Sheeba Teves, Vice President of People Culture at Oakview

Show Notes

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.

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What is HR Voices?

HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.

Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”

Emily Fenech (00:35)
Welcome to HR Voices. I'm Emily Fenech and today I get to hang out with Sheeba Teves at Oak View Group. Welcome Sheeba

Sheeba Teves (00:44)
Thank you.

Emily Fenech (00:45)
Yeah, we're audio only today. But thank you for being here. We were chatting before pushing the record button and I was saying, you know, I get to speak with a lot of healthcare organizations, a lot of SaaS companies, a lot of retail restaurants. And when I was looking at Oakview Group, you kind of stand out in a category of your own. I know it's events, entertainment, arenas. Could you give us a little bit more context on

Sheeba Teves (01:13)
Sure. If you think about a good night out, it's Oak View Group. it's basically everything you just said. we have owned and operated venues across the world. We have...

Emily Fenech (01:13)
What oak you do think?

Sheeba Teves (01:27)
Added services, existing venues. we provide all the service and event management services, whether it's staffing, whether it's coordinating with Live Nation. You know, all of the things that are exciting, obviously just not like Nation. have partnerships with various other promoters across the globe. And then we have a hospitality sector. So we do food and beverage as well. We do partnerships with restaurants. ⁓ Most recently in Hamilton, we've got the Iron

cow that just opened along with our TD Coliseum. So there's a lot of exciting things that we do, ⁓ you know, from bookings to purchasing or building venues ⁓ to walking into existing venues owned by somebody else and managing their entire operation. Yeah, we kind of do it all. If it's if it's anything to do with sports and entertainment, we're probably doing something with it.

Emily Fenech (02:18)
Well, I love that. We're building a new stadium here. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah, and many good nights out at the stadium, whether it's sports or big tours. It's just fascinating to think of all of the work that goes on behind the scenes when you just show up and get to have a good time.

Sheeba Teves (02:23)
Yep.

I'm sorry.

Yeah,

absolutely. You know, everybody's sitting and enjoying and they have no idea the amount of orchestration happening behind the scenes to make that night happen. And there's so many moving parts and it's

It's really impressive to see everybody work so in synchronicity with all the various areas, departments, functions of hosting an event at a venue and the build up, the tear downs, it's all very, very impressive to watch.

Emily Fenech (03:10)
Yeah, so tell me a little bit more about the people at Oakview,

Sheeba Teves (03:13)
people at Ophiu, It's my raid of...

union, non-union, very, very highly skilled people that work in the event ⁓ arenas where we have chief engineers who are doing the mechanical works. We've got AV operators who are doing all the sound systems ⁓ and displays that we have, but we also have an entire different sector of employees that are managing the stages, putting together those props and stages and lighting. And then we've got just

you know, organizing the arena so that it's the optimal fan experience. So there's a huge myriad and then obviously there's the customer service and then there's the bar staff and then there's there's all the concessions. It's such a wide, vast variety of people that come together.

⁓ And I have to give biggest kudos to our marketing team. Our marketing is phenomenal. ⁓ They are playful and fun. They are very much reflecting their marketing strategy to how their own employee experiences. So it's a really, really diverse, talented group of people that work with our organization.

Emily Fenech (04:24)
Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, as you think about leading and setting strategy for such a diverse workforce, what is the biggest challenge to be you?

Sheeba Teves (04:39)
I think the biggest challenge is...

You know, where you have creativity, you have no boundaries. But then when you have people's strategy, you have to put boundaries in place for process and efficiency. So I think that that's probably where these two worlds, I don't want to say they collide. I feel like they come together like a puzzle piece. And that takes a lot of careful navigation on how we're experiencing or how we think about the employee experience, because it's not really a typical experience. It's not a typical industry, our work hours.

are not typical, our work environment is not typical. So we really have to be creative in how we are figuring out what strategy looks like and what those parameters look like in our world. So ⁓ I've been blessed with a really creative team, ⁓ you know, in the people and culture department where we're constantly throwing ideas and thinking, well, what if we did this and what if we did that? And, you know, what is this kind, what does this look like for engagement and what does this look like for

recognition

because I think that those are two of the most important parts of what we do is the recognition and engagement piece. ⁓ The engagement I think is automatic, I think ⁓ definitely when it comes to recognition, that's kind of that's our launch pad for everything else that we do.

