Most HR systems in Canada were built from municipal, government, or corporate models. There's real value in those frameworks. Legislation matters. Policy matters. Consistency matters.
But in many Indigenous organizations, HR carries a layer that a standard template was never designed to hold. A hiring decision, a policy change, or a difficult conversation rarely stays with one employee. It can reach families, citizens, leadership, Elders, and the wider community.
I'm Cheryl Churney, Senior HR Consultant at Evoke HR & Immigration. I've spent more than 25 years in senior HR leadership across the public sector, the private sector, and Indigenous governance. Over that time, I've come to believe something simple. Indigenous HR is not about adapting a corporate template. It's about creating approaches that fit the community, honour relationships, and support both organizational accountability and community wellbeing.
This piece brings together what I've learned in that work, along with a few teachings from a recent trauma-informed training that have stayed with me. If you lead or work in a First Nation, a Métis government, or another Indigenous organization, I hope some of it resonates. And if you're an HR practitioner supporting these organizations, I hope it gives you something to sit with.
Indigenous HR Is Rooted in Relationships, Community, and Wellbeing
When people hear "HR," they usually picture legislation, risk management, and policy compliance. Those things are part of good HR everywhere, and they matter in Indigenous organizations too.
They're just rarely the whole story. The strongest people practices I've seen in Indigenous organizations are rooted in relationships, community, responsibility, and wellbeing. Policies and procedures still exist. They simply sit inside something bigger.
Below are the themes that matter most, the principles that guide my work, and where trauma-informed practice fits into Indigenous HR.
HR Is About Relationships, Not Just Compliance
In many workplaces, HR is viewed mainly through the lens of rules. What does the legislation require? What's the risk? What does the policy say?
Those questions still need answers. In Indigenous organizations, though, there's often another question sitting right beside them: who else does this affect?
An employee may also be a citizen of the Nation, a relative of a Council member, or someone whose family has deep roots in the community. A decision made in an office can be felt at a family dinner, a community gathering, or a Council meeting.
Good HR work recognizes those connections. It approaches issues with respect, humility, and an understanding of the wider impact. That doesn't make decisions harder to make. It makes them better informed.
Self-Determination Includes People Practices
Self-determination is often discussed in terms of governance, lands, and jurisdiction. It also includes something closer to home: how a community recruits, supports, develops, and retains its people.
HR should help strengthen community goals and priorities. It shouldn't impose systems that don't reflect the community's values or realities.
In practice, that can show up in many places. A recruitment process that values community knowledge and lived experience alongside formal credentials. Leave provisions that recognize cultural and ceremonial responsibilities. Compensation built around the organization's own mandates rather than borrowed from a neighbouring municipality. Culturally informed HR policy that reflects the way the community actually works.
None of this means abandoning structure. It means making sure the structure belongs to the community it serves.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Every Nation, community, and organization is different. Indigenous organizations are not a single group, and they should never be treated as one.
A band council, a treaty government, a Métis government, an Indigenous-sector service agency, and an urban Indigenous non-profit can each have very different governance structures, priorities, and ways of working. HR that works well for a Chief and Council will often look quite different from HR that works for a community health society.
The most effective HR solutions for Indigenous organizations are developed by listening first and understanding the unique context of the organization and the community. A template from somewhere else, however polished, can't do that work for you.
Balancing Accountability and Relationship
Leaders in Indigenous organizations are often navigating complex responsibilities at the same time. They're expected to uphold accountability, performance, and good governance. They're also expected to maintain important relationships within the community, often relationships that existed long before the job and will continue long after it.
That's a lot to hold. Strong HR support helps leaders navigate those realities with fairness, clarity, compassion, and consistency. It gives them a steady process to lean on, so difficult decisions don't have to feel like a choice between doing the right thing and protecting a relationship.
Evoke Insight
Relationship-centred HR is not a softer version of HR. It asks for the same rigour, the same fairness, and the same clarity. It simply recognizes that how a decision is made matters just as much as the decision itself.
Principles That Guide My Work
Themes are helpful, but they only matter if they change how the work is actually done. These are the principles I come back to with every organization I support.
Start With Listening
One of the most important lessons I've learned is that meaningful solutions begin with listening. Not listening to respond. Listening to understand.
I've found that when people feel heard, respected, and understood, they're far more willing to engage in difficult conversations, problem-solving, and change. When they don't, even the best-designed policy tends to land badly.
That's why engagements with Evoke's Indigenous HR services begin with a conversation rather than a recommendation. We take time to understand the organization and the community before drafting anything.
Relationship Earning, Not Relationship Building
One teaching from my recent trauma-informed training has stayed with me more than almost anything else:
"Relationship earning as opposed to relationship building."
