Manitoba's Top Employers

04 ABORIGINAL PEOPLES TELEVISION NETWORK ACCESS CREDIT UNION ARCTIC CO-OPERATIVES LIMITED ARTIS REIT ASSINIBOINE CREDIT UNION BIRCHWOOD AUTOMOTIVE GROUP BOEING WINNIPEG CANAD INNS CARGILL LIMITED CERIDIAN CANADA GRANNY'S POULTRY COOPERATIVE LOUIS RIEL SCHOOL DIVISION MAGELLAN AEROSPACE, WINNIPEG MANITOBA AGRICULTURAL SERVICES CORPORATION MANITOBA BLUE CROSS MANITOBA HYDRO MANITOBA LIQUOR & LOTTERIES MANITOBA PUBLIC INSURANCE NATIONAL LEASING GROUP PROVINCE OF MANITOBA RED RIVER COLLEGE ST.AMANT ST. JOHN'S-RAVENSCOURT SCHOOL SEVEN OAKS GENERAL HOSPITAL STANDARDAERO TRUE NORTH SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA WESTMAN COMMUNICATIONS GROUP WINNIPEG AIRPORTS AUTHORITY WORKERS COMPENSATION BOARD OF MANITOBA Manitoba's Top Employers for 2018 RECOGNIZING EMPLOYEES WHO DO WELL Strong employee recognition has always been critical to the Canada's Top 100 Employers project, including the Manitoba's Top Employers competition — and now employees are doing it too. BY BERTON WOODWARD Margaret Cichosz is a Talent Acquisition Partner at the global information company Thomson Reuters, where she is working intensely to set up the firm's new Toronto Technology Centre. Already the count of new hires is nearing 200, just in the first year. Eventually, the unit will have 1,500 people, most of them software developers and other technologists. The demand for such tech people is huge across Canada at the moment, and companies that employ them have a reputation for coming up with every possible kind of pampering to keep them happy. Yet Cichosz was surprised by what she found. "I thought it might be a bit of an uphill battle recruiting some of the senior people we started with," she says. "But honestly, the uptake was just incredible. I think there are so many people in the Toronto marketplace who feel they are under-appreciated at work or are putting in long hours without recognition. When we opened up these positions, you could see the enthusiasm about what we are building here. Candidates were like deer in the headlights: 'Oh my god, when can I join?' Often these people were missing that sense of appreciation in their former workplace and were looking to get that here." You can bet the companies these people came from aren't on the list of Canada's Top 100 Employers. Strong employee recognition has long been one of the hallmarks of the Top 100, notes Richard Yerema, Managing Editor for Mediacorp Canada, which compiles the list. "Individuals all want to be recognized for good work," he notes. "And Top 100 employers have always done this in a systematic way. What has changed is the suite of tools available." Indeed, today a great deal of employee recognition is done by the employees themselves, online. Using internal social media systems, they can send out public kudos to colleagues for helping them out, or, when the person has been a much bigger help, send out points that can be redeemed for cool stuff, from movie tickets to flat-screen TVs. And that, in turn, has brought a mini-revolution to employers' thinking. It has been a long time since recognition programs were built around such quaint features as "employee of the month." But until quite recently, singling out staff for praise was still based on a top-down approach, managers to subordinates, often through performance management programs, bonuses, incentives — or pampering. Listen again to Margaret Cichosz at Thomson Reuters, which has an employee appreciation system in place, complete with redeemable points ("It's pretty much like Costco shopping online," she jokes). "A lot of these new tech hires didn't come from that system," she says. "They came from startups where you get your free catered lunch, you get your dry-cleaning done, you get your pet walked — you get all these things for individuals. But you don't get something that helps you recognize somebody else. And people want to feel appreciated, especially when they're working as a team. "Here, it's crazy how people react to the points system," says Cichosz, who joined the company a year ago from a post at the University of Waterloo. "I'm new to it myself, and I like a lot. I'm working with teams in New York and other locations, and even though you're not talking to these people face to face, you communicate with them on a daily basis. So the points system allows you to say, 'Hey, I really appreciate what you're doing and here's something for it.' It has really taken off." Some of the names of the points systems tell the story. At Samsung Electronics Canada, they call it "U r Awesome." At Air Canada, it is "Shine." And the payoff can be lucrative. Last year, Leon Sang Wook Nam, Manager, Supply Chain Planning for IT at Samsung, took home $1,000 worth of gift cards, just for being Awesome. Paul Brannen, Samsung's Chief Operating Officer, is well aware of how much of a difference this peer-to- peer recognition can make. "In today's business world, we're moving at a thousand miles an hour," he says. "And sometimes we don't take the opportunity to stop and celebrate the little successes that really allow you to achieve the greater overall success of the organization. With U r Awesome, I can even do it on my phone — send out instantaneous appreciation. It allows us to create more engaged employees because of that recognition." Indeed, managers and leaders like Brannen send out recognition, too — usually their quota of points is higher than the average employee's. But at Thomson Reuters Canada, they go to the next level — recognition for the recognizers. "You often hear that people leave managers, they don't leave companies," says Neil Sternthal, Managing Director for Legal and Tax Divisions. "We've put in place a leader board among managers. It identifies who's doing the best job at supporting appreciation and promoting a culture of recognition. Because if people don't feel valued at work, they won't have 100 per cent conviction and enthusiasm for what they do." Take note, non-top employers. Strong employee recognition has long been one of the hallmarks of the Top 100.

• Cover