I am the Director of Human Resources and Payroll for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario. The Centre was created through an amalgamation of four separate and distinct organizations. One of our earliest established goals and priorities was to merge our payroll and financial systems to one common provider and format. After consultation we chose to implement the Lawson Payroll and Financial systems.

After many false starts we finalized a plan to accomplish these goals. In the summer of 2001 we started to put the structure and personnel in place to deliver the end product. It was our very good fortune to have Yves Levasseur assigned to the position of Project Manager.

The major hurdle to overcome with this implementation project was the timeline given to marshal and train resources-both internally and externally as well developing the complex programming that would allow for the idiosyncrasies of Canadian payroll in the health care setting. We had a little over four months to program, test and implement our new system. Our deadline was calendar year end. There are many skeptics who did not believe a Payroll conversion team would be able to roll out a functional system within the parameters. They were proved incorrect.

I am pleased to say that we met all the critical deadlines. This was in small part due and attributable to Yves and the team he put together. In addition to the short time frame allowance we had to cope with Christmas and holiday periods. Yves made sure that the level of commitment did not waiver despite these obstacles. He strictly, but professionally, laid out his requirements and followed up on any diversions from the path. Despite this monumental (and to some overwhelming) task Yves maintained his sense of humour and built a sense of ownership and teamwork amongst the paid consulting staff and the seconded internal personnel.

I would highly recommend Yves for anyone seeking leadership, motivation, and systems planning expertise. In short, an implementation was superbly accomplished at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in spite of all that needed to be overridden.

Yours truly,

Robert J. Blewett
Director of Human Resources
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health