Sun Peaks Resort

Director of Employee Experience & HR (Winter Contract)

Okanagan Elevator

Established business in Kelowna and expanded market reach, exceeding sales targets and tripling revenue through in-depth market analysis, business development and scaling processes and talent.

Developed and executed HR strategy in a challenging hiring market for the skills required, achieving zero turnover through retention initiatives.

Co-founder & Owner / VP People & Sales

BSharp Coaching & Consulting

- Executive and career coaching
- Business and board consultant
- Organization design and development
- Strategic development, process creation and continuous improvement

Consultant & Executive Coach

Numeris

Hired to transform from reactive research focus to a proactive data company; strategic workforce exercise to review company talent end-to-end, prioritize future needs and address skills/training gaps. 
•	Led and managed a multi-level team across Human Resource Business Partners, Generalists, Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, DEIB, Wellness and Recognition. Elevated the function to get out of reactive supervisor level thinking, into proactive strategic management.

Director of People & Culture

FreeAgent CRM

Recruited by Co-Founders to lead HR operations, focusing on talent acquisition and retention for CRM platform during a market downturn. CRM niche focused in the medical field. 
•	Launched and executed an employer brand campaign, increasing job applications by 300%, attracting top talent from Apple, Slack, and EA Games to an unknown B2B SaaS CRM start-up. 
•	Revamped employee relations and talent strategy for a remote and on-site workforce across India, Mexico, the US, and Canada. Restructured the sales organization and solutions consultants.

Head Of Human Resources 

Interior Health Authority

In the Organization & Leadership Development function:
Succession planning framework for a health authority serving 800K people in a forest fire-prone region. 

•	Assigned to complete a case study for recruitment for a prior Director, reviewing the health authority mandate, available data, high-level root causes, issues and make key recommendations to resolve. 
•	Uncovered talent reporting and succession data and insights that were previously unknown to the management team responsible for recruitment and L&OD at the time.
•	Proposed several tactics and plans to approach executive succession planning, and succession planning across Interior Health; including hands on support with a request process available to the entire organization, a full executive team review, and partnering with the VP and board. 

Contract role converted to permanent; left for a headhunted contract opportunity and promotion.

Consultant - Executive Succession Planning & Leadership Development

WestJet

During my tenure at WestJet, I was entrusted with leading the comprehensive People & Culture strategy leading up to the airline’s acquisition by Onex. This included developing and executing a global strategy, ensuring alignment with corporate goals, and optimizing workforce strategies. I spearheaded the creation of a P&C "war room" to facilitate complex planning, which later evolved into a COVID command center. 

In addition supporting the governance and all People & Culture board documents, I was deeply involved in shaping WestJet’s long-term people strategy, from improving organizational culture to enhancing employee engagement and leadership development. My proactive approach and ability to pivot under pressure helped the company maintain strong leadership during uncertain times.

People & Culture - Executive Strategy

Continuously promoted through over a decade long career in Aviation; successful in working across multiple verticals from HR, Operations, Commercial and Finance. Known for my approach to leadership and talent management, and mentorship program experience – recruited to help teams shift performance and strategy.

•	Promoted to oversee and support a 150-person team, developing a five-year people strategy to drive the airline's expansion. This included building a talent strategy to identify the critical skills needed for the future of the airline, while investing in improved technology and advanced network capabilities.
•	Creation and management of a $$MM department budget, and close collaboration with all business unit leaders across the company to ensure HR needs were met through budget and operations. 
•	Developed P&C metrics and a five-year scorecard and strategy with Power BI to help optimize and measure successful delivery.

Executive Advisor to the People and Culture team

•	Promoted to direct three teams across Canada (logistics, customs, dangerous goods). Created technical talent strategy for areas of expertise outside of my wheelhouse by building trust and relationships with the team, active listening and root cause problem solving. Identified talent needs, created a candidate pipeline, and put in place a five-year succession plan that went on to sustain the airline to present-day (on their third planned move of five, years after I left).
•	Reshaped team structure for scalability, accelerated recruitment process and hired new customs specialist to support the recovery of $1M in duties.

