Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER February 22, 2016 FEATURES 21 CORPORATE CULTURE Chugging along with corporate culture Steam Whistle Brewing makes a point to be relaxed and transparent – but also accountable By Sarah Dobson L ocated in a historic round- house on Toronto's lake- shore, Steam Whistle Brewing has a unique location. It also prides itself on having a unique culture, according to co- founder Greg Taylor. " e idea is that we're all in this together, our offi ce, there's no hi- erarchy there." Tours of the brewery go right through the offices, where ev- eryone can be seen working, and Taylor and his partner Cam Heaps have desks the same as everyone else, he says. " at whole idea is we're acces- sible, you can communicate with us — we're not special people, we just got here fi rst. It's that idea that the employee has lots of abil- ity to empower himself and make it better and we don't have all the answers," says Taylor. "Unfortunately, it's very typi- cal for a lot of companies that people want to protect their posi- tions and they don't want to ever show weakness and that's just ridiculous." It's about being transparent and approachable, but also account- able as leaders, says Taylor. " e most important part of being a leader is acknowledging faults and saying, ' at didn't work well because I made the wrong de- cision, but let's move forward and let's try this. I'm not perfect.' A bit of humility goes a long way when it comes to leadership." While that kind of culture might be easy to set up, it's not easy to maintain, he says. "It is a struggle because it re- quires a lot of one-on-one. I spend most of my time... one-on- one with people in boardroom, in their work environment, talking about issues and opportunities, and sorting things out, and mak- ing sure communication fl ows. It's really an essential part of es- tablishing a culture where people feel they can make a diff erence and they matter." Not everyone appreciates that kind of approach. One em- ployee who came to work for the 180-employee brewery ended up leaving, but not before expressing concerns about how the brewery could retain people, says Taylor. During meetings, for example, he felt his opinion held the same weight as that of a younger em- ployee new to the brewery. "I said (to him), 'I understand where you're coming from and what you're suggesting is hierar- chy matters and industry experi- ence matters, etcetera, and elders or more experienced folks need to be respected and that's true, but we're in an industry which relies on young people. You have to stay relevant with young people in the beer business because if you don't, our consumer demographic will age and as they age, they drink less and eventually we'll have no busi- ness... I value their ideas greatly, they're just as important to listen to as the more senior people here." Lessons learned e push for a healthy corporate culture — which has won Steam Whistle several top employer awards — began back when Tay- lor began working for Heaps' father, Frank Heaps, founder of Upper Canada Brewing. A house party for staff impressed Taylor. "I just noticed (Heaps) was do- ing his best to connect with every- body there and I realized pretty quickly that this guy felt strongly that everybody made a diff erence and was capable of making im- portant contributions and if you respected them, they would really make a diff erence for his business." But Taylor and Heaps witnessed a change to Upper Canada's cul- ture when it was purchased by a private company. "All of a sudden, the bottom line mattered more than anything else and investors mattered and this idea that the investors were re- ally more important than the staff was really for us pretty confusing because we thought, 'Hold on, if we treat the staff incredibly well, we'll have a great business and the investors will profi t from it, but if you just treat the investors and look at their perspectives only, you can't possibly have happy staff and you won't be as competitive and you won't be as profi table.'" The two co-founders have maintained that outlook to this day as it can also matter to cus- tomers, says Taylor. "Culture is an important part of a business, particularly in the craft industry — people really seek out small businesses, organizations that craft products and expect them to have a more family-style, warm culture." Hiring, fi ring A big part of maintaining that cul- ture is found in the hiring process, which can involve up to fi ve inter- views, along with improv games and a meet-and-greet session with future co-workers. "Hiring is an important part of the business, it's the beginning and it's the seed that grows your culture," says Taylor. "People ask us 'How can you maintain your culture as you grow?' Well, it all has to do with hiring and firing. It you're not hiring the right people, if you have a great culture but you bring people in that are not passion- ate about what you're doing and what they're doing, they will wa- ter down what you've created, so it's really essential to figure that out initially." Employees must embody the es- sence of "Good Beer Folk:" mean- ing unwavering passion, creativ- ity, teamwork and good values. " ese people are gregarious and warm and able to connect and tell stories — storytelling is a big