Jacqueline Griffiths equates the high-pressure world of labour negotiations to a triathlon.
“The same sort of mindset you apply to endurance sports applies to labour negotiations because you have to see it through to the end,” Griffiths said.
The 39-year-old got the negotiator’s bug during her second year of university when she worked as a summer student at a mine.
“I happened to work in the employee-relations department,” she said. “It was very high conflict but also it was interesting, it was fast paced.”
Griffiths went on to earn her bachelor of commerce degree from the University of British Columbia, and worked for the City of Vancouver and Metro Vancouver before she joined the Vancouver School Board.
“When I got to the Vancouver School Board, that’s when I really started getting involved in negotiating,” she said.
Griffiths was a labour-relations officer for the school board until 2001 when she was promoted to manager of labour relations.
In 2004, she joined the British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association as a managing consultant, and in 2007 became a chief negotiator and associate executive director.
Griffiths said patience is one of two important attributes for a negotiator to have. The second is “an ability to see how things are going to end before anybody else does,” she said.
Griffiths, a mother of two, said the support her family and husband provide makes her professional life a lot easier, but she said it’s important to balance both.
“I think our philosophy in our family is, ‘OK, if you’ve got to work then work, but when you’re home, be present.’” •