Emily Fenech (05:59)
Yeah, and am I right to assume that the majority of your employees are sort of engaging with the company on their phones?

Sheeba Teves (06:07)
Yes, we are very digital forward. most of our platforms, whether it's payroll, whether it's scheduling, whether it's communication, it is very digitized. But that being said, because we are an arts and entertainment, we love putting faces and physical bodies to it. So we will always have a People and Culture member that is on site for every event. We will always ensure that we are available, whether it's digital, whether

it's video, whether it's in person, some people want to meet in person to talk about things and we will always make ourselves available. we are definitely, we're digital forward, but at the same time we're very accommodating to those that want the in-person experience.

Emily Fenech (06:53)
Yeah, I love to hear that. That was gonna be my next question was just how do you communicate and meet people where they are? And you answered it before I could even ask, but I love it when, I love it. Yeah, I love when organizations are, there's something really magical about showing up, right? I think it's easy to set strategy and tell everyone what the rules are, you know, from your office, but being there is a different thing.

Sheeba Teves (06:56)
Yeah.

I'm reading your mind.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's very indicative of our leadership team. Our leadership style in the whole organization is very much roll your sleeves up and everyone be there with everyone ⁓ doing the same work. We're all going to be doing all of it. We will never ask somebody to do something we wouldn't do ourselves. So, you know, I think that's very indicative of a really humble leadership team.

Emily Fenech (07:40)
Yeah, I like that. When you think about your employee base, what do you think they would say is the biggest challenge that they're facing in 2026?

Sheeba Teves (07:51)
I think the market is a little bit tricky for them.

In general, ⁓ we have a big part-time employee base. We try to give as much opportunity for people to, you know, be at the venues, work the events. But again, you know, depending on what events we have, I think, you know, just we would love to give people more hours and give them, you know, as much opportunity for prosperity as much as possible. And I think that's just a challenge right now. But that being said, being a new venue, we've had a really great start. ⁓

You know, we do anticipate some, you know, slower times. ⁓ know, January, I believe, is a time where it's going to slow down a little bit. So I think that's probably the biggest challenge. But otherwise, we've had great feedback about our communication, our FaceTime with them. ⁓ You know, we try to, you know, we've hired about just under 700 employees ⁓ just on the venue side. And we're constantly trying to reach out to employees.

and know them by name or at least recognize them by face. So I think that helps alleviate some things so it builds a lot of trust. even when there is a little bit of ambiguity about well what's next month going to look like, I think we've done a really good job of establishing trust that employees feel comfortable that you know we're working on things in the background. even if

they don't know what the next month is going to look like or the two months down the road is going to look like, they are confident in our ability to make sure that we are doing our best to utilize our staff before we ⁓ go to any external sources.

Emily Fenech (09:26)
Yeah. It's funny. said, I started the podcast by saying, you know, I'm with a lot of people in healthcare and restaurants. And when I asked about it's some of the same challenges, but just an entirely different industry, I guess, people are people no matter where you go. And anyone who's trying to, trying to lead a frontline is going to have some of the same problems with like predictability. It seems like what I'm hearing from, from people leaders with a frontline is that

AI and technologies are starting to make that a little bit easier in terms of predicting what staff is going to be needed, what schedules are going to look like and give people a little bit more clarity. Is that something you've been seeing?

Sheeba Teves (10:06)
Absolutely, and I mean, think it's a work in progress. know, technology is definitely playing a big part in making things more efficient, giving predictability. You know, they are able to go into smart schedulers and, ⁓ you know, select their schedule in advance. But again, you know, like all technology, there will be kinks, there will be things that may not work 100 % the way we want to. So we're constantly trying to stay out on top of that.

with our technology providers and platform providers and make sure that we're staying above or ahead of any anticipated challenges or issues that might come up. So we're working with, again, very, very ⁓ intelligent ⁓ AI-focused vendors when it comes to technology.

Emily Fenech (10:54)
Yeah, that's exciting. course, and we are still sort of early days. I know it's three years in, but some of these more predictive tools are really, I think next year will be a big year. I'm pushing that forward. When you think about tools, experiments, things that have gotten you excited recently, anything jump to mind?