Manager - Global Logistics

•	Leveraged ADKAR and Prosci methodology, combining change management and project management approaches to drive the adoption of new initiatives. My approach was commended and used as a template for the organization roll-out. 
•	Led change management initiatives, including WestJet’s shift to a global airline, Office 365 implementations, and the transition from on-premises drives to Microsoft Teams, improving operational efficiency and collaboration.

Change Management Lead

•	Developed a cross-functional talent pipeline, guiding seven team members to 2-3 level promotions over two years by equipping them with new skills and career interests.
•	Implemented an AI audit vendor procurement that reduced the audit cycle from three months to three days and upgraded a custom industry platform to align with a new commission model.

Manager - Travel Agency Payment Services

•	Recruited, mentored, and developed team members, driving professional growth and elevating team performance from last place to 4th through data-driven strategies.
•	Developed a custom mentorship program for new leaders and large volumes of peak period coverage.
•	As a new leader in the department, identified a pattern in reporting of time theft and fraud. Collaborated with HR to address, leading investigations that resulted in the termination of 50 employees and then trained existing leaders in their system on fraud detection.

Leader - Contact Centre

•	Talent strategy for mid-to-executive level in multiple teams and over 50 locations: design and launch of innovative company-wide talent programs, both formal and self-serve, including planning and facilitation of leadership learning and conferences with 200 network leaders. 
•	Creation and facilitation of coveted mentorship programs, and other tactical development plans to address talent gaps in multiple difficult to hire regions – leading to 85% promotion rate. 
•	Successful in gaining executive sponsorship and funding for enterprise-wide cloud implementations related to global talent and recognition.

HR Operations Manager (Various roles and promotions in the same team)

- Workforce planning 
- High volume recruiting
- Scheduling relief duties
- Crew Chief & shift leadership
- Project based assignments, process optimization and change management

Various roles

BSharp Big Arts

An idea made into a colourful reality and social experiment to remind adults in a variety of corporate settings of the power of play in creativity and innovation. Large scale interactive art company partnering with TD Bank, GoPro and Travel Alberta and more. We wrapped up operations with the onset of Covid-19.

Co-founder & Owner

Kim Standeven Coaching

Business and Support Service Manager

Hilton

I cut my teeth in hospitality as a server and room service attendant. This was a fun role that gave me insight to hospitality and tourism and led to a 13 year career at WestJet Airlines in Calgary.

Server & Room Service Attendant

Executive Leader | HR Strategist | Community Builder | Creator of #Hirethishuman

With over 15 years of senior leadership experience across aviation, healthcare, research, tech, and startup environments, I specialize in aligning strategy, culture, and operations to drive scalable growth. From founding and scaling businesses, to leading remote work transitions and building talent pipelines with award-worthy culture programs, I bring a unique blend of strategic foresight and hands-on execution that elevates both business performance and employee experience. I’ve led enterprise-wide change in complex environments — from airlines navigating global expansion to tech startups scaling in volatile markets.

As a trusted advisor to C-suite teams and Boards, who also connects authentically with my teams and frontline employees, I’ve built high-impact organizations and functions from the ground up (E.g. Operations, Sales, People & Culture and Logistics), designed leadership succession models, and turned undervalued employer brands into talent magnets. I’ve led teams across Canada, the U.S., Mexico, India and more, always focused on fostering belonging with inclusive, high-performing cultures whether on-site or remote. My approach is both analytical and human — using data and insights to inform action, and empathy to build trust and resilience through change.

I’m currently open to executive, strategic and business partnering opportunities where I can solve real world problems and contribute to long-term value creation. Whether it's scaling a growing business, supporting founders through transformation, or bringing calm clarity to complex organizational challenges, I thrive at the intersection of people and performance. Let’s connect!

