Frequently Asked Questions

I work primarily with Canadian mid-market organizations—typically 100 to 5,000 employees. My clients tend to be in healthcare, public sector, professional services, and other environments where psychological safety directly impacts performance, retention, and disability costs.

I'm particularly effective with organizations that are seeing patterns in their turnover or disability claims and suspect the problem is systemic rather than individual. If you've tried wellness programs and engagement surveys without seeing real change, we should talk.

Three main areas:

• Culture Diagnostic & Transformation: Team-level psychological safety assessment and the full A.R.T. Framework for organizational change
• Return-to-Work Culture Consulting: Analyzing the workplace factors driving your disability claims and redesigning RTW processes for better outcomes
• Manager Training & Coaching: Equipping supervisors to handle accommodation conversations, support returning employees, and build psychological safety on their teams

Every engagement is tailored. I don't do off-the-shelf programs—we design what your organization actually needs based on a discovery conversation.

It depends on scope and what you're trying to accomplish:

• Single team assessment: 2–4 weeks
• Department-level transformation: 4–6 months
• Organization-wide work: 9–12 months
• RTW process redesign: Typically 3–6 months

I don't do quick-fix training programs. Culture transformation requires sustained attention. If you need visible results in 30 days, I'm probably not the right fit—and I'll tell you that upfront.

It varies significantly based on scope, timeline, and what you're trying to accomplish. Rather than publish generic price ranges that may not apply to your situation, I prefer to understand your specific context first.

In a discovery call, we'll discuss what you're seeing, what success would look like, and what level of engagement makes sense. Then I'll send a tailored proposal with transparent pricing.

What I can tell you: this is an investment in structural change, not a training event. The ROI comes from reduced turnover, fewer disability claims, and teams that actually function. Most clients see returns within the first year.

Yes, though my expertise is deepest in Canadian workplace contexts—including provincial employment legislation, disability management practices, and bilingual environments. The A.R.T. Framework and psychological safety methodology apply universally, but my consulting practice is optimized for Canadian organizations.

If you're outside Canada, let's have a conversation about whether I'm the right fit for your specific context.

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. It means people feel confident they won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.

It matters because without it, you don't get candor. You don't get early warning signals. You don't get the honest feedback that prevents small problems from becoming crises—or disability claims.

Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety was the #1 predictor of high-performing teams. Amy Edmondson's research demonstrates its impact on learning, quality, and patient safety in healthcare. In my experience managing disability claims, the presence or absence of psychological safety predicted who came back to work successfully far better than their diagnosis did.

Engagement surveys measure how individuals feel. Psychological safety is a team-level construct—a shared perception about what happens when someone speaks up in this specific group.

The distinction matters methodologically. Only 3.6% of published studies properly measure psychological safety at the team level with appropriate aggregation validation. Most "psychological safety assessments" are just engagement surveys with different questions—they're measuring individual sentiment and calling it team health.

My approach measures at the level the construct actually exists. That's why we see patterns engagement surveys miss—and why interventions based on this assessment actually change behavior.

A 2024 study of over 46,000 workers found that individual wellness interventions—mindfulness apps, resilience training, stress management programs—produce essentially zero effect on organizational outcomes.

The problem isn't the interventions themselves. It's the level of analysis. Individual wellness programs ask employees to cope better with dysfunctional systems. They treat symptoms rather than causes. When the work environment is what's making people sick, teaching them to meditate doesn't address the root problem.

I saw this pattern constantly in disability management. Employees would get excellent clinical treatment, build coping skills, and return to the exact same workplace conditions that contributed to their breakdown. The accommodation plan was perfect. The system hadn't changed. Within months, they were out again—or gone.

Acknowledge (2–4 weeks): Team-level psychological safety assessment, stakeholder interviews, systems mapping, claims/turnover pattern analysis. We see the system clearly before trying to change it.

Reclaim (8–16 weeks): Participatory intervention design, process and structure redesign, manager capability development, RTW process optimization, pilot programs. Employees co-design solutions rather than receiving imposed change.

Thrive (ongoing): Internal champion development, measurement system embedding, documentation and playbooks, sustainability planning. We build internal capability so transformation continues after I leave.

The sequence matters. Skip the diagnostic, and you solve the wrong problem. Skip participation, and change doesn't stick. Skip capability transfer, and the work unravels when the consultant leaves.

I spent eight years managing disability claims across major Canadian insurers—Sun Life, Canada Life, Manulife, Munich Re, and third-party administrators. I've seen thousands of claims, worked with hundreds of employers, and developed a clear picture of what actually predicts whether someone returns to work successfully.

What I learned: clinical treatment matters, but workplace factors matter more. Supervisor support, team dynamics, procedural fairness—these predict return-to-work outcomes better than diagnosis or treatment plan. The research confirms what I saw operationally.