It's a small shift in language with a big shift in meaning. Trust isn't created because of a title or a role. It's earned through consistency, humility, transparency, and showing up over time.
This has shaped how I approach my work with Indigenous communities. I don't arrive as the expert on a community. Communities are the experts on themselves. My role is to listen, learn, walk alongside, and provide support. The HR expertise I bring is real, and it's useful. It works best when it's offered in service of what the community already knows.
Walking Alongside, Not Ahead
Another teaching that resonates deeply:
"Helpers walk alongside, not ahead of those who serve."
For me, that reflects exactly how HR should operate. We support leaders, employees, and organizations by walking alongside them. We help create clarity, build skills, and support solutions that fit their context.
Walking ahead can look efficient. It can also leave people behind, or lead them somewhere they never chose to go. Walking alongside takes a little more patience, and it tends to produce decisions that last.
Build Capacity, Not Dependency
I believe the role of an HR consultant is to leave organizations stronger than they found them.
The goal isn't to create dependence on outside expertise. It's to build local leadership capacity, confidence, knowledge, and practical tools that support long-term success. That might mean coaching a new manager through their first difficult conversation, documenting processes so knowledge isn't held by one person, or supporting workforce and succession planning so the next generation of leaders is ready when the time comes.
When the work is done well, the organization needs less from us over time, not more. That's a good outcome.
Where Trauma-Informed Practice Fits Into Indigenous HR
I'd love to see more HR conversations connect Indigenous HR with trauma-informed practice. They belong together.
One of the most impactful teachings from my recent training was this:
"Connection is the correction."
Too often, organizations try to fix problems before they understand them. A performance concern gets a performance plan. A conflict gets a written warning. Sometimes that's exactly right. Sometimes it skips the step that would have actually helped.
Relationship and trust are not barriers to accountability. They're often what make accountability possible. When people feel safe, respected, and connected, they're far more likely to engage, learn, take responsibility, and move forward.
Another teaching continues to guide my work, and I think it's one of the most useful sets of questions an HR practitioner can carry:
"What do you need? How can we create safety? How can we support you? And how do we keep you at the centre of all of this?"
To be clear, trauma-informed practice is not about lowering expectations or avoiding difficult conversations. It's about approaching people with curiosity rather than judgment. It's understanding that experiences influence how people respond to conflict, change, feedback, and workplace challenges, and building that understanding into how we lead.
Looking Beneath Workplace Conflict
One lesson from the training feels especially relevant to HR:
"Lateral violence occurs when we attack each other because it feels safer than attacking the system."
Workplace conflict is rarely as simple as it looks on the surface. Underneath, there are often other factors at play: burnout, organizational change, historical trauma, competing pressures, resource constraints, or long-standing relationship challenges.
This doesn't excuse harmful behaviour. Accountability remains important, and people deserve a workplace where harm is addressed.
However, understanding context often leads to better and more sustainable solutions. If a team is in conflict because it's been stretched thin across too many mandates for too long, a disciplinary process alone won't fix it. The underlying pressure will simply find another outlet.
Another teaching that resonates:
"Who are we ever to judge someone without knowing their story?"
As HR practitioners and leaders, we can hold people accountable while still approaching them with empathy, curiosity, and respect. The two aren't in competition. Good employer coaching and HR advice helps leaders do both at once.
Creating Culturally Safe Workplaces
One of the most important questions raised in the training was simple and powerful:
"What are your beliefs and how can I support you in them?"
Cultural safety looks different for every person. Rather than making assumptions about what individuals need, effective leaders create space for people to tell them what support, wellness, and safety mean to them.
That might be as straightforward as asking, during onboarding, whether there are cultural or ceremonial commitments the person would like the organization to know about. It might mean reviewing a policy with staff before it's finalized, rather than after. Small, genuine questions often do more than large statements.
Another teaching captures the bigger shift beautifully:
"How are we supposed to create spaces where they can find what they're needing in order to do whatever they need to do to be well in life?"
That question reflects an important change in thinking. It moves us away from asking people to fit within a system, and toward creating systems that support people.
Leading With Strengths
Conversations about HR in Indigenous organizations can sometimes slip into a focus on challenges alone. That misses the bigger picture.
There are tremendous strengths, innovations, leadership practices, and community-driven approaches emerging from Indigenous organizations. Many have long traditions of collective decision-making, consensus building, mentorship across generations, and leadership grounded in responsibility to others. Those are exactly the qualities many mainstream workplaces are now trying to learn.
Good Indigenous HR support starts by recognizing and building on what's already working, not by assuming something needs to be fixed.