Laurel Burns

Fight or flight initiates fear and a freeze response. Cognitive abilities are impacted, not to mention your immune system in the long run. 

Everything and everyone you surround yourself with has an impact on your wellbeing. A well balanced diet is as important as a well balanced environment. 

Stay well.

Laurel Burns (MBA)

Exec Leader & Strategist | 15+ Years of Driving Org Growth & Transformation | Entrepreneur & Founder | Ex-Airlines/Research/Health Care/B2B SaaS | Creator of #Hirethishuman

Possibly the best reframe on performance anxiety I have heard yet. Your inner applause!

Your best is every breath. We are lucky to be alive. 

Use it, because the one thing we all have in common is that we are going to lose it. 

Let this perspective shift your focus in 2026. Work on what is important.

Joy is one of my favourite emotions because it encompasses your whole being when experienced. It embodies long-lasting happiness. A kind of sparkle which is only truly possible if you have held some sadness, grief and even loneliness. 

The absolute wholeness of joy is possible because of the lows that give the highs meaning and continued contentment. 

Nature gives joyfully. Through loss, drought and constant pillaging - she gives despite our best efforts at times as a species to destroy. 

Similarly for us, to live joyfully no matter our elements is a choice. A choice followed by daily habits and a series of reactions. 

Joy is a gift indeed, and one within reach. 

Which state do you choose?

I’m a counseling psychologist and writer based out of Hisar, Haryana. Over the last 6 years, I have been working to make mental health easier to understand for laypeople through lectures, seminars, videos, and articles. 

Having fought clinical depression and suicidality during my teenage years, I try to put more emphasis on men’s mental health to help people and men understand what issues they face and how they can be overcome. 

I also enjoy explaining topics related to stats and research. I believe psychologists, before everything else, are scientists and should be well-versed in the scientific method. My aim is to take the fear of stats and research out of psychology students and replace it with confidence and applicable skills. 

I have also shared my experiences with clinical depression for JOSH Talks. You can listen to my story in detail here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmyzKHJmHA

Reach out to me for help with research in Psychology or content writing for your organization.

Arjun Gupta

CBSE has changed rules mandating the presence of at least 2 counselors in some schools (depending on the size). One will handle the mental wellness and the other will be in charge of career counseling. This will be both a good and a bad move. 

For the good part, there are some schools that take counseling and the mental health of students seriously. They ensure counselors get time to do their work, maintain confidentiality and build results over time. This mandate will allow them to make space for another professional that can share the workload. 

Unfortunately, this won't change much in schools where counselors are treated as substitute teachers or are expected to break confidentiality. In those schools, its a mindset problem, not an access problem. You could put 100 counselors in such schools and the school management will only see 100 " private detectives". 

Moreover, the new clauses say that graduates in psychology (just a bachelors) can be hired as counselors as well. Postgrad is optional. That's not a good idea. I don't think that graduates are ready to work with children right after bachelors due to our curriculum design. 

The problem is that when I think of solutions, I struggle to understand how they can be implemented. How do you change the mindsets of so many people quickly? Propaganda? Movies like tere Ishq Main? What could be done?

Men’s Mental Health | Research & Stats | PhD @ GJU, Hisar

Last month I talked to around 60 people about what it is like to be a school counselor (both counselors and students). It points towards an issue intent and not numbers. 

If the mindset is not changed, we can have 100 counselors in each school and still not have any changes. I discuss this at length in my YouTube video too.

School Counselors in India

Hello, just dropping a reminder that if you are a student doing your dissertation, you don't need to pay anyone for your data analysis. 

You can learn free tools like Jamovi, JASP or PSPP online or you can send your data to me for analysis. My only request is that you anonymize and deidentify the data before sending and score it properly. 

Last year, I had to deal with raw data. 3% of the students had even sent the phone numbers of their participants. This is a HUGE issue. You have promised confidentiality to your participants. You can't just ignore it. 

