Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace for the Environmentally Conscious
Best Workplace for the Environmentally Conscious
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
When it comes to the environment, it’s the little things that count at Stikeman Elliott. The national corporate law firm, which has an office in Calgary, embarked on an ambitious environmental initiative in conjunction with Earth Hour in 2008 that was built on small steps rather than big changes. But those small steps have made a major impact, and nowhere is that more evident than in the firm’s decision to commit to double-sided printing: Last year alone, the policy resulted in the use of 7.4 million fewer pieces of paper.
It’s just one of the ways in which the firm is going green. It has implemented a wide range of policies and programs aimed at reducing its environmental impact, and the balance of its carbon output is mitigated through the purchase of carbon-offset credits.
Fred Erickson, the managing partner of Stikeman Elliott’s Calgary office, says going green starts with creating a new way of looking at all of the firm’s activities. “There are a lot of small steps that we can take to make a significant impact on our carbon footprint. It’s about building in the mindset.”
That mindset might sound expensive, but Jean McLeod, the firm’s chief administrative officer, believes that Stikeman Elliott’s commitment to carbon neutrality has been cost neutral as well. “I’d argue that the majority of what we spend on carbon offsets we also save in terms of the other things that we do.”
Paper
The firm’s commitment to duplex printing isn’t the only thing it’s doing to reduce the use of paper. Most of the firm’s internal reports are being distributed in electronic format, while a reduced default font size has also been established.
Waste
Filtered tap water has replaced bottled water in all boardrooms and meeting areas, while the serveries in each office have and encourage the use of filtered tap water. Plastic utensils and paper plates have been replaced with stainless steel utensils and ceramic plates.
Energy
All of Stikeman Elliott’s office printers and copiers are installed with “sleep modes,” where after a specified period of inactivity they power down and reduce their energy consumption. Multi-function printers have also replaced separate standalone units, while a suite of energy-efficient best practices has been adopted office-wide.
Transit
Stikeman Elliott encourages the use of public transit and walking as a means of getting to work. Members of the firm participate in Clean Air Commute Challenges, while the Calgary office gives away free transit passes through a monthly lottery. The installation of video-conferencing facilities in all of the firm’s Canadian offices, as well as its New York and London branches, reduces the need for both inter-office and client-oriented travel.
Offsets
In April of 2009, Stikeman Elliott became the first national law firm to be designated as carbon neutral. The firm bought credits through the CarbonNeutral Company, investing in three global projects: the Sakari wind project in India, the Sichuan hydro power project in China and the Cottonwood Dairy Methane Capture Project in the United States. Each project satisfies the requirements of both the Voluntary Carbon Standard – the most widely recognized program available – and the California Climate Action Registry, a new standard that specializes in sector-specific criteria.
Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace (Under 100 employees)
Best Workplace (Under 100 employees)
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
SWEET TOOTH: Arcurve HR strategist Kim McNabb and president Jay Gohill
Arcurve Inc. claims to have the “best-stocked corporate snack cabinet and beverage fridge in all of corporate Calgary.” It’s a bold claim, but on any given day, employees can avail themselves of potato chips, chocolate bars, licorice, children’s candy, Ichiban, frozen entrees and soup. The fridge even supplies kimchi – a favourite of company president Jay Gohill.
“One of the needs for a software developer is high-sugar and high-caffeine snacks,” Gohill says of his monthly fridge-stocking missions for cola and root beer. Gohill is also director of operations at the 30-person software implementation firm. Part of ensuring operations run smoothly is keeping blood sugar levels high for Arcurve’s software developers – or “Arcurvians,” as they’re known at the office.
The team of Arcurvians includes 20 programmers, four project managers, four directors, an HR strategist and a weekly bookkeeper. Gohill says that since 2008, none of his Arcurvians have quit and salaries have increased an average of six per cent each year. In fact, Arcurve’s snack-heavy office is so inviting that many of the company’s out-of-town clients borrow a desk and use the wireless Internet while visiting and working in Calgary. Before Arcurve moved to its current location off Calgary’s train line, the company allowed members of Arcurve’s alumni to share the office free of charge for more than a year while working on their own business.
