INVESTING IN THE FUTURE
Agrium recognized for developing young employees
For a fourth consecutive year, Agrium has been named one of Canada’s Top Employers for Young People by MediaCorp. The award recognizes the mining company’s efforts to empower young people to grow and achieve their professional goals and aspirations.
Michael Webb, senior vicepresident of human resources at Agrium says it all started with the formation of their Young Professionals Network.
Agrium set aside funding to create the network in order to hear directly from young employees about what’s important to them. The network now has around 30 members.
The group identified several areas that were important to young professionals at Agrium, among them was wellness and the need for a work-life balance.
“We established a wellness centre that has everything from yoga and exercise to nutrition and stress management,” says Webb.
Another part of that important work-life balance for young people is finding a way to give back to the community.
In Calgary, Agrium has a program called Corporate Challenge. The participants are mostly young professionals who raise money for charity through various fundraisers throughout the year. The company boasts one of the leading United Way campaigns in the city.
“Individuals have the ability to donate their time and donate money if they so choose. Lots of times with young folks they are more keen on donating their time. We give them those outlets to do that,” explains Webb.
Opportunities for career development were also identified as being key for young employees at Agrium.
To facilitate transparency the company lists all positions currently being recruited. This allows individuals to plot future career steps. And there are many options to choose from within Agrium – from mining positions to research labs to financial engineering.
“Hopefully, these individuals feel they can move around if they want to have multiple careers within one company. If they want to have multiple careers outside of one company they can do it. At least we give them that option to have multiple careers within Agrium,” says Webb.
Continuing their career development may mean taking further education. Tuition reimbursement was another area the Young Professionals Network identified as something they valued. So the company created what Webb describes as a “very generous” reimbursement program.
All of these initiatives have helped Agrium to position itself competitively when it comes to luring the best and brightest prospective employees.
Webb says Agrium competes for employees with companies from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the like.
“Agriculture today is not your grandfather’s agriculture. It is sophisticated, high-tech, cutting edge stuff. The farmers that we talk to are some of the most sophisticated business people you will ever find,” says Webb.
A career in agriculture can be very rewarding. Helping to feed the world is no small task and it takes the very best people Agrium can find.
“We need really talented people who are on the ball. We also work in an industry that has a lot of hazards and we need people that are smart, switched on and take safety very seriously,” Webb explains.
Mistakes can mean people get hurt, or a farmer’s livelihood is destroyed, or local and global economies are impacted.
“If we don’t do our job well – which is grow food for a growing population – the consequences of there not being enough food goes without saying,” notes Webb.
Further, no matter the advances in technology, the company’s best assets are the people they invest in.
“At the end of the day you can have the best tools, you can have the best technology, you can have the best physical assets in the world,” says Webb, “but if you don’t have the best people operating them, people are going to get hurt, mistakes are going to get made, and eventually you’re company will not be successful.”
Webb acknowledges he may never see the benefit of some of the initiatives the company has introduced for young people, but Agrium is focussed on long term planning. “We’re an organization that has been around for quite some time and we want to be around for a lot longer. And the only way that we’re going to do that is to invest in our young people.”