Send over your data, your hypothesis and your specific analysis and I will make it happen!

Loads of psych professionals feel uncertain about being active on social media or creating content. It helps to know whether you want to have a community or an audience. 

An audience needs a performance. You have to share vague statements. Rile people up, maybe educate them every once in a while but ultimately its a unidirectional relationship. 

A community is smaller and more directed around building each other up, sharing resources and learning new things. You don't need to constantly perform with a community. 

Social media doesn't have to be just about an audience, it can be about the community. A community can be great for most of us, especially in the psych professions where we usually work alone

Can blue lights reduce suicide rates by 84%? I saw loads of posts on Instagram about this. Claims that blue light changes your body's frequency, it gets you in touch with your inner self etc etc. But is it true?

The post quotes a study conducted in 2013. The biggest red flag from the study being that the researchers collected data from a company whose job it is to install blue lights at railway stations. 

A company that installs blue lights at railway stations shared data that showed blue lights at railway stations reduce suicides. No conflict of interest there. But okay, no problem, this is possible. 

The study deals with very skewed data. Out of the 781 station years analysed, 673 saw no suicides at all. We need to take such zero-heavy data into account because otherwise we get wildly overstated results (1 -> 0 suicides is a 100% reduction). The CIs of the estimate are very wide as a result. (14-97%) 

I think this is an example of researchers practicing caution in their paper while the people using those studies for social media simply ignore all the cautions because its a 'big' result. 

Most of the time, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't.

I made a promise to myself to integrate my personal experiences and theoretical knowledge about topics in mental health and suicide prevention more this year. Here is my first attempt to do just that. In this article, I talk about how simple ideas can save lives and how one of them saved mine. 

DM if you'd like to read the whole thing!

Suicide prevention

Saw the news yesterday that a committee is being constituted to address student suicides in IIT Kanpur. Yesterday, VIT had a suicide that was brushed under the carpet before the students could even wake up. Last year, IIT Kharagpur made a committee to address student suicides on their campus. I am not sure if they submitted their report yet (If they did, please DM. I would love to read it)

The share of student suicides in national figures has been going up but we seem more worried about hiding the problem instead of trying to solve it. One more committee, one more panel or one more board meeting will not do much till we implement the ideas of the previous ones. Making these committees makes us think that we are doing something, that we are being proactive but are the recommendations from them ever implemented seriously?

These lives can be saved. These young people can live a long and fulfilling life given we reach them at the right time and create the right conditions for their growth. The question is, are we willing to change some things that are difficult or keep ignoring the problems hoping it goes away?

The Punjab government has been actively involved in its campaign against drug addiction in the state. For the same, around 180 psychologists were selected after a test to be appointed to mental health centres and de-addiction centres across the state. The test was taken, counseling was done and a merit list was released. 

At the last moment, the hiring process was cancelled. Why? We don't know. What happens next? We don't know. The High Court has extended this stay and the future of those who had made it to the merit list continues to be uncertain. 

Does anyone working with the Punjab government know why this step was taken?

A fresh-off-the-press paper tried looking into the prevalence of different kinds of masculinity, specifically toxic masculinity, in a random sample of men in New Zealand (n = 15,808) Here's what they found: 

📌 35.4% men were identified as 'atoxic' i.e. not displaying harmful beliefs about themselves or others. 

📌 53.8% men endorsed such beliefs at a low-moderate level 

📌 Only 3.2% of the men were identified as 'hostile-toxic' type endorsing high levels of narcissism, sexual prejudice, hostile sexism and sexual domination among other traits. 

Interestingly, a major challenge the researchers faced was defining and measuring the trait of 'toxic masculinity' simply because of how many contexts and areas it has been used in today.

If you plan on visiting the Book Fair being held at Bharat Mandapam till 18th January, make sure to visit these stalls:

1. Pearson (Hall 6) has a great psychology collection and they're offering sizeable discounts. I went a little haywire and blew through my budget there. 

