After doubling in size, Benevity brings workers together for first time
Imagine seeing your company double in size in two years with hundreds of new staff being hired, yet most have never met each other face-to-face.
How do you develop teamwork, encourage camaraderie and build a strong corporate culture while working remotely?
It's a question Calgary tech company Benevity has faced since the pandemic began in 2020, and it's one of the reasons the business is holding a “homecoming” gathering in its hometown this week.
More than 350 Benevity employees from 10 countries, including the United States, France, Spain and Australia, have congregated in Calgary, helping fill up two hotels as the firm gets together with its staff and talks about the road ahead.
“More than half of our team has never been to a homecoming in Calgary. They've never been to the headquarters and that type of thing. There are a ton of benefits for us around just building relationships,” CEO Kelly Schmitt said in an interview.
“At these events, we talk a lot about our vision and where we are going ... but also just to get people really connected with the culture.”
Many employees across Canada have returned to the office this month as the summer vacation season winds down.
The latest Canadian Survey of Business Conditions by Statistics Canada found Alberta companies expect 62 per cent of their employees will exclusively work on-site during the third quarter.
Just six per cent will only work remotely.
The remainder, about onethird, are expected to work in a hybrid situation.
Hybrid work models offer employees more flexibility and control over how the job integrates with their life, said Tara Van Zuiden, who leads Deloitte's workforce transformation practice in Western Canada.
However, work relationships, collaboration and creativity can also be impaired if employees aren't together or properly connected.
“There is a desire to bring people back into the office more frequently,” Van Zuiden said. “Ultimately, where we're going to land is probably somewhere in the middle.”
If companies aren't flexible with where people work, it could also limit their pool of potential employees, said Melanie Peacock, an associate professor of human resources at Mount Royal University.
Yet, most employees want to feel connected to their colleagues and organizations.
“If you are only (working) remote, the one thing you have to think about is your corporate culture. How are people feeling that they belong to something bigger than themselves?” she said.
Not surprisingly, the tech sector has been one of the industries at the forefront of remote work.
Benevity, which provides clients with employee-engagement software that enables workplace giving programs and volunteering, has expanded by more than 500 people since the pandemic began to reach 1,000 employees in June.
More than half of its personnel are based in Calgary and the company's headquarters is located just north of downtown.
Schmitt said the firm continues to allow remote work and strives to connect employees to the company's culture through its onboarding process for new staff and at events such as this week's gathering.
“It's certainly more challenging to build a culture virtually than it was when we were physically together. A big part of it for us, though, is alignment around the values in how we do things,” she said.
“Over the last couple of days with everyone here, it's been so exciting to feel the positive vibe that our culture delivers in a full office.”
Bringing its staff together also benefits the city's downtown, which has been hit hard by the pandemic.
Data from Avison Young that compares downtown foot traffic indicates average weekday visitor volumes in Calgary are still down by two-thirds from February 2020 levels.
However, they've also been climbing this year, up 73 per cent since March 1.
At Benevity, the majority of employees are working in a hybrid manner, while about one in four are working fully from home.
Schmitt noted Benevity has global operations and only half of its staff are based in Calgary. Last December, it acquired Swissbased firm Alaya, which provides services to clients in Asia and Europe.
“I know a number of tech CEOS (whose) companies have no offices, and so for us competing for tech talent, we have to be very mindful of that,” she added.
“That being said, we continue to believe that nothing replaces in-person interaction. So I think that companies have to figure out the balance.”
As for its aggressive hiring plans, Benevity expects to grow to about 1,500 staff within about three years as it continues to expand its client base, which includes customers such as Coca-cola Co., RBC and Google.
The search for tech talent has also changed in recent months, as a number of Canadian-based companies — such as Shopify, Hootsuite and Wealthsimple — have laid off staff due to an economic slowdown.
Jim Gibson, chief catalyst at the SAIT School for Advanced Digital Technology and co-founder of Thin Air Labs, said local demand for skilled industry workers has dipped slightly in recent months, but the city and province shouldn't “take their foot off the gas” in efforts to train and attract talent.
At Benevity, Schmitt said it's become easier to hire for toughto-fill positions, such as finding senior software developers and product managers.
“For two years we were behind, we just couldn't hire fast enough. ... It felt like in one quarter, we sort of caught up to that deficit,” she said.
“Now, just with the economic climate being a bit uncertain, we are continuing to hire both within Calgary and outside of Calgary, but we've slowed down quite a bit because we're absorbing those 200 people that we brought on in a really short time.”