Manitoba's Top Employers

15 GENERATING BRIGHT FUTURES www.hydro.mb.ca INCLUSION & FAIRNESS WORK-LIFE BALANCE GREAT BENEFITS ECO-CONSCIOUS DIVERSE & CHALLENGING LEADER IN SAFETY Available in accessible formats upon request. PROUD TO BE ONE OF MANITOBA'S TOP EMPLOYERS FOR 9 CONSECUTIVE YEARS Manitoba Hydro employees are known across the province for contributing to their communities. In September, a Manitoba Hydro team raised $4,153 for United Way at the United Way Plane Pull. SUPPLIED PHOTO The provincial electric and natural gas utility posted high scores on all eight criteria used by the editors of Canada's Top 100 Employers: physical workplace; work atmosphere and social; health, financial and family benefits; vacation and time off; employee communications; performance management; training and skills development; and community involvement. Paul Desorcy, Winnipeg-based Director of Human Resources and Workplace Safety and Health for Manitoba Hydro, says maintaining its annual ranking is a high priority because it helps retain existing employees and recruit new ones. "It's absolutely a selling feature that we use," he says. "We post it on our website and put it in emails. I know people certainly recognize it and every year it's in the media. The idea is, 'if you're in the top 30, you must be a good employer'." "We are fortunate to get a number of people with very diverse backgrounds and skill-sets from around Manitoba and across Canada (applying for jobs)." It's important for Hydro to employ a workforce that's representative of the people it serves. For example, about 50 per cent of its employees in the northern part of the province – and about 20 per cent overall – are Indigenous. Desorcy says the utility has focused on growing its Indigenous workforce for a number of years. "Our goal is to reflect the demographics of Manitoba," he says. "There's a large Indigenous population in the north and for us to have half of our workforce in the North (be) Indigenous is a big accomplishment. We are proud of this accomplishment and we continue to look at ways to grow our Indigenous workforce throughout Manitoba Hydro as a whole." Following its recent voluntary departure program, the utility lost about 825 skilled and primarily veteran people. That opened the door for younger employees to apply for more senior jobs. The utility has also been able to enhance many positions by redistributing duties and combining functions from multiple roles, which can provide more job satisfaction by giving employees more challenging tasks and additional responsibility. "Employees are making decisions without the endless chain of meetings. We are looking to improve and streamline work processes," he says. With a smaller workforce, Hydro is also embracing new technologies to help its people work more effectively and efficiently. "Leveraging technology is very important," he says. "For example, customers can go online to our website and get a lot of outage information that they didn't have access to previously. They'd also have to phone us to make an outage report – now they can easily do it through our website using their mobile device." Customers are now notified of planned outages – needed for crews to safely maintain or expand the grid – through a pre-recorded phone call. New technology such as robotics is also being looked at for various parts of the internal operations. Not to be lost amid all of the activity is Manitoba Hydro's number one commitment to providing a safe work environment. Desorcy says that's a crucial element for any employer that has to deal with sometimes hazardous job conditions. "We want to ensure our employees make safety a priority and do not take short cuts," he says. "Safety always comes first." "Manitoba Hydro will continue to work towards being a top employer and will look for areas to improve upon. It's not something we're going to lose sight of," he adds. "It's on our radar. We use it and leverage it in our recruiting so if we can address any shortcomings we will." TOP EMPLOYER RANKING A CONTINUED PRIORITY FOR MANITOBA HYDRO BY GEOFF KIRBYSON Manitoba Hydro has cracked the province's list of top employers for the ninth consecutive year and has no intention of falling off any time soon.

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