CHRO Deborah Arsenault’s two-sided approach guides organization through dissolution worries, digitization project
When a senior leader once asked Deborah Arsenault, “What have you done to capture the hearts of your people?”, she says it became a guiding point in her HR career.
Today, as Chief Human Resources Officer at Peel Region leading a diverse, 5,500-person workforce, that question is one of two pillars for how she approaches people and culture.
For Arsenault, HR is equal parts empathy and evidence. She says it’s about giving productive feedback with empathy and also about proving impact through data.
From payroll job to strategic CHRO
Arsenault’s journey into HR wasn’t plotted on a neat career map. “I was putting myself through school and I picked up a job that started in payroll,” she says. “I learned it and I thought it was neat, so then I went through and I got designated, because I believe that education needs to match the experience.”
She says she went on to work for both global and local companies in every area of HR — including HR leader roles at Citco Group and Extendicare — deliberately pushing herself to expand her horizons and learn different aspects. That curiosity pulled her into what was then seen as pure IT territory, says Arsenault.
“I was taking [project management professional training] when it was an IT function, and I was taking data analytics when it was an IT function,” she says.
This technical training gave her a solid tech skills foundation which is now a key part of an HR leader’s toolbox, according to Arsenault. “Everything in HR we do is a project, you're selling something, so whether it be strategy, connection, policy updates, and things of that nature.”
Two pillars of HR: people and data
Arsenault says that two pillars define her HR philosophy. The first comes from that early challenge from a leader: “What have you done to capture the hearts of your people, and that's not just saying hi, but how have you really impacted their life?” she says. “Sometimes, you have to give the good, the bad, and the different feedback, but it's always done with ‘How did I make that person feel throughout that process?” she says.
The second anchor is the “power of data in HR,” she says. For Arsenault, analytics are what allow HR to “really stretch and support the organization, not just for today, but for tomorrow and the future.” She believes it’s also the ticket to real influence: “When you can sit at the table using data to define your story, you're a credible business partner, and with that, you can get to the table with the C-suites.”
That philosophy was tested immediately at Peel Region when she joined the municipality two days after the Ontario government’s plan to dissolve the region into its component cities was announced in 2023 — a decision that was later reversed. In that context, HR’s role in stability and trust-building became even more central, she says.
“We really focused in on making sure we had a care and support program, which is one of our fundamental culture aspects and values that we hold dear,” says Arsenault. “I have very different workers — very skilled workers, entry-level positions, students — but it's how do you capture their hearts and look at it from their perspective.”
Arsenault says diversity has always been a part of her ethos, so she took it to heart to understand that the lived experience of different people is different and it means different things.
"When I'm sitting down to work with my leadership team to develop processes and policies to recommend, it's really with that in mind,” she says. “It's gathering insights, it's talking to people, learning what matters to them and going to them where they're at.”
Digitizing a 24/7 operation with ROI in mind
One of Peel’s biggest recent shifts was a sweeping HR digitization that included a digital employee service centre, according to Arsenault. “We're a 24-hour operation, so it goes back to getting a service that allows service outside of HR’s traditional nine-to-five,” she says. “It’s been an enabler for us to really connect with people differently — if a nurse at 11:00 at night wants to log in and see the status of their benefits, they have the tool, and it gives that transparency.”
Arsenault believes that working in the public sector adds a specific kind of pressure to every investment decision for her department. “Every dollar has a value, and we're asking people to support us so we can support them in our communities, especially the most vulnerable in our community.”
She says that shapes her ROI expectations. “I'm looking at it from a process improvement, and how do I do more with less?” she says. “It's not just something that's going to sit on a shelf, it has to be actually usable — if a person has to click three times on their phone, it's too much, because they're running from one client to another, so how do they get their answer in two clicks or less?”
The service centre was a significant culture shift for the organization, because it was a different way of doing things, but it’s had a clear ROI, says Arsenault. “Now we can have markable reactions as well as a great training tool,” she says. “If a customer interaction didn't go as well as we'd like, we actually can use that data to listen into the call to say, ‘This is a great coaching opportunity, this is how you could have redirected it’ — it continues to improve our service exponentially.”
As for what ultimately differentiates strategic HR, Arsenault comes back to that blend of heart and evidence — and the credibility with leadership that comes with both: “Being that trusted partner means giving some tough messaging, but also coming to the table with solutions and being willing to be an active listener,” she says. “But it's also delivering what I promised to deliver, because we're absolutely a part of the conversation and we're finding solutions together, then executing.”
