Head of people and brand on why high care and high performance aren't mutually exclusive – and what about AI adoption that keeps her up at night
In 2025, ATB Financial deployed Google's Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tools across its entire workforce. AI adoption was swift – ATB is a naturally curious organization, according to Tara Lockyer, the company's Chief Peopele, Culture, Brand and Communications Officr – but the rollout exposed a tension many HR leaders are now confronting.
“We didn't necessarily set an expectation in terms of usage,” says Lockyer. “We made the tools available, we talked about them a lot, and we gave a lot of time on building awareness and capability, but we didn't really set an accountability in terms of our expectations of usage.” If she were doing it over, Lockyer says she would establish clear usage benchmarks from the start.
The more stubborn problem, though, is translating individual productivity gains into organizational value, she says. “We've definitely seen huge individual productivity uptake, but we're having a really hard time harnessing that for the organization,” she says. “How do you harness that productivity at the team level or at the line of business level so that it can be redeployed? We haven't figured that one out at all."
There’s also the human dimension of AI transformation that Lockyer says keeps her up at night. Team members are asking whether AI puts their jobs at risk, and she believes HR has a direct responsibility to understand what’s being automated and how to recalibrate roles. “We're taking away some of the boring, repetitive work, which means the work that's left may be higher order, higher cognitive, higher creative,” she says. “So we also have a responsibility to develop skills and capabilities there – not just on the use of the technology, but now how do I become more creative or create more value now that I have this extra time in my day?"
Internal culture tied to external brand
When Tara Lockyer describes her full job title, she does so with a laugh. “It's a handle, all right,” she says. But behind the length of the title lies a deliberate philosophy: that the people inside an organization and the brand it projects to the world aren’t separate from each other, according to Lockyer.
Lockyer oversees approximately 5,500 team members at ATB Financial, the largest Western Canada-based financial institution over $110 billion in assets under management, according to ATB Financial's website. Her expanded remit came about when ATB's chief executive recognized that the biggest activation of the brand wasn't a marketing campaign – it was the people. “The realization from the CEO was that the biggest activation of the brand is our team members,” Lockyer says. “So really the manifestation of the brand, in addition to our marketing campaigns and ads, is really through the people.”
The integration of people strategy and external brand – what Lockyer calls “when the innies and the outies come together” – remains uncommon in Canadian financial services. She notes that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has operated a similar model for several years, but the approach is still the exception rather than the rule.
HR an enabler of business strategy
With senior roles at Manulife and CIBC before arriving at ATB Financial, Lockyer has tested one consistent theory across very different organizations: HR is only as effective as it is aligned to business strategy.
“HR is an enabler of strategy and as strategy evolves, so must HR practices – it's never been HR for HR sake,” says Lockyer. “The strategies in the organizations I've worked in are very different, so the cultures that I've activated or helped to activate are quite different. The tools and functions are similar, but how they're activated and the levers that are pulled are all in furtherance of the strategy.”
She also points to a fundamental shift in what leadership looks like inside complex organizations. Fifteen or 20 years ago, leaders rose vertically – they had done the job themselves and could direct their teams accordingly, Lockyer says, but she believes that model is largely gone. “We actually have leaders who have to create an environment for people to be successful,” she says. “They don't know how to do the work, so their job is to create a vision and to create the environment for people to be successful – they're kind of leading from behind now.”
High care and high performance: a false trade-off
One of Lockyer's most significant achievements at ATB has been reframing a long-standing cultural tension. ATB has a well-earned reputation for warmth – “the most lovely collegial place on the planet to work, especially for a bank,” she says – but that culture of care had left real room on the performance side of the ledger.
Her solution was to shift the meaning of “high care” itself, repositioning it not as something the organization does for its people, but as a reciprocal commitment though a strategy that was more performance-focused while keeping people feeling valued and included. “We really changed the narrative in the organization around what it meant to be high care,” she says. “We'll help you grow and develop your skills and stay relevant, and you really drive and perform.”
ATB introduced new performance and compensation systems to support that shift. The results arrived together: the organization’s best financial year on record, and recognition as one of Canada's top workplaces in 2025, according to Lockyer.
“It was just a perfect manifestation of you can be high-care and high-performance, and both can be true at the same time,” Lockyer says. “Great performance drives high care, and high care drives great performance. People give you a lot of leeway to really push and drive when you've created an environment that people want to be a part of.”
ATB's experience offers a compelling case that those goals aren’t just compatible – they reinforce each other, according to Lockyer.
HR's broader obligation for upskilling, transformation
Until recently, Lockyer served on Alberta's Premier's Council on Skills, a vantage point that gave her a view of workforce challenges well beyond ATB's walls. That experience sharpened a conviction that HR leaders sit at the front edge of economic change, often seeing what’s coming before academic institutions or policymakers do, she says.
“I feel this incredible commitment to society – that there are jobs in the future,” she says. “As things evolve over time and as capabilities and skills change, I really feel like HR and HR leaders are at the front end of that, because they're seeing it in their industry.”
The urgency, for Lockyer, runs directly through the AI transition. As some roles are automated, new ones will emerge – but only if workers are prepared for them. “Economic prosperity, clarity for folks that they're employable and they're staying relevant as what's required in the economy changes – that's a big commitment for HR leaders.”