2. Sage (Hall 4/5) has collections on research methods in psychology and social sciences. They have a copy of Andy Field's adventures with statistics. I wanted to get it but decided not to because of what happened at Pearson. 

3. Niyogi Books at Hall 5 has a unique collection of stories, some of them from a  mental health lens too. You won't find such stories anywhere else. 

I found it interesting that very few stalls had books on Psychology in the academic section. There was sociology, anthropology, physics, maths, economics etc but Psychology felt like an unwanted child (maybe I was just projecting) 

Why do you think this could be?

Looks like dissertation data collection season is upon us. Here are some mistakes to avoid over the next few months. 

1. Sending super-long outreach messages

I have said this multiple times. Your outreach messages need to be short and to-the-point. Tell people your topic, the inclusion criteria and estimated time to complete the form. The rest doesn't matter in outreach. 

2. Leaving the writing for the last month

You think you can do it. Its a month. A month is a very long time but its not. You have to manage your assignments, practicals and theory exams side-by-side. There will also be some edits to be made in your manuscript. Don't leave it for the end. Write a bit everyday. 

3. Not knowing what your hypothesis or how you will analyse your data

I was surprised by how common this is. Students send their data asking me what their hypothesis should be or how they should analyse their data. This stuff is decided before data collection, and no, I cannot "analyse everything and tell you what's significant and what isn't" That is p-hacking.

The dissertation journey can be super fun and fulfilling given you don't sabotage yourself. Keep these things in mind. What would you recommend to your juniors?

You might have seen Deepinder Goyal with the Temple on his forehead recently. Neurotech is not really something new but its important to separate hype from reality when it comes to the neuroscience world. 

Here's a book that helped ground my approach to neuroscience and neurotech. It talks about how marketers and journalists often overestimate the abilities of such tech while researchers encourage caution and nuance.  

You can read the book for free on Scott Lilienfeld's memorial website although I recommend ordering a copy of your own to support the authors. 

Skepticism and trust, both should be informed. I hope this book helps you do that. You can also follow Siddharth Warrier for more insights in the field!

Delighted to have contributed to this for The Centre For Male Psychology. Male depression is an understudied issue, especially in non-WEIRD cultures. I hope this statement serves as a kickstarter for more cross cultural collaborations in the future. 

Special thanks to John Barry for gentle guidance throughout the process. This didn't have been possible without him.

View company: The Centre For Male Psychology

BREAKING:

New Position Statement from the Centre for Male Psychology on Male Depression.

This document challenges myths around male depression, and offers practical guidance for identification, understanding and treatment.

Traditional diagnostic approaches may miss male-pattern depression, leading to misdiagnosis or no diagnosis.

Treatments may be based on questionable assumptions about the causes of depression, such as that masculinity is bad for men's mental health.

Men’s depression is a massive public health issue but is too often overlooked or misunderstood.

We hope this document will bring about a change in how this issue is researched, treated and discussed.

It's time to rethink our approach to male depression.

https://lnkd.in/gcUZk4nv

Open article: Male Depression: The Centre for Male Psychology's Position Statement on Identifying, Understanding, and Treating Men's Experiences of Depression — The Centre for Male Psychology by centreformalepsychology.com

Male Depression: The Centre for Male Psychology's Position Statement on Identifying, Understanding, and Treating Men's Experiences of Depression — The Centre for Male Psychology

Have been getting lots of requests for softwares that conduct qualitative research analysis. Has something changed in the world of qual research?

I remember qual research being about active involvement of the researcher. How would that happen if we have a software analysing the data for us? Genuinely want to know if there's a software that has been helping with this and how it works.

taplio

The Battle

Laurel Burns

Arjun Gupta

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreLaurel Burns's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreArjun Gupta's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Laurel Burns

Arjun Gupta

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Laurel Burns's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreArjun Gupta's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreLaurel Burns's LinkedIn Performance