Gemini-award winning business journalist Amanda Lang is CBC’s senior business correspondent, reporting for, and occasionally hosting, its flagship nightly news program, The National. She is also co-host of The Lang & O’Leary Exchange, a daily business program airing on CBC News Network.

Taking her first job in journalism with The Globe and Mail, Lang subsequently became the New York correspondent for The Financial Post newspaper, before making the leap to television. Part of the team that launched the Business News Network, Lang moved to CNN as a reporter and anchor, before returning to Canada in 2002 to rejoin BNN and CTV; she has been with CBC since 2009.

Lang is author of the bestseller, The Power of Why: Simple Questions That Lead to Success, a book that shows readers how to reignite curiosity at any age to become more innovative and productive. She brings her engaging insights and style to BC HRMA Conference 2013’s plenary stage on May 2, 2013.

Heading into 2013, what are the primary ‘big picture’ elements that will continue to present a challenge for ‘business as usual’ in Canada?
The biggest challenges are those beyond our control – namely the threat of a new recession in the US (brought on by its inability to maneuver around the so-called Fiscal Cliff of higher taxes and lower government spending) and the threat of a break-down in the Euro zone (which could take many forms). Because those challenges are beyond our control, it makes sense for Canadian business to focus on expanding and investing, albeit with an eye on the risk of recession. Just as a homeowner today needs to be mindful of rising rates and the risk of recession in planning his expenditures, businesses need to balance between prudence and expansion. Leaning too heavily toward prudence – which Canadian businesses arguably are doing now, and hoarding cash – represents a very real domestic risk, as well as a lost opportunity.

If Canada is facing a challenge in its productivity gap, what are some of the means companies can leverage to fill the gap and fuel more innovative futures?
In the short term, using capital on hand to invest in their businesses is an easy way to improve the efficiency of a business and therefore its productivity. But ultimately productivity will be driven by innovation. It is often said that no business innovates for the sake of it – but only in the face of a need to do so. In order to create that need, and foster a culture of innovation, businesses are wise to open themselves to competition. That can be domestically, by expanding, or by increasing their export markets. Either way, we need the sense of urgency that comes from competitive pressure to make us innovate. And innovation is the best route to productivity.

How important to a company’s ongoing success is its recruitment process?
Few things are as important to a business’ success than the people it can attract and retain. Matching the right skills to the jobs you have – and recognizing that not all of those skills come with a degree or diploma attached – can be a key differentiator for a business. Once on board, committing to training is an essential component of success. Canadian businesses have shown a poor relative record of training their recruits and staff – that’s an investment that many businesses should be making now.

What gives companies the edge in seeking to attract top talent—and what is the single most important contribution HR might make in this area?
Though the answer to this question may vary by industry, I truly believe that if a business wants to have fully engaged employees, delivering all of their capability to their jobs, then connecting with them on multiple levels makes a big difference. Internal cultures that foster a sense of the ‘why’ of the business help connect employees with their jobs, but also helps them see how their jobs are a direct line to the end goal of the enterprise. Making that connection for non-front line employees (and sometimes even for those on the front line) can be a huge contribution from HR. Helping to identify training or feedback opportunities is one of the ways to keep employees engaged.

How do you envisage the role of HR moving forward in an era of multiple demographic shifts and moving targets?
Because HR has been identified as one of the impediments to employee innovation, the hope is that HR professionals move out of their silo and seed the entire workforce. Acting as a conduit of information from employees to the systems designed to help them internally, and perhaps as important, being themselves an ambassador of corporate culture – the ‘why’ of the enterprise – make HR professionals central to the success of a business. But some of the rules of how to engage employees are going to have to change. A new generation of workers who live with social media will view much about the workplace – especially a traditional culture of hierarchy – with a jaundiced eye. Businesses can’t afford not to connect with those employees, and HR professionals may be best suited to help create the system to engage them, using those same tools.

(PeopleTalk: Winter 2012)