Preston Pfefferle: Becoming a leader during COVID-19

Not your typical IT guy

When Preston Pfefferle, Manager of the Digital Workplace team, joined TC Energy in 2015 with a background in Business Operations, he didn’t set out to become a leader in our Information Services (IS) department. Like many, he found his passion – digital innovation – through the various positions he’s held over the past five years and the rewarding experiences that come with embracing new challenges.

“What truly excites me about working at TC Energy is the constant state of innovation – there is this continuous need and desire to be at the forefront of everything,” shares Preston. “I love witnessing people take processes and procedures that we’ve been doing the same way for years and flipping them on their head – and the organization embracing that change to accomplish what we didn’t realize we’re capable of.”

Our agile and creative response during COVID-19 is a prime example of how we led the way and embraced change. Over a single weekend our workforce transitioned to a remote work environment without skipping a beat – a technically complex transition that Preston and his team had a heavy-hand in to help ensure we could maintain our collaboration and productivity.

Behind the scenes of our virtual town halls

As of January 2020, Preston leads the Digital Workplace team who are responsible for ensuring TC Energy is enabled to collaborate effectively, and the team manages all applications in the Office 365 space, including MS Teams. In July 2019, Preston led the soft-launch of MS Teams, which provided a foundation when his team had to push the organization to fully adopting the application in the wake of COVID-19.

Being at the forefront of new technologies allows us to be one-step ahead and make a difference. Not only has TC Energy relied heavily on MS Teams to stay connected with members of their teams and collaborate across the organization – we’ve also leveraged the platform in an unparalleled way to foster engagement with our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and entire workforce across our vast North American footprint.

“When I was approached back in March with the need to create connection and engagement through a two-way conversation between our executives and entire workforce, I was stoked! Not only because I knew we had the technology, but more so because there was an appetite to try something new, something bold,” says Preston.

So, behind the scenes of our virtual town halls with President and CEO Russ Girling – which have drawn in an audience of over 6,000 employees – you’ll always find Preston supporting a cross-functional team who help ensure our people stay connected, informed and engaged.

Transition to leadership

Preston and his team provide a tremendous amount of support to TC Energy in our regular work environment, and since COVID-19 the request for support from our Digital Workplace team have increased by 60 per cent.