Copyright May 18, 2004 by Arupa Tesolin What does it take to be one of Canada’s 50 Top Employers? At the invitation of The Canadian Institute (www.CanadianInstitute.com I attended their 2-day conference on April 26 & 27 to find out. The ranking is a product of Hewitt Associates, North America’s largest human resources consultants, in partnership with The Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading daily and business national newspaper.
Companies with over 300 employees can apply for the ranking through a survey process. Over 200 employees are surveyed in larger companies accounting for 70% of the final score. The remaining 30% is based on a comprehensive H.R. practices survey and a leadership team survey applied to senior executives.
The result includes a chance to make the 50 Best list along with other top lists such as Best Senior Leadership, Best Managers, Best Career Opportunities, Best Benefits, Best Pay Practices, Best Recognition, Best Work-Life Balance, Best Physical Work Environment, Best Workplace Resources, and Best Performance Reviews.
At the conference address, Ted Emond, Senior Consultant of Hewitt stated that the qualities of best employers included dynamic and outstanding leadership and a satisfied workforce that wants to work in your industry at your company. Top 50 list makers considered being part of the Top 50 as a business strategy. He urged conference attendees to consider making this their business strategy also.
David Ticoll, co-author of The Naked Corporation, described the current environment of doing business in today’s reality where disgruntled employees who want to vent or measure their employers can post their views on vault.com or internalmemos.com or in various chat rooms. Individuals and groups now have a cheap communication tool to self-organize and empower. Of course this does not mean competitive secrets or personal information of employees. He said there was enormous pressure for transparency and that done right it is an engine of growth. “Most employees”, David says, “want to work in a business that has integrity in it’s bones.”
Today’s “Naked Corporation” has strong products and services, integrity and values. Other current impacts are market conditions and economic factors that are global, changing socio-political views, and changing ownership of shareholders. Institutions now own over 60% of shares, which gives them a powerful market impact and influence.
He gave examples as follows:
When the release of the movie “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” landed in theatres with much hoopla, attendees were e-messaging their friends from inside the theatre which had an immediate myth vs. reality impact on sales. Result, sales performance didn’t meet expectations, it flopped.
When Starbucks (a US based chain of high end designer coffee) commenced legal action against a Canadian native Indian band operating a coffee shop on their reserve called “Haidabucks” they withdrew after a huge outcry of sympathetic internet-based support. Turns out that Haidabucks was a term they used to describe a spiritual deity.
Back to the Top 50’s, here’s a sampling of what they do differently.
Heading the list is BC Biomedical Laboratories, a medical diagnostic services company owned and operated by pathologists. It’s goals and values have always been clear. They have an open-door management style and employees are always consulted in decision-making. Turnover is very low, only a few of it’s 400 full-time and 300 part-time employees chose to leave the company. Staff is made of more than 90% of women and most are parents. They are offered flexible hours and job-sharing. Also their employee-directed health plan allows individual staffers to decide where their allotted dollars are spent.
At Maritime Travel, Karn Nichols, V.P. Human Resources told the conference “Because most travel operators are “small shop” businesses, opportunities to advance can be limited. Staffers who have contributed to company growth can opt to become a “partner” and take a share of company profits.”
Andrea Slingby, President of Flight Centre said, “We have a non-traditional hiring policy based on cultural and motivational fit, we can teach them how to sell travel.” Their organization model is anthropological and organized like “family units” in groups of 6 or 7 people. Turnover was found to be higher for people who didn’t have teams. Employee recognition and rewards included a full-out gala Las Vegas ball. Employees feel like they are part of something special. They have opportunities to grow personally and professionally and importantly, to have fun.
Mercedes President Marcus Breitschwerdt stated “Human Resources must be a strategic partner. Decide about people, then you can decide about business.” As part of a mandatory performance appraisal process people who score “excellent” and “outstanding” are given career development planning, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Jeff Burns, President of Canadian HR outsourcing company Ceridian talked about their commitment to honesty. “Treating employee well, is not only the decent thing to do, or the right thing to do, it enhances shareholder value.” “People” he says, “are the only asset that appreciates, not depreciates in value.”
Ceridian practices a rigorous HR recruiting process where the individual is made to feel as comfortable as possible throughout, consisting of a phone interview, panel interview, psychometric test to establish personal development needs and team bit, and finally meetings with the team managers.
John Cardella, VP HR for Ceridian, advised companies to “Know who your top 5% key leaders are – these are the people who, if they left your company, your company would be in trouble. These 5% are out there, but they may not be who you think they are. The priority for Managers and HR is to figure out who they are and to take the challenge to identify these invisible leaders.”
”For Chubb Insurance recognition has to be personal” says Pat Ewen, VP HR. “We were looking for a way to recognize and reward one of our top performers who rarely takes time off and found out he loved his alma mater, the University he graduated from. So now every year we fly him out there to manage the recruitment process on campus. He loves it.”
She advises managers to speak to the employee, not about them in performance review processes and continue to find ways that make employees feel special as the company grows. “Our managers are urged to remember good things that the employee did and to bring them up.”
Good examples to learn from.
What does it take to be one of Canada’s 50 Top Employers? - To learn more about this author, visit Arupa Tesolin's Website.
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