A fast-paced company faces its own unique set of challenges, which is what Anne-Marie Fortin—Lead HR Business Partner at Lightspeed—has learned over the years. The POS software company is always growing and evolving with new technology and customer needs, and it needed a way to ensure its workforce could keep up—and thrive.

“We like to promote from within,” says Ms. Fortin, “which creates new leaders in our company. We contacted McGill to get the training we needed so our new leaders could get a head start.”

“We wanted the training to be flexible. McGill Executive Institute was able to provide that curriculum for us.”

For a cutting-edge company like Lightspeed, a pre-packaged class simply wasn’t tailored enough for their particular needs. “Each group and each division has specific challenges,” says Ms. Fortin. “We wanted the training to be flexible, adapt to different questions from employees, and use case studies from the company. McGill Executive Institute was able to provide that curriculum for us.”

Advisors and faculty from McGill put together a custom program held at Lightspeed’s Montreal office. Using feedback from participants and adjusting the curriculum to further tailor the content, a second training session was presented as well. Both were deemed a great success.

“I think McGill did a good job adapting to our feedback and needs,” says Ms. Fortin. “It’s a renowned institution and after meeting staff and faculty, we really just had a good… feeling. Plus the interactions we had with everyone were really awesome!”

“When our employees completed the program, they felt empowered around the material"

And how has the training held up in the weeks and months since?

“We noticed that newly appointed leaders in our organization had those reflexes right away,” says Ms. Fortin. “They’d say ‘oh I remember what happened in the course, how can I apply it now?’”

As well, the custom program has helped strengthen the relationship between HR and company leadership, and leaders now to seek advice from Anne-Marie and her colleagues on how to implement their training in real-life situations, giving employees set goals to work towards.

“When our employees completed the program,” says Ms. Fortin, “they felt empowered around the material, and a little bit more comfortable moving forward into their new roles and responsibilities.”