Secrets of their success
Communication, flexibility key for award-winning employers
For the winners of the 2012 Employers of Distinction awards, communication with employees is key.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Employers’ Council distributes the awards annually, with Key Assets being named in the small-employer category, and Fortis Properties and H.J. O’Connell tying in the large-employer category this year.
The awards were presented in St. John’s on Feb. 15.
Nora Duke, CEO of Fortis Properties, said the company has about 2,400 employees across the country — more than a thousand in Newfoundland — making for a large workforce with diverse needs.
“Given that we’re a service-based industry, of course, our employees are the ones that are out there delivering that guest service or a tenant service on a day-to-day basis, so the whole focus on employees and workforce is pretty significant.”
Every organization has to look at their own people in their organization and figure out what their needs are. Nora Duke, CEO, Fortis Properties
The size of the workforce means a one-size-fits-all approach to employee satisfaction isn’t possible, said Duke.
“Every organization has to look at their own people in their organization and figure out what their needs are,” she said.
“Certainly that’s what we do, and we try to look at our humanresource priorities and say, how do we align those with our company needs and directives? Because it has to fit.”
A second challenge is trying to figure out the needs of the company’s future workforce.
“Obviously we have all these hotels and properties and so on that we’re focused on, and servicing all the needs of our guests and our tenants, and that’s a big part of it, but we’re also a growth organization, so we’re always looking to the future and how we’re going to grow,” she said.
“Part of that also means developing your team for that future growth.”
Keeping talent, bringing in new blood
Retention will increasingly be a challenge, said Duke, which has prompted the company to examine its strategies in that area.
It’s not the kind of job where we can just say, ‘Go do your job and let us know how it goes.’We have to be actively involved in providing the kind of holding, if you will, that they need to ensure that the job doesn’t take a toll on them emotionally, physically, psychologically. Heather Modlin, Key Assets
“So, something as simple as when people leave our organization, do an exit interview with them to try to understand what caused the decision to leave and what we can learn from that,” she said.
Ensuring management has as much “face time” as possible with front-line employees is also key, she said.
Employee development could mean broadening an employee’s assignments and giving them additional training, said Duke, who added the company also encourages employee involvement in the community.
“As an example, right now we’re involved in a fundraiser for breast health. So we have a whole team of people that are involved with fundraising and doing different fun activities, all in support of that cause,” she said.
A caring company
Heather Modlin says Key Assets was chosen primarily because they value their employees. The non-profit organization works with young people in foster care with emotional, behavioral and mental-health challenges. “That shows through in everything we do,” she said. “Some of our specific strengths are the amount of training and support that we provide to our employees and the amount of involvement that employees have in decision-making in terms of program development and day-to-day decisions in their work with young people.”
Key Assets benefits from giving workers flexibility, said Modlin.
“I think what we’ve been able to do is create a culture in which our employees feel supported and valued and respected, where their opinions are heard. That translates into the work that they’re able to do with the young people.”
It’s critically important that employees be welltrained and well-supervised in their work with clients, Modlin added.
“We, as employers, need to recognize how challenging their work is, and need to make sure that they get whatever they need from us in terms of resources and support in order to be able to effectively do their jobs,” she said.
“It’s not the kind of job where we can just say, ‘Go do your job and let us know how it goes.’ We have to be actively involved in providing the kind of holding, if you will, that they need to ensure that the job doesn’t take a toll on them emotionally, physically, psychologically.”
That flexibility comes from Key Assets’ parent company, Core Assets International, she said. “This is how the parent company runs,” she said. “It’s a very unique organization in that although it’s very large, with over a thousand employees, over 2,500 children in the care of the organization in total, it is not bureaucratic in nature. It’s a very unique, very large organization that operates in the same way that we operate here. So we’re able to do what we do here because that is actually mandated by our organization.”
Human resources issues are important
Len Knox, vice-president of major projects for H.J. O’Connell, said the last five years, especially, have seen human resources issues becoming more important, with the company looking to traditionally underused labour pools to build the operation.
“There are challenges every day,” he said at the luncheon when the awards of distinction were handed out.
“I look at these challenges, and I look at the demands of this business right now. … We are adding women to our organization constantly. We’re growing the organization. In the early ’ 90s we had a staff of 15 and we did $20 million. In 2012, we have full-time staff of 150, 160, we did $300 million. So 10 times staff, 15 times more work.”