Sheeba Teves (11:08)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yes.

Yeah, Slack used to be just a communication tool, but now I'm finding it is actually.

expanded its offering into areas of engagement and gauging how you wake up on a and are going to use a Monday morning as a scenario even though we don't have necessarily a Monday morning situation but ⁓ because we are seven days a week but that feeling that gauge of like a how are you starting your day how do feel and then on top of that like how engaged are you there's training platforms you can give that are like quick like two minute trainings like it's kind of like you know playing ⁓ what

What are those games that you know on Instagram and what was it? The fruit games and it's very similar to that idea. We're... I'm sorry.

Emily Fenech (11:57)
Hi.

No, I just laughing and I said, yeah, I know what mean. I can't think of the name either,

Sheeba Teves (12:03)
They're like these cute

little games and it's like they're

around health and safety. They're around compliance. They're around little it's almost like little quizzes people do and they're on their phones and you know while they're waiting for a shift or while they're you know waiting for their supervisors they just pull out their phone and they're able to do these things. So it's a more constructive way of doom scrolling if you want to call it that. And so I'm really I find that Slack really provides such a great assortment of these kind of tools and I think they're really really effective. We don't have it currently. I know that we've had it. I've used it in the past.

and not too long ago and I've seen how it's grown so we're looking forward to launching something like this. Hopefully in near future we don't have anything solid put in place but that's something that I've seen demonstrated really well.

Emily Fenech (12:50)
This, the Slack is what you're gonna launch or just the snackable content?

Sheeba Teves (12:54)
Slack.

Emily Fenech (12:56)
yeah, mean, I'm, it's funny, people will find something to complain about, about just about anything. But one of the things I'm most grateful for is the shift to messaging over email. And especially for if you're frontline or you're remote, it's like the new chit chat. It's like the new headquarters. You know I mean? Like people say, if you work remote, you won't run into people. like, I mean, I digitally run into people on Slack making jokes like all day.

Sheeba Teves (13:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

That's right. And it's a way to keep people connected. Like, you know, there's no barriers. There's no longer that one hallway you go through and everyone's doors are closed. It's not like that anymore. And I think, you know, the ability to have something like Slack or any other instant messaging system that you have internally in your organization, it really does break down those barriers of, you know, ⁓ reachability, geography, hierarchy. It just makes it way more easier for people to be accessible to one another.

another for questions, for inquiries, or just connection.

Emily Fenech (13:54)
Yeah.

Yeah. And the automations that you can unlock in Slack too are great for a people team. I've seen tools, some friends of mine, they ⁓ founders of Kinfolk and they have a Slack integration, which basically is like, anytime you want, you can ask a question, ⁓ any sort of tier one question that your HR team would have to provide and you get that instant answer and it can even, know, agentics things that they can do. like, Hey, go ahead and enter my time off for me. You know,

Sheeba Teves (14:01)
Yes.

Yep. Yep.

That's right.

Emily Fenech (14:22)
Just

reducing that effort is wonderful. And then just little things like reminding people it's your birthday or like, you know, running a quick poll. It's amazing. Like it's amazing what you can do and how much more delightful it is than an email.

Sheeba Teves (14:28)
Yeah.

Absolutely, and even though, you that's a great example with birthdays. You know, somebody on our team is always keeping track of all the birthdays and it's nice to just send that message out and then, you know, the rest of the organization has an opportunity to also wish that individual and it's just a way to make someone feel very seen and special.

Emily Fenech (14:54)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a huge Slack fan. If you can't tell this, the whole podcast is just like one big app. Yeah. Another thing that's cool. I don't know. Like when that becomes too, like when you start to centralize things in one place, whether it be your communications or your, you know, documentation, that's what all voices does, right? Where to centralize your like employee relations documentation. When it's all in one place, another huge unlock with AI that

that I get excited about is just the, knowledge base capabilities and the recall capabilities, right? It's like you're sitting on all this unstructured data of conversations that have happened or things that have been documented. And now you can actually talk to that information and see it and marry it. And, you know, sky's the limit.

Sheeba Teves (15:39)
That's right.