part of what we do," says Taylor. Having candidates meet infor- mally with their potential group is an important part of the process, he says, so the group gets a feel for the person and whether she would be a good choice. "Not only are you probably go- ing to make a more informed de- cision because you have the key people that are working hard for you all day long involved in it, but how do you think it makes them feel when 'Hey, I have actually a say who my new peer is going to be?'" But you also need to make sure that if somebody starts to disconnect from the cul- ture and not respect it and not value the way he did originally, "if they start to drift away from the original idea and purpose, we have patience and we work with them closely and explain our concerns, but we will let people go because we don't want any cancers in the organization," he says. Too many organizations have people sitting around that shouldn't be there, says Taylor, and other employees will notice. "We can't have anybody ques- tioning our leadership in terms of valuing our culture and valuing our work and if somebody's not contributing and they don't get it, then they need to leave." The orders by the human rights tribunal were entirely unreasonable, he said, and re- quired APEGA to go far beyond what a regulator would typically be required to do. And while the tribunal said there was an insuffi - cient individualized approach used by APEGA in assessing the creden- tials, this wasn't true, said Casey. " ere was an individualized assessment of his education and experience to determine if APE- GA had enough knowledge about his program to grant him reg- istration with no testing, so it is important to have that individual- ized assessment to see how much level of comfort do you have with respect to the applicant's profes- sional abilities." e mentor recommendation is one most regulators would have said is too much, said Balthazard. " ere's a duty to make sure that your requirements are justifi able and reasonable but to then sort of take the next step where you're actually doing remedial work to assist individuals who don't meet the requirements to then meet the requirements… that's beyond the mandate, the core mandate of regulators. So that was a big con- cern," he said. "If we all of a sudden now had to supply mentoring or we had to develop individualized assessment procedures for every- one who doesn't fi t the mold, that would be very onerous." If APEGA stuck in its original form, it would have made the job of regulators too cumbersome and frustrated their ability to reg- ulate, to discipline, to ensure con- tinuing competence, said Curcan. "These are sophisticated or- ganizations that have a lot of dif- ferent tentacles and if there were this requirement to expend an inordinate amount of resources — whether it be human resources or fi nancial resources — to applicants and, again, on areas I would allege weren't being discriminatory in the fi rst place, you would have seen cuts somewhere and that's not in the interest of the public." And everything drives from public interest, she said. " e point of APEGA, the point of HRPA, the point of PEO (Pro- fessional Engineers Ontario)… is to protect the public. Now HRPA is a little diff erent obviously be- cause you can still practise human resources in Ontario without be- ing a member but if… you're going to let someone into HRPA and use the designation, the public places a lot of value on that and HRPA and other regulators, CPA, the Ontario Association of Archi- tects, they recognize this, and this is why you have these registration requirements that are somewhat vigorous." Going forward Now that it has its public act and more fulsome regulatory powers, HRPA falls under the power of On- tario's Offi ce of the Fairness Com- missioner, said Durcan. And the offi ce would look at whether the requirements for internationally trained applicants, while diff erent, are fair. And if they are diff erent, are they justifi ably diff erent? "If a regulator can look to its requirements, whether it's for domestically trained or interna- tionally trained applicants, the regulator would be much more held accountable properly to ensure they're not creating un- necessary hurdles, that if there's a requirement, there is a rational justifi cation for that requirement," she said. "So the public can be more reassured, members can be reas- sured, applicants can be reassured that what they're seeing is fair, that when they go through process, their skin colour, their education, their place of origin, shouldn't matter as long as they meet these objective criteria." But there is a growing trend for internationally educated gradu- ates to take their fi ght for recog- nition into the forum of human rights commissions, said Casey. "It's a way of putting pressure on regulators and governments, and it's a way of getting a sympathetic hearing about the challenges that they face," he said. "It presents challenges for regulators who are having to come and explain their systems to tribunals who have not really dealt with these sorts of is- sues in the professional regulation fi eld — it's all part of the process." 'Onerous' requirements APEGA < pg. 2 Credit: Steam Whistle Brewing Greg Taylor (L) and Cam Heaps

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