Episode Details

Inside the Arena: Oak View Group’s VP People on Frontline Engagement, Slack Micro-Learning, and AI Scheduling

Summary

How do you build people strategy for a workforce that makes the show happen—nights, weekends, and everything in between?

Sheeba Teves, Vice President of People & Culture (Canada) at Oak View Group, shares how her team supports a diverse, union and non-union frontline spanning engineers, AV operators, stage crews, concessions, and hospitality across global venues.

Sheeba explains how to balance boundless creativity with the guardrails needed for safety, compliance, and efficiency—and why recognition is the launch pad for engagement.

She details a mobile-first communication approach paired with an always-there onsite presence, a roll-up-your-sleeves leadership ethos, and practical ways to create predictability for part-time teams using AI-enabled scheduling.

You’ll also hear how Slack is evolving from chat to culture—powering mood check-ins, micro-learning, and automated HR answers—and how generative AI helps draft policy frameworks and deliver just-in-time knowledge without losing local compliance. She closes with a call to care for HR and build community support.

Timestamps

[00:42] – What Oak View Group does: venues, hospitality, and delivering “a good night out”

[04:29] – Creativity meets process: designing people strategy and a recognition-first approach

[06:03] – Mobile-first comms with an onsite presence; roll-up-your-sleeves leadership

[07:56] – 2026 challenge: part-time hours, predictability, and building trust with frontline teams

[10:10] – Smarter scheduling: AI-enabled tools and staying ahead of the kinks

[11:13] – Beyond chat: Slack for mood check-ins, gamified micro-learning, polls, and celebrations

[15:44] – Centralizing knowledge and using gen AI for policies and just-in-time answers

[17:39] – Parting advice: be kind to HR (and yourself) and build community

Takeaways

- Balance creativity with clear guardrails—anchor programs in recognition to fuel engagement.

- Meet frontline teams where they are: pair mobile-first tools with visible onsite People & Culture presence.

- Improve predictability with AI-powered scheduling and transparent shift practices that prioritize existing staff.

- Turn Slack into a culture platform: automate check-ins, deliver micro-learning, celebrate moments, and enable HR Q&A.

- Centralize knowledge and use generative AI for policy frameworks and instant answers—then validate for local law.

- Invest in community and self-care for HR; build peer networks to share playbooks and support.

Sponsor

AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations.

It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires.

See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/