Yeah, and I mean, even like, you know, whether we're looking at ⁓ Concera or ChatGPT, ⁓ these are also great tools that help align these things as well. I was actually just talking about building policies and how time consuming it used to be, you know, because we didn't have all the accurate information and it's so...

convenient to have a tool that we can put this information into and they will give us a framework. Now I'm not saying it's going to be 100 % flawless because it may not have things that are certainly legislative as far as case law or anything like that, but the actual legislation will be in there. I actually really like using tools like that for not just the whether we're centralized or decentralized. I think it's just to you know from a regional perspective. I think we're able to

speak to a global market or speak to our global teams in a way that we are coming from a place of, you know, knowing the framework. You know, we may not know the nitty-gritty of everything, but when it comes to things like compliance and legislation, it does bring us together in that manner.

Emily Fenech (16:48)
Absolutely. Yeah. And again, the, the knowledge is not just creating the policies, then, ⁓ sort of everything becoming just in time, right? Like you think about like, you get trained, even like you get trained on some soft skill that you're not going to need for six months. And then you're just hoping you remember it when the time comes or same thing with policies, right? Like a policy is wonderful, but then sometimes it doesn't, you know,

Sheeba Teves (16:58)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Emily Fenech (17:14)
It's not like you have the whole thing memorized, right? So then something happens. It's like the instant recall and AI be more context aware too. It really gets me excited for 2026.

Sheeba Teves (17:17)
Right.

Yeah,

absolutely. I 100 % agree with that.

Emily Fenech (17:29)
I have to stop saying years in these recordings, because I'm like, people are going to go back and listen to it instantly dated. Well, this has been a really great conversation. I always like to wrap it up with ⁓ any words of encouragement, advice, wisdom that you want to share ⁓ with your fellow HR folks who might be listening.

Sheeba Teves (17:35)
Yes.

Yeah, be kind to each other and to yourselves. I think in the people and culture and HR. ⁓

sector, we have had so much turbulence over the past seven years. It has been nonstop, whether it is dealing with the pandemic, whether it's doing the return to office, and now we're dealing with, at least in North America, some form of, you know, economic, you know, kind of ⁓ revamp, if you would say that. So just, you know, be patient with each other. Be patient with yourselves. And, you know, just take a moment to breathe every now and then because there isn't

as much support for HR as HR provides to others. you know, just we should be able to bind together and create some support for one another.

Emily Fenech (18:38)
Yeah, absolutely. And I will use this as just a moment to plug the importance of community. ⁓ I hear a lot about folks like Troop HR and others out there who are, they're like HR for HR, or at least support for HR. So if you do feel that way, ⁓ jump on LinkedIn, look up Troop HR and others like it, do research. But there's communities out there where you can find that connection and...

Sheeba Teves (18:46)
Yeah.

Let's try it.

Emily Fenech (19:07)
and people who know what it's like to hear you. ⁓ Yeah, and get to some events as well, you know, where you can, there's nothing like in-person connection. And I know your organization knows that better than most.

Sheeba Teves (19:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. We do ⁓ not just professionally, but also on my personal ⁓ circle of friends. actually have a monthly get together with my friends that are all in HR, in the HR space. And we're there at various levels. And we all talk about, you know, what's up and coming? What are you working on? What's what's your biggest challenge? What's the operational ask right now? And, you know, we love running those ideas by each other. And we have a group chat on WhatsApp, you know, so we have that place where we get

Emily Fenech (19:49)
of it.

Sheeba Teves (19:50)
ask quick questions like, hey, I'm dealing with something in a different province and you know, what's your experience with that? So it's really great to reach out like that.

Emily Fenech (20:00)
I love that. I love that you have that and that you're building that community for others.

Sheeba Teves (20:05)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ hopefully we can grow it and reach out. ⁓ There's been talks of perhaps growing it, but more to come.

Emily Fenech (20:15)
Okay. Well, for those listening, reach out to Sheeba on LinkedIn. Join her budding WhatsApp community.

Sheeba Teves (20:22)
Absolutely.

Happy to have more members.

Emily Fenech (20:25)
Awesome. Well, it's been a delight talking with you and enjoy your holidays and thank you again for being here.

Sheeba Teves (20:31)
Thank

You're very welcome, Emily. Thank you for having me.