National Post (National Edition)
Forward focus preceded pandemic
Even before the pandemic hit and changed how we live and work, Canada's leading companies were thinking differently about how to drive performance and build sustainable companies. The COVID-19 pandemic became a rallying cry, accelerating three key themes that are on display in this year's winning Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures. Specifically, these companies are: actively working on culture, developing an environment of psychological safety, and focusing on individual and team development.
“More than ever before, companies are looking inward. The pandemic has given us pause to really understand our most valuable asset is our people,” says Marty Parker, president and CEO of Waterstone Human Capital and the founder of Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures Awards. Launched in 2005, the program turns the spotlight on organizations that have built high-performing cultures. It is also a harbinger of best practices to come.
“Culture is the one thing that cannot be duplicated. It is a competitive advantage, and that understanding has hit the mainstream whether you're a $4 million or $4 billion company,” says Parker.
Here's how this year's winners are building, sustaining and transforming culture by focusing on their people.
Driving high performance culture transformation
Det'on Cho Management LP, one of this year's growth category winners and the first winner from any of the three territories, is an Indigenous development corporation and the economic arm for Yellowknife Dene First Nations. “We're a for-profit entity with a social license. That is baked into our DNA,” says president and CEO Paul Gruner.
Det'on Cho Management started on a path to prioritize and transform culture four years ago with a specific goal: to be the Indigenous partner and employer of choice. “The NWT has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. We have to be able to develop, train and empower our own people so we can deliver on our social mission to create jobs and build capacity in the region,” says Gruner. “Your people define you as an organization and will ultimately write your success.”
To that end, the organization created comprehensive training and leadership development programs, and also implemented quarterly surveys of its 800 employees to ensure people were moving up into higher-level positions.
In short order, Det'on Cho Management became the first unsettled First Nation to become a limited partnership; the first Indigenous group to mine on its own land; made an acquisition and built the largest Indigenous-owned logistics company in Canada; and significantly improved profitability. Recently the Indigenomics Institute selected Det'on Cho Management as one of the top 10 companies to watch.
Removing barriers to the future of work and learning
Midmarket category winner global learning technology leader D2L has a clear mission: to transform the way the world learns. “We can only do that if we build a great culture that helps bring out the best in our people,” says John Baker, D2L's founder, president and CEO.
Baker made culture a priority from the day he founded D2L as a university student in 1999. “We're learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls. We're going to learn and grow together.” To that end, D2L has training and professional development programs to help people both be the best in their craft, and to develop as leaders getting the best out of others. “You don't have to choose one or the other,” says Baker. This year D2L launched an annual program where everyone has access to $2,500 to upskill for the future.
The company also runs two annual hackathons to stretch teams. One is focused on improving D2L and its technology and products; the other is focused on solving a big challenge by developing new skills and building something new.
The impact of culture: D2L has 900 people, customers in 40 countries and 15 million people use its platform. It grew through the dot-com crash of 2000 and the financial
crisis of 2008/09. During the pandemic, it leaned into its learn-it-all mindset and was one of the first groups to launch a free open course for its clients on the science of COVID-19 and how to navigate it. Baker joined Canada's Industry Strategy Council to help with the economic recovery. Through this time, some 200 people within D2L were promoted or transferred and the company is looking to hire another 100 to 200 people. It also won the Candidate Experience award, beating out the likes of Google and Amazon.
Unlocking the power of passion for compassion
The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) is one of Canada's leading academic health science centres and one of this year's Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures broader public sector winners. “Culture for us is the most important thing we've worked on over the last decade,” says president and CEO Cameron Love.
The focus on culture took on an added urgency in 2010. To that point, the focus had been on completing the merger of the four organizations that came together in 1998 to form TOH. “We were a worldclass organization in terms of technical proficiency, but the culture was not where we wanted it to be,” says Love. “Our patient outcomes were great, but not the experience.”
To improve patient experience, the organization built its culture on a clear set of values: respect, teamwork, compassion and commitment to quality. “Part of the reason we've been successful is this unwavering commitment to upholding those values. Technically, we are one of the best hospitals in Canada. The culture piece is what makes us stand out.”
Today, leadership potential and performance evaluations are assessed from a values
perspective and the ability to bring out the best in others. This is true both for administrative leaders and medical leaders.
That alignment has allowed the hospital to achieve its goal of patient-centred care. “The piece that differentiates a patient experience is how compassionate, how nice we were. Were we present with them? Did we answer all their questions, make them feel safe and comfortable?” says Love.
Patient experience results have improved dramatically with the majority of patients citing their experience as either very good or excellent.
Building trust to empower employees
Loopio, a software provider that helps companies streamline their response process for RFPs, is one of the first winners of the Canada's Most Admired Corporate Cultures Emerging Award. It is also one of Canada's fastest-growing technology companies, ranking 27 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
Co-founder and CEO Zak Hemraj credits the company's culture, which empowers Loopers to make an impact and to make decisions, with its success and resilience. “Our mission is to harness collective brain power to fuel growth both for our customers and each of our team members. Highgrowth people drive highgrowth companies forward. High-growth companies unleash opportunities for high-growth people.” To that end, the company puts its five core values — curiosity, candour, grit, mastery and support — to work in its interview process, performance management, recognition, and stress-testing new ideas.
In the last three years, there have been 100 promotions and career pivots within Loopio. “That's how we've grown the company,” says Hemraj.
Loopio's investment in people takes the form of regular ask-me-anything sessions with senior leadership, peerto-peer learning, and $1,000 a year that Loopers can spend on their growth and development. More than this is the trust it places in its people.
“We hire people who are relentlessly curious and ask a lot of questions. Everyone is empowered to challenge the status quo to find a better way,” he says.
Today, Loopio has 1,000 customers and is scaling rapidly. It has a team of 160 people that will grow to more than 200 by the end of year.
Actively listening, educating, acting and sustaining culture
Scotiabank, one of this year's enterprise category winners, is always working on culture. Specifically, four key attributes of its culture: highly customer focused; high team performance orientation; doing the right thing; increasingly inclusive. These attributes are underpinned by its values: integrity, respect, accountability, and passion. “One of the frameworks we use is Listen, Educate, Act and Sustain. It's all about creating an inclusive environment where people can bring their best self to work. This is not something you can manage tactically, it is cultural. It's a sustained effort,” says Barbara Mason, group head and chief human resources officer at Scotiabank.
This effort includes feedback mechanisms in the form of regular, anonymous cultural indices and pulse surveys. These are conducted in combination with its employee engagement index. “This creates a database of hotspots. We then address these challenges in a targeted way.”
Leadership training is focused on ingraining and enhancing the behaviours that drive Scotiabank's culture. “We have 90,000 plus employees, it can't be just the CEO who sets the tone for the organization.” says Mason. “Performance is assessed, compensated and recognized based on the what and how. They are equally important. How we deliver results is driven by our expectations around cultural attributes.”
Through the pandemic, executives hosted podcasts and forums were set up for employees to share their experiences. “It created a greater emotional intimacy within the organization,” says Mason. “Everybody went, `okay, how do we support customers and each other through this?' Our customer satisfaction indices were equal to or higher than before the pandemic and employee engagement was the highest it has been.”