Arcurve’s business is partly custom software development for the oil and gas sector. The company also helps market and commercialize products for other software vendors.
Gohill says in Arcurve’s business, networking is extremely important, so much so that the company implemented a program called “Tap Your Network,” where Arcurvians are given coffee cards and encouraged to take anyone in their network out for a coffee. Arcurve implemented the program when the company had a few open positions and was looking to hire.
Now, new Arcurvians are asked to use the coffee cards within three months of starting at the company to talk about their new job. Gohill says the program has helped the company find good, well-qualified staff.
“Another thing is we meet anybody that is referred by anybody on staff,” Gohill says. That means regardless of whether Arcurve is hiring or expects to hire, one of the company’s directors and HR strategist Kim McNabb will meet with an employee’s friend, former classmate or colleague.
Often, McNabb says, an employee will make such a request saying, “Hey, I have this friend that’s trying to get started in the IT industry and she’s a great girl but she doesn’t really know where to start. Can you provide her with a little bit of advice?” Both McNabb and Gohill say they work very hard to make time to meet each of these requests.
Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace for Health and Safety
Best Workplace for Health and Safety
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
Every January, the executive team at Flint Energy Services Ltd. splits up and spreads out across the province and region, travelling to the construction company’s 60-plus worksites in order to talk to the employees about safety. It’s a simple, hands-on approach in support of Flint’s goal of zero injuries, and it’s working – last year, Flint’s recordable rate of injury was five times better than the industry average.
The company’s “Fresh Start” program takes place every January, with key safety messages reiterated in September to refocus workers after their holidays. When Bill Lingard, Flint’s president and CEO, talks to employees about safety, he delivers his message in personal terms.
“If you know the person likes to play hockey with their kids, then you see them putting their hand somewhere that’s not safe, you talk to them about it in a way that says, ‘Hey, you know, if you smash your arm or hand, you’re not going to be able to play hockey with your kids.’ ”
Glen Greenshields, the senior vice-president of production services, delivered eight presentations this past year, including one for 150 pipeline employees working in the Horn River area. “It’s a good opportunity for us to drive that message from the senior level,” he says, “and tell people how important safety is.”
Keith Lambert, the president of Canadian operations, says that when employees hear safety messages from the executive level, it helps empower them to speak up if, when they return to the jobsite, co-workers are acting improperly.
For all their success, Flint’s executive team recognizes that the job of safety is never truly done. “The only way we’ll get to where we want to get, to a truly zero-injury workforce, is if every individual out there owns it,” says Densmore. “And they’re working with the person they work beside to make sure they own it, too.”
Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace for Working Parents
Best Workplace for Working Parents
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
Ian Moore and baby Alec
Photo: Ryan Girard
On May 23, 2010, Ian Moore and his wife welcomed little Alec into the world. But Moore, an Ernst & Young senior manager in insurance, didn’t have to head straight back to work. Instead, he took two weeks off for paternity leave. Better still, the firm allowed Moore the flexibility to take one week off right after Alec’s birth and the second week three months later.
“I wasn’t forced to take it all in the first two weeks, when really I was going to be oblivious to the whole process and I wasn’t really going to be as helpful as I could have been,” Moore says.
Two weeks of paternity leave is just the start when it comes to Ernst & Young’s parental benefits package. Mothers who have been with the company for at least two years get 17 weeks of maternity leave at 100 per cent of their salary, and adoptive parents are covered for up to $10,000 in costs.
The company is also proud of its flexible work arrangements, which let parents keep working while they juggle the demands of a newborn baby. In the Calgary office, Stephanie Washbrook, the assistant director of resource management, is expecting her third child and works fewer hours in the office each day so she can spend extra time with her two young daughters at home. Better still, she can do that without the guilt normally associated with leaving the office early. “It’s accepted and praised when I leave work early to spend time with my family,” Washbrook says. “As long as I communicate with my team about my hours, everyone is very supportive and happy to work with my schedule.”
Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace for Perks and Incentives
Best Workplace for Perks and Incentives
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
Jacqueline Baecker is going to Disneyland. Baecker is Ernst & Young’s director of human resources working out of the firm’s Calgary office, and when she arrives in Disneyland, she’ll be paying less for entry to the park, less for her hotel and less all around as a result of Ernst & Young’s perks program. The company uses WorkPerks, an online discount provider that lets employees pay less for retail shopping, vacations and other lifestyle necessities. And while Ernst & Young employees pay less for those items, they’re also doing it using more than just their salaries.
$2,000 to $15,000
Employee referral
“We strongly believe that our employees are not going to refer someone who won’t be an excellent fit for our organization,” Baecker says. She adds that Ernst & Young would rather pay a finder’s fee to its employees than an external organization. Everybody’s eligible, unless their job is recruiting.
Up to $35,000
Non-executive bonus
Bonuses are paid in late September, coinciding with the end of Ernst & Young’s performance year. Employees are eligible for discretionary bonuses of up to 15 per cent of their salaries.
14 per cent
Money purchase pension plan
Every Ernst & Young employee is eligible to participate in the firm’s money purchase pension plan after one year of work, or immediately for a new hire older than 35. Employees make contributions to the plan as a percentage of their salaries, and those contributions are matched by the firm.
50 per cent
Guaranteed profit-sharing plan
Half of Ernst & Young’s profit sharing is guaranteed, the other half performance-based. Regardless of company performance, 50 per cent of what the company will pay out to its employees is guaranteed. The other half requires employees to hit certain performance targets.
Best Workplaces 2011: Best Workplace (101 to 750 employees)
Best Workplace (101 to 750 employees)
← Previous Profile | Back to Main List | Next Profile →
GAME ON: Like most Crescent Point Energy employees, Cynthia Mulchinock, Ryan Wilken and Trent Stangl bring a competitive spirit to everything they do
Photo: John Gaucher
Crescent Point Energy has been treating investors well for years. The company, which focuses on light and medium oil and natural gas assets located primarily in the Bakken region of Saskatchewan and central and southern Alberta, is just as generous with its own employees, too, but that’s not necessarily what makes it such an attractive place to work. Yes, the generous benefits and lucrative compensation are great, but what really sets it apart from its industry peers is the fact that the company is a winner.
“We’re an entrepreneurial, results-focused organization, first and foremost, and our staff is here because they love that culture,” says Trent Stangl, the company’s vice-president of marketing and investor relations. “They want to be part of an organization that’s spending money, drilling wells, acquiring companies and growing, where people have the opportunity to grow themselves, to be better and to learn more.”
It’s not all work and no play at Crescent Point, though, where snow days, golf tournaments and half-day Fridays are regular features on the schedule. “That’s been a part of our culture, really, since day one,” Stangl says. “It’s about the idea of working hard and having fun at the same time. We know that our people work really hard; they’re very committed to growing themselves, their departments and the company, and so we want to say thanks.”
The other way that Crescent Point says thanks, of course, is through more direct forms of compensation. Those include generous salaries and regular performance bonuses, but perhaps the most attractive feature of all is the stock options available to every employee. Thanks to its generous dividend payout and consistent record of capital appreciation, Crescent Point Energy (TSX:CPG) has been a darling of investors and analysts virtually since day one, and has increased in value some 40 per cent since it converted from an income trust into a corporation in July 2009. “When you work hard on a project, it’s nice to get an ‘attaboy’ or an ‘attagirl’ so you know your contribution was recognized,” Stangl says. “But it’s also nice at the end of the day to see the share price go up and to enjoy in that share price going up.”
Crescent Point isn’t about to get complacent, though, and Stangl knows how quickly a culture of achievement can turn sour. “Success breeds success; it doesn’t take much to turn a company into a death spiral where people aren’t doing things and they’re not happy and they’re negative and it doesn’t matter how much money you give them because they’re not having fun.” At Crescent Point, that’s not about to happen any time soon. “You just find that people come here and they’re not sitting on their hands, and most good employees don’t want to sit on their hands. They want to learn and they want to grow, and to me that’s the big appeal of working here.”
Follow Alberta Venture On: