Chief HR and strategy officer oversees several functions at Hazelview Investments
After years of working in HR, Vanessa Mian says her career has turned out better than expected.
“I was really lucky, with some great experiences and companies that did value the function, did value the culture, did value the voice at the table,” she says.
“In many ways, of course, it's challenging, and there's a lot of ups and downs when you deal with people and culture and companies evolving and adapting to things. But I worked for some really great companies that provided a really nice landscape to do that work.”
As chief human resources and strategy officer at Hazelview Investments, Mian is responsible for overseeing the corporate strategy team which includes strategy, people and culture, sustainability, marketing, and technology.
The company has been owners and managers of real estate investments since 1999. Hazelview has 700 employees globally, with most in Canada, along with offices in Germany, Hong Kong, and New York. It manages more than 22,000 residential units in Canada.
Foundation in HR and business strategy
Mian’s passion for human resources started early, when two family members were working in HR.
"I used to just listen to them talk about employee relations and different matters, and I always thought that sounded, being younger… really cool and glamorous, interesting."
Since then, Mian has held leadership positions in FinTech, mining, consulting, and international quick-service restaurants.
"Over the years, it became a lot more for me about being drawn to the people, the leadership, helping bring things together, helping shape companies through a different lens."
Mian holds a BA in Sociology from Brock University, an HR degree from George Brown College, is a Certified Human Resources Leader (CHRL), and recently attained a Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA.
Lessons from McDonald’s: Scaling HR
Mian says her tenure at McDonald’s for nearly seven years provided invaluable experience in HR strategy and business alignment.
"[It] helped shape my exposure to, I would say, high-impact HR and business strategy, and my exposure to leadership development and business transformation, because at more global organizations, you really need to be on point with those things."
Her time at McDonald’s also reinforced the importance of making people strategy scalable, she says.
"How do you integrate with the business to help achieve their objectives through people and culture and all the various interactions, in a very complex stakeholder environment?"
New challenges at Hazelview Investments
Hazelview Investments was the polar opposite, she says, having joined the company eight years ago in January 2017.
“It was a fast-growing, entrepreneurial, innovative organization which, at the time, for me, really felt like an exciting blank slate that I could grab a hold of and make my own."
And the company already had a cultural foundation, which meant Mian never felt like she had to fight for HR to be included or heard, she says.
"The role eventually allowed me to focus on much more of a corporate strategy, a foundational angle to HR… and Hazelview really provided me that space to integrate into the business.”
A big piece of the job has been making all the pieces work together, to make for a better company, she says, with a foundational unit that includes technology, marketing, and sustainability.
“It's a lot, but the reality is I have really, really strong team members [and] each area of the business has a department head. I'm also very lucky that a lot of my department heads have quite a bit of tenure, so they know what they're doing, they're excellent. And we really try and foster an environment where people are empowered to do what they need to do.”
Mian says her role is very much about facilitating at the executive level, supporting people where needed: “[It's about] connecting all the dots and helping align and bring people together.”
Building culture of ownership and engagement
For Mian, company culture is not just about policies — it’s about daily actions.
"We talk a lot about culture being like any relationship you might have, whether it's a family member, a friend, partner, and it's something that you have to work on actively,” she says.
“It's every interaction. It's every hard conversation you don't shy away from. It's not tolerating perhaps a bad apple and making sure that you're rewarding and recognizing really great behaviour.”
As part of that, four big areas of focus at Hazelview are leadership commitment, employee feedback and alignment, a focus on wellbeing and an ownership program, says Mian.
The latter was introduced a few years ago when the founder decided to take an equity ownership program approach, she says.
“That is definitely unusual in our industry, especially for privately owned companies, but basically it helps create that sense of alignment and participation in our success… the team members love it, and I think it creates a really great underpinning.”
One of the standouts at Hazelview is there’s a lot of tenure, she says, “so people are very, very committed and engaged, especially at the leadership team level. It's been pretty stable for many years.”
Focus on benefits and wellbeing
Hazelview provides a variety of employee benefits focused on wellbeing that include: flexible work options; a matching RSP; a flexible spending account; up to $1,500 for a mental health practitioner; maternity, parental and adoption top-ups of up to 100%; and tuition subsidies.
And an important way to gauge the success of these initiatives is through employee surveys, says Mian.
"Every year we ask the question [about being] satisfied with Hazelview’s benefits and wellness offerings, and every year we ask… if they feel that we're committed to wellness and well-being. And last year, for example, both of those questions saw an improvement and came in at 84% agreeance."
Mian remains committed to ensuring Hazelview’s culture remains authentic and forward-thinking.
"I think sometimes companies try to be everything to everyone, which can be problematic, and you have to be true to yourself, but still listen and make sure you're engaging in feedback."
Looking ahead to 2025
Looking ahead, HR will be busy at Hazelview navigating industry challenges, she says.
"[With all the] economic shifts, technological advancements, evolving workplace expectations, global uncertainties, I think that'll continue to shape how HR has to engage with the business, with people, with the team members."
Mian credits the company’s stability to its strong leadership and culture.
“It might sound a bit dorky, but I think when you're really well-grounded in who you are as a firm, who you want to be, [with] shared values, we can take a step back and say, ‘Hang on a minute, is this what we want for ourselves, for our teams, for the company?’”
That kind of resilience helps the company get through tough times, she says.
"We're in a landscape where raising capital has been difficult. Real estate is not always an easy industry. And so what gets us through that stress, that pressure, that uncertainty, it's the team, right? It's the people. It's supporting each other.”