That experience is why I approach culture work the way I do. Your disability claims are telling you something about your workplace if you know how to read them.

Your disability claims are a culture audit you're probably not reading. When the same departments keep generating claims, when certain supervisors have higher rates than others, when employees go out and don't come back—those patterns are diagnostic.

The research is clear: workplace factors like supervisor support, coworker relationships, and perceived fairness predict RTW outcomes better than clinical variables. One study found coworker support has an odds ratio of 3.4 for successful return—one of the largest effect sizes in the literature. Yet almost no organizations actively address it.

Culture transformation and RTW improvement aren't separate initiatives. They're the same work.

We start by analyzing the workplace factors driving your claims—not just the clinical data. Which teams? Which supervisors? What patterns? Your claims history has stories to tell.

Then we address what we find. This might include:

• Redesigning your RTW process for psychological safety
• Training supervisors on accommodation conversations and early intervention
• Addressing team dynamics that make return difficult
• Building early warning systems so you catch problems before they become claims

The goal is fewer claims, faster returns, and sustainable outcomes—not just checking accommodation boxes.

Yes—and this is one of the highest-impact interventions available. Research shows supervisor support is both a strong predictor of RTW success and a modifiable factor. Combined supervisor and worker training programs reduce absence by up to 50%.

Most supervisors want to do the right thing. They've just never been taught what that looks like. My training covers:

• What to say (and not say) when someone returns
• How to have accommodation conversations that work
• Managing team dynamics during someone's return
• Early warning signs that a return is failing
• Building psychological safety that prevents claims in the first place

This isn't about compliance. It's about giving your managers the skills and confidence to support their people through difficult transitions.

My coaching practice serves leaders navigating something hard—a team in crisis, a culture problem they inherited, or their own transition. Ideal clients include:

• Leaders returning from disability, parental, or medical leave who need support rebuilding confidence and navigating their re-entry
• Leaders recovering from burnout who need sustainable practices before falling back into old patterns
• First-time managers or leaders stepping into significantly larger roles
• HR and People leaders building psychological safety skills for their organizations
• Leaders dealing with a team mental health crisis or difficult accommodation situation

My coaching is grounded in organizational psychology and informed by eight years of watching what happens when leaders don't have these skills—in disability claims, in turnover, in teams that fall apart.

We focus on building specific capabilities: how to have difficult conversations, how to respond to input without defensiveness, how to support someone through a crisis or transition, how to build the kind of environment where people speak up before problems become catastrophes.

Sessions are structured around real challenges you're facing. We work on actual conversations you need to have, decisions you're navigating, situations where you feel stuck. The approach is practical, not philosophical.

If you're returning from leave or recovering from burnout, I understand the organizational dynamics you're navigating—not just the personal ones. That's a perspective most coaches don't have.

Most engagements are 6–12 sessions over 3–6 months. Sessions are 60 minutes, typically bi-weekly, with support between sessions as needed.

We start by understanding what you're navigating and what success looks like. Then we work session-by-session on practical application—building skills through real situations you're facing.

I limit coaching to a small number of clients at any time. This isn't a high-volume practice—it's a genuine partnership over several months.

Both. The Acknowledge phase often benefits from on-site observation and in-person interviews—you see things in hallways and meeting rooms that don't translate to video calls. Facilitation sessions in the Reclaim phase are often more effective in person.

That said, many engagements work well with a hybrid approach: virtual for regular check-ins and coaching, on-site for key assessment and intervention moments. We'll design what works for your organization's geography and constraints.

Yes. I'm fluent in both English and French and can deliver coaching, facilitation, and written deliverables in either language. For organizations with bilingual workforces, I can adapt materials and assessment processes to accommodate both languages.

You're actually my ideal client. Organizations that have tried engagement surveys, wellness apps, and training programs without seeing real change are ready to hear what actually works—even when it's harder to implement.

The reason previous initiatives didn't work is usually level of analysis. They measured individuals and trained individuals, when the problems were systemic. The A.R.T. Framework operates at the team and organizational level, which is where psychological safety actually exists—and where the research shows interventions actually work.

I won't promise easy or fast. But I will promise evidence-based methodology that addresses root causes rather than symptoms.

You're ready if:

• You have executive sponsorship—someone with authority who believes this matters
• You're willing to examine systems, not just train individuals
• You can commit to a sustained engagement, not a one-time workshop
• You're prepared to hear uncomfortable truths about how your organization actually operates
• You'll involve employees in designing solutions, not just implementing top-down mandates

You're not ready if you need a quick fix, want to check a compliance box, or expect transformation without examining underlying structures. That's okay—different organizations are at different stages. But I'd rather be honest about fit than take an engagement that won't succeed.