.