A collaborative continuing care workplace with 3 unions, 4 generations

The continuing care industry has always faced difficulty attracting healthcare workers, says Elgie Demchuk, Director of Human Resources at CapitalCare Group, a publicly funded provider delivering post-acute and long-term care across the Edmonton area. However, under her watch, the organization’s average employee tenure stands at 14 years, its workforce average age is 47, and 163 employees over the age of 65 continue to work across its sites. That loyalty comes from a people strategy Demchuk says she’s spent more than a decade building – grounded in values, coaching, and an unusually direct connection to resident outcomes.

When Demchuk joined CapitalCare in 2013, she says she was handed 12 pages of outstanding grievances. Today, that figure sits at three or four – across a unionized workforce of more than 3,000 employees at 11 continuing care sites, under three separate union agreements. That reduction is the direct result of a deliberately built culture, she says.

Managing a workforce that spans four generations is one of Demchuk’s most persistent challenges, according to Demchuk. In a sector that operates around the clock every day of the year, the conversation about hybrid and flexible work looks very different than it does in a corporate office.

Younger practitioners want flexibility. Some long-tenured site managers struggle to accept that an HR advisor working remotely can serve their team’s needs effectively. Demchuk has reframed that conversation around accessibility, not location, in approaching how to manage generational differences in the workforce.

“We don’t want to create a corporate divide and a care divide,” she says. “We still want to approach everything as we’re in this together. We’re a team.”

A cohesive workforce of multiple generations

Demchuk also pushes back on any assumption that younger employees are the disruptive force in this dynamic. “I have to say, the group of younger employees that I’m working with has been very flexible in bringing the older workers along with them,” she says. “They’ve been very understanding and patient in what they have to do.”

HRD Canada has examined how HR leaders across Canada are managing multigenerational workforces and the expectations that divide them, but Demchuk believes CapitalCare has integrated the different generations effectively.

Technology change has compounded the challenge. CapitalCare rolled out three major systems in 24 months – a new payroll platform, a new scheduling system, and a new recruitment management system – into a workforce accustomed to stable workflows, says Demchuk. Front-line staff are also adapting to Epic ConnectCare, Alberta’s electronic health record platform, requiring significant computer literacy investment from long-tenured staff and internationally educated healthcare aides navigating new regulatory requirements.

Coaching and collaborative labour relations

The central pillar of Demchuk’s HR philosophy is a deliberate shift from reactive, policy-led labour relations to a model built on coaching and root-cause analysis. Shortly after joining CapitalCare, she says she introduced a seven-step coaching model that has since become part of the organization’s operating culture – understood and respected by union representatives as much as management.

“Policy and collective agreements do not dictate how we treat our employees,” says Demchuk. “The mantra we have in our HR department is, what’s the right thing to do?”

Staff who seek guidance are expected to bring three proposed solutions to any conversation before asking for direction, according to Demchuk, and she says the results in labour relations are measurable. During a recent Alberta Labour Relations Board hearing on an organizing activity, the union told the board it was comfortable granting CapitalCare an extension – a rarity in the province.

The only arbitrations the organization has dealt with since 2015 have involved terminations – a duty of representation unions are contractually obligated to pursue – and even then, unions frequently approach CapitalCare about accepting resignations rather than proceeding to formal hearings, says Demchuk.

Simple, authentic organizational values

CapitalCare’s nine organizational values — each no more than two or three words, including put people first, come from the heart, and be present — have been embedded in performance management and disciplinary processes since 2014 and Demchuk says they’re cited by union representatives in grievance discussions.

Employee wellbeing is formally supported through external partnerships, says Demchuk. For example, CapitalCare gives staff direct app-based access to a master’s-level counsellor without an intake wait, and offers the Working Mind program – an evidence-based tool developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) – to all leaders and employees.

Connecting HR metrics to resident outcomes

What makes CapitalCare’s HR function distinctive is a metric Demchuk developed that ties every people management decision directly to resident care. When behavioural or performance issues arise, the first question her team asks is: what was the direct impact on the resident?

That framework produced a concrete intervention, says Demchuk. When resident fall data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) began trending upward in parallel with an increase in HR consultations about single-person transfers – cases where care plans required two-person assists – Demchuk’s team identified the pattern and noted that Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) shoulder injury claims were also climbing.

“When we saw it going like this, almost parallel, occupational health and safety was available, education services, and we’re like, ‘What’s the root cause of this and how are we going to get a better looking metric around this issue of resident falls?’” she said.

The response was coordinated: the education department reviewed care plan literacy, occupational health and safety assessed equipment, and all three functions jointly addressed the root cause. Demchuk says HR metrics are reviewed bi-weekly and quality data is reviewed quarterly at the executive level – giving CapitalCare a proactive posture in its workforce strategy and showing the benefits of measuring the metrics of a connected workplace culture.

As Demchuk prepares to retire by early 2028, she acknowledges that CapitalCare – having promoted exclusively from within the executive ranks for more than 25 years – may benefit from outside perspective as it navigates Alberta’s restructured health system under the new Assisted Living and Social Services Ministry. What she doesn’t expect to change is the culture itself, or the phrase that employees have long shared about working there.

“People will leave Capital Care, but they always come back,” she says.