Reconciliation Is a Commitment, Not a Project
For organizations of every kind, it's tempting to treat reconciliation as a single initiative. A training session. A statement on the website. A day on the calendar.
Those things can be meaningful starting points. But reconciliation is an ongoing commitment, and HR is one of the places where that commitment shows up every day: in who gets hired, how people are supported, how conflict is handled, and whose knowledge is valued.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action include direction for employers, including equitable access to jobs, training, and education opportunities, and education for management and staff on the history of Indigenous peoples. Translating those calls into everyday HR practice is slow, steady work. It's also some of the most worthwhile work I know.
Insight for Leaders
Reconciliation in the workplace is measured less by what an organization announces and more by how its people practices feel to the people inside them, year after year.
Questions Worth Asking in Your Own Organization
If you're reflecting on your organization's people practices, these questions are a good place to start. There are no wrong answers, and the honest ones tend to be the most useful.
- Whose model are our HR policies based on? Do they reflect our governance, values, and community, or were they borrowed from somewhere else?
- How do we make decisions that affect people? Are the right voices part of the conversation, including staff, leadership, and where appropriate, Elders?
- When conflict comes up, do we look beneath the surface? Or do we move straight to process?
- Do our people feel safe telling us what they need? Have we actually asked them?
- Are we building our own capacity? Or are we relying on outside expertise for things we could learn to hold ourselves?
The Core Message: From Head to Heart
If there's one message I'd want readers to take away, it's this teaching:
"The longest journey is from your head to your heart."
HR requires policies, legislation, procedures, and technical expertise. Those things matter, and I take them seriously.
But the most meaningful HR work I've done has never started with a policy.
It starts with listening.
It starts with relationships.
It starts with understanding people's stories, and creating space for accountability, healing, growth, and connection to exist together.
One more teaching captures it well:
"How do we show up in a good way, not only for the people we serve, but for each other?"
To me, that's what Indigenous HR is really about. It's about helping create workplaces where people feel respected, supported, accountable, connected, and able to contribute to something larger than themselves. Ultimately, it's about strengthening organizations and communities through people.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Indigenous HR?
Indigenous HR is human resources practice designed for First Nations, Métis, and other Indigenous organizations. It covers the same core areas as any HR function, including policy, compensation, recruitment, performance, and workforce planning, but shapes them around the community's culture, governance, values, and ways of working rather than a generic corporate template.
You can learn more about how this works in practice on our Indigenous HR services page.
2. How is HR in Indigenous organizations different from standard HR?
The legal foundations are often similar, but the context is different. Decisions can affect not only employees but also families, citizens, leadership, Elders, and the wider community. Indigenous HR recognizes those connections and builds people practices that reflect the organization's own governance structure and priorities.
Every Nation and organization is different, so there's no single model. The right approach starts with listening.
3. Does relationship-centred HR mean less accountability?
No. Relationship-centred HR is just as rigorous and professional as any other approach. Expectations, fairness, consistency, and compliance all still matter.
The difference is in how accountability is approached. Trust and connection often make accountability possible, because people who feel respected and safe are more likely to engage, take responsibility, and move forward.
4. What does trauma-informed HR mean in practice?
Trauma-informed HR means approaching people with curiosity rather than judgment. It recognizes that past experiences can shape how someone responds to conflict, change, feedback, and workplace challenges.
In practice, it means asking what people need, creating safety, and looking beneath the surface of a conflict before deciding how to respond. It does not mean lowering expectations or avoiding difficult conversations.
5. What is cultural safety in the workplace?
Cultural safety means people can bring who they are to work without facing assumptions, judgment, or barriers because of their identity, beliefs, or culture.
Because cultural safety looks different for each person, the most effective approach is to ask rather than assume. Simple questions, like what support, wellness, and safety mean to someone, go a long way.
6. How should an HR consultant begin working with a First Nation or Indigenous organization?
With a conversation. A good consultant takes time to understand the organization, its governance, and the community before recommending anything.
Trust is earned through consistency, humility, and showing up over time. The consultant brings HR expertise, and the community brings knowledge of itself. The best solutions come from both.
7. Can outside HR support build internal capacity instead of dependency?
Yes, and it should. The goal of good HR consulting is to leave an organization stronger than it was, with the leadership capacity, knowledge, and practical tools to carry the work forward. Coaching, documentation, and succession planning are all part of building that long-term strength.
Let's Start With a Conversation
If your organization is looking for HR support that fits your community, your governance, and the way you work, we'd be glad to listen.
There's no template and no pressure. Just a relationship-first conversation about where your organization is today, what's working well, and where some support could help.
Reach out to start the conversation, or explore our Indigenous HR services to learn more about how we work alongside Indigenous organizations across BC.
