Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 3 "One of the main things is thinking forward about the future of work and ensuring that we have succession plan- ning in our strategy, which involves taking our younger generations and developing them so that they are in a position to take over those more senior roles when the time comes and setting them up for success," he says. Another program is the Zurich Insur- ance pathway program to help Black youth gain experience in the insurance industry through a partnership with the United Way and the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals in Toronto. "Part of the internship involves a mentor- ship with some of our senior leaders to really help [youth] make that connection so that they are then set up for success in terms of applying to different insurance jobs or even just having those mentoring relationship that they can lean on later on in their career to help them develop their career further," says Chaaya. City of Vernon boosts recognition program The City of Vernon in British Columbia believes in success through people, and to that end, it recently carried out a major revamp of its employee recognition program. "We needed to bring our recognition program into contemporary alignment with how our employees feel that they want to be recognized," says Raeleen Manjak, director of human resources. "It's about creating that emotional connection, that achievement and 'We're in this together,' because, really, it's up to each of us to recognize and support the accomplishments of one another." In addition to length of service and the voluntary termination (retirement) programs, three additional programs are now open to all employees. "We now have a corporate program, which is a formal program that includes categories that align performance and recognition with council's priorities and the city's corporate goals and our core values," she says. "And then we have an open program that recognizes a larger number of employees… That recognition is less structured, and really recognizes employees' accomplishments within the same categories as the corporate program, but it's much more fluid." Lastly, there are everyday programs, which are "random acts of awesome," says Manjak. "They're frequent and they're ongoing. And we've created toolkits that are present at each reception station throughout all of our facilities. And that's really designed to encourage behaviours that support the organization's values. So all employees are encouraged to partici- pate, to give and to receive recognition; it can be as simple as a shout-out or we have certificates… [or] corporate branded cards." Further to its tagline of "Activate Wellness," the municipality also created "Ten Hours of Giving" through the pandemic to support staff. Hosted on an internal You Tube channel, they focused on areas such as physical health, fatigue, financial health, diet and nutrition, medi- tation, mindfulness, conflict coaching, and consciousness. "We curated a series of digital learning moments that we really leveraged from our relationships with all of our partnering subject matter experts, right across the country," she says. Another impressive offering is the mentorship program. The City of Vernon conducted a pilot program in 2020 that started with three mentors and five mentees, and was a great success, so a more formal program was rolled out. This time, there were 13 mentors and 14 mentees. " The mentorship program has just taken off… we were overwhelmed with the applications. But we were so excited about the potential opportunity for folks to be involved," says Manjak. There were also four applicants whose goals were not aligned with m e n t o r i n g , b u t w e r e a l i g n e d with coaching, so the city developed a coaching stream for those employees, she says. "We didn' t want anybody to go away without some type of a personal and professional development opportunity… so we decided to do some personal coaching with those folks." The entry process comprised two steps: an employer submission followed by an employee survey. For the submission, organizations had to complete an in-depth submission with questions looking at key factors such as: employee engagement, turnover rates, average tenure of staff, compensation and benefits, health and wellness programs, diversity initiatives, professional development, corporate culture, flexible work options, reward and recognition and green programs. Companies that successfully completed the submission phase were then sent a link to an online employee survey to be circulated internally within their organization. To ensure the integrity of the data collected, employees were requested to provide their company email address. Organizations had to meet a minimum number of responses to be eligible for the Best Places to Work recognition, based on company size: 1-99 = 10 minimum; 100-499 = 10 per cent of the number of employees; 500+ = 10 per cent of the number of employees or 50+. The survey asked employees to rate their company across a range of metrics that constitute drivers of employee satisfaction. An employer needed to achieve an overall satisfaction rating of at least 80 per cent to be recognized as a Best Place to Work. METHODOLOGY 7.8 years Average tenure at larger companies (500+ employees) 36% Percentage of female executives at larger companies 13% Percentage of employees 55 and older at larger companies "It was one of those programs that didn't involve a lot of work to put together and roll out, and yet has proven to be one of the most successful." Ray Chaaya, Zurich Canada

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