On April 16, 2014, the BC Human Resources Management Association (BC HRMA) announced the recipients of its annual awards – the HR Professional of the Year, Innovation, Rising Star and BC HRMA Honourary Life Member. BC HRMA’s Professional Awards are sponsored by The Vancouver Sun and The Province.

Fiona Ho
HR Generalist,
Fortinet Technologies (Canada) Inc.,
Burnaby

When Fortinet Technologies hired Fiona Ho, freshly graduated from UBC’s Sauder School of Business in 2011 with a specialization in HR, it was without reservation, only hope; the work volume and complexity of the HR coordinator role had already proven too much for two others. Ho has never been happier.

She has since defined her own path as an HR generalist while rotating time between different HR specialties, most specifically, performance management, HRIS and recruitment.

Fortunately for Ho and Fortinet, she has always seen potential where others see problems. Despite being a company of 2300+ employees, growing at a rate of 15 to 20 per cent annually and largely on an international basis, the organization has always had a very lean HR team with little in-house specialist support. With HR covered in only four of the 20+ countries where Fortinet is represented worldwide, Ho’s passion for process, people and research quickly benefited the bigger picture.

With an eye for detail as bright as her personality, she researched and learned best practices wherever Fortinet lacked local HR support or knowledge. Then she turned her attention to the processes which would support the entirety of the expanding organization—beginning with an antiquated performance management system.

The previous process had proven an increasing challenge, with all reviews done manually and countless weeks spent collecting and consolidating salary and stock recommendations. Ho not only brought processes online and into the new millennium, she saved Fortinet over $100,000 by leading the development team to create an in-house system; the cost saving in terms of hours saved within the HR team is ongoing.

Moreover, by providing managers an online solution for providing feedback, the participation rate has doubled, enabling more comprehensive feedback and generating positive feedback for HR and Ho.

When a time of high turnover in the US team left a critical HR specialist gap in 2012, Ho stepped up, and effectively lived out of her suitcase to expand and apply her multi-faceted skill set. Her success might be measured by the fact that Fortinet’s CEO, who lives in Sunnyvale, wanted her to stay in the US rather than return to Canada. She became Fortinet’s global lead for several HR programs & systems in the same year.

Fortunately for Fortinet Canada, Ho returned to address the bigger picture of local recruitment. She changed that facet of Fortinet in 2013 when she took over the New Grad Hiring Program, building key relationships with industry and educational institutes to promote Fortinet as an employer of choice. Doubling the number of industry events attended and partnering with Fortinet’s management team has increased both participation and effectiveness of these efforts.

While the acclaim of her initiatives in the professional forum are impressive, they also tie back directly to Ho’s volunteering and pioneering spirit. An early advocate of HR from high school onwards, while at UBC she served for a year as a Post Secondary Representative with BC HRMA.

Joining the BC HRMA Coastal Vancouver Advisory Council in 2011, she applied that experience directly as co-chair of the Post-Secondary portfolio. She went on to find myriad ways to connect students and HR clubs across the lower mainland with the career potential of HR, and has since created and chairs the New Professionals Roundtable. Mission accomplished on the school front, Ho now co-chairs the CHRP/Professional Development Portfolio and has created a Roundtable Chair Roundtable to foster further collaboration and enhance the roundtable experience.

Most recently, Fiona became involved with the REVEAL Business Group, a nonprofit organization that supports young business leaders’ personal and professional development.

(PeopleTalk Summer 2014)