Full-time job, part-time residence

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This article was published 09/01/2018 (2849 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries is the latest Manitoba Crown corporation to employ a senior executive who is commuting to a distant city on weekends.

Deanne Carson, MBLL vice-president of marketing and communications, has been trekking back and forth to Winnipeg from Calgary since she was hired in early April of last year.

A former vice-president of marketing for the Calgary Stampede, Carson was hired to oversee marketing, communications, loyalty programs and digital media.

According to the corporation, Carson’s is a new position that combines two previous executive roles — chief community relations and marketing officer and vice president, corporate communications and social responsibility. In 2016, according to MBLL’s staff salary disclosure document, the two executives who held the positions earned a combined $380,000.

“I live here. I have a place here. I’ve committed to a full-time job here,” said Carson, who keeps an apartment in Winnipeg. “I work evenings, weekends and whatever else is required to get the job done. And on weekends, on my personal time, that’s kind of mine, right?”

Carson said Monday she pays the cost of her travel between Winnipeg and Calgary to visit her family.

But should someone who takes a corporate executive position in a Crown corporation not be expected to live in the city of their employment full-time? Especially in the case of Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries, whose mission statement speaks of “community investment” and “supporting our communities”?

Todd MacKay, Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said his concern would be whether Carson is covering her own travel expenses.

“If she’s paying her own way on the commute and doing a good job, we wouldn’t be overly concerned,” he said. “However, if she’s sticking taxpayers with the bill for the commute and/or failing to do her job fully as a result of the commute, we’d be concerned.”

While technology has made it easier for executives to keep in touch with the office while out of town, long-distance commuting comes with personal and professional pitfalls, says Barbara Bowes, president of Legacy Bowes Group, which helps corporations recruit executive talent.

“I’m seeing it more and more,” she said of such hires. “I know it doesn’t last.

“A company that’s of this high-profile also has weekend events in which somebody at that level probably should be attending,” Bowes said. “And she either stays in Winnipeg to attend or she’s missing the public relations opportunity.”

Unforeseen circumstances, such as a snowstorm, can disrupt travel plans and cause a commuting executive to miss meetings, Bowes added.

Bowes said even if Carson is covering her weekend travel costs, her paycheque likely reflects the fact she is commuting. “She says she’s paying it, but it’s probably built into her salary,” the HR expert said.

Scott Thomson, the former president and chief executive officer of Manitoba Hydro, made news when his family moved to British Columbia in 2014, and he commuted to the West Coast on weekends. A year later, he left the province’s largest corporation.

“With my family being in Vancouver and me being here five days a week, it wasn’t sustainable,” he said at the time.

On the other hand, Hydro vice-president of marketing and customer service, Siobhan Vinish, has been commuting between Winnipeg and Calgary since she started at the Crown corporation in 2015.

“She travels on her own time and on her own dime – Manitoba Hydro does not and has never compensated Ms. Vinish in any way for her travel or her Winnipeg residence,” company spokesman Bruce Owen said Monday. He noted Vinish’s husband also treks to Winnipeg some weekends.

“(Vinish) remains on call and reachable on weekends, as do all our executives,” Owen said, comparing her travel to that of Manitobans who drive to the cottage on weekends.

Meanwhile, Carson held out the possibility she may reside full-time in Winnipeg in the future.

“My family and I are still in transition, but as to ultimately making a home in Manitoba, that was the intention,” she said in an email.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca