YW Profile: Ceridian Canada

Where People Matter Most

With 11 office locations across the country, human resources solutions provider Ceridian Canada excels at the daunting task of maintaining communication and fostering input among the 1400 payroll, HR and EAP professionals in its employ. Despite its size, this organization has found innovative ways to help its employees feel connected and involved in the growth and development of the company.

Safe at Work and at Home
As well as conducting annual ergonomic assessments for its office staff, Ceridian Canada also performs assessments on the home environments of its virtual workers, ensuring the safety of the offices they’ve set up for themselves. Employees may request additional ergonomic assessments at any time. At Ceridian, everything necessary for the safety and comfort of workers is provided—including secure access to Ceridian workplaces—and office environments that are designed with natural light and with open areas to allow for easy collaboration.

Employees Encouraged to Speak Up
To elicit cogent feedback, President Dave MacKay believes in keeping staff informed about all matters Ceridian. “There’s been a steady stream of openness, transparency, and respect for people. There’s obviously a lot of media noise out there about recession; everybody’s got that on their mind. So we’re constantly communicating the status of our business.”

Ceridian’s commitment to following through on staff feedback has led to establishing a disability management program, retirement planning education sessions, and a group tax-free savings account. Ceridian also introduced a fitness subsidy, an employee newsletter and improvements in benefits and health care coverage as a result of employee input. Each year, Ceridian holds more than 100 focus groups across the country, with 10 randomly selected employees invited to attend each session.

Such employee engagement is attractive to recruits as well as current employees. Internal Control Officer, Michael Geiger-Wolf says of Ceridian, “They listen to their employees, because they want their employees to recommend them to others, and I have done so. I have sought out individuals from previous employers who are now working here when jobs came up that I knew they were suited to, and I will continue to do that, because this organization is head and shoulders above any other that I’ve worked for in my career.”

MacKay, who has been president for 18 months, feels that interaction with employees is of utmost importance. “I really see myself as a steward of the business now, so it’s making sure I leave something a little bit better behind as we go forward, and that’s a little bit better for the people who are here,” he says. “My priorities are first communications and culture. So the majority of the time, I’m constantly travelling to locations and seeing our employees.”

Employee webcasts and the annual Employee Summit also offer opportunities for staff to communicate directly to the CEO or president of Ceridian Canada. An executive sponsor program ensures that each branch of Ceridian has direct contact with a senior executive on Ceridian’s leadership team to discuss local issues.

Growth and Involvement Made Easy
President Dave MacKay’s Speak Up is an email address to which employees can send queries and feedback. Each day, emails are forwarded to the appropriate expert for follow-up. Employees can expect a response within two weeks’ time, and see the answers posted anonymously each month in the president’s e-newsletter Dave’s Dialogue.

Ceridian’s intranet site enables employees to nominate their peers for recognition, enroll in training courses, download forms, access a wellness database or self-help programs and give feedback or make requests.

Free online courses and resources and a tuition assistance program for external courses are available. “About 50 hours per employee per year we average in training time,” says Kelly Allder, Management and Sales Development Consultant. “So there’s a real focus on development and making sure our employees have the skills and the knowledge that they need.” She adds, “Right now I’m doing my Certified Human Resources Professional (CHRP), and I’m taking a credit course through Seneca College. So, I can take that course and get reimbursed for the tuition that it cost me, because it’s part of my professional development, and it enhances my ability to do my job.”

The culture at Ceridian supports speedy reward and recognition for the deserving employee. Says Allder, “There’s an R&R toolkit that we have, which is an actual toolbox stuffed with reward pieces, things like gift cards or certificates to restaurants or movie passes, CDs or DVDs or books, so when [managers] see desired performance behaviours, they can actually reward that and recognize it in a relatively inexpensive, small way. So it’s giving them an opportunity to give immediate feedback.”

A Helping Hand
As well as making large corporate donations to the United Way, Ceridian also uses incentives and prizes such as days off with pay, extra vacation time and airline tickets to support employee donation campaigns.

Ceridian is a supporter of the Starlight Starbright Foundation of Canada, the Salvation Army, and the Children’s Wish Foundation Canada. Ceridian also supports the favourite charities of its workers by allowing volunteering during work hours and disbursing funds to agencies nominated by employees. Its Volunteer Recognition Program recognizes volunteers with a letter from the president and awards funds to the charity of their choice.

Ceridian’s Green Guardian program is an environmental stewardship initiative run by volunteer coordinators at each branch to support “going green” efforts at the local level. On the home front, virtual workers have contributed to a reduction in office space maintenance costs. President Dave MacKay adds: “Our virtual program also reduces the carbon footprint significantly. We took about 20 to 30 cars off the road in Canada.”

Many Ways to Wellness
Among its comprehensive health benefits, Ceridian includes flex-dollars, which can be allocated to a health spending account. Its annual fitness subsidy of $300 can be put toward health club fees or exercise equipment. Fitness buffs can also request an interest-free fitness loan payable by payroll deduction to add fitness equipment to their home environment.

Ceridian’s Total Wellness initiative provides programs to its employees, including health issue webinars and health assessments. Local wellness committees create branch-level programs, including walking challenges, yoga classes, and healthy habit campaigns.

Flexible work schedules help employees to find a work/life balance by changing their work hours to a schedule amenable to their needs. The virtual work program has been especially well received. States Dave MacKay, “[Virtual employees are] getting 10 to 15% additional productivity. We know our employee engagement is highest with our virtual workers. It’s meeting exactly their lifestyle need. People are staying at home, because they’ve got to take care of kids or parents. I think that’s a good thing. If somebody has a need to take care of an elderly parent, [virtual work] helps.”

The LifeWorks program provides 24-hour telephone access to counsellors and resources on any aspect of work or personal life, including financial issues, mental health concerns, and weight management or smoking cessation programs. Says Geiger-Wolf, “There’s a huge range of tools available. With a workforce as diverse as any in North America, ours especially being both geographically diverse in terms of skills and backgrounds, you need to offer fairly broad a-la-carte support services to capture the needs of your entire workforce, and that’s exactly what Ceridian does. Pretty much anything you need is there for you.”

Work with Purpose
President Dave MacKay’s belief in the people who make up Ceridian shines through when he says: “Innovation is not vested in any one person or one group. It is the collective knowledge and wisdom that the company can bring to the table. Innovation, for me, is about the engagement of people, the acceptance to new ideas, and not being afraid to try something.” As an HR firm, Ceridian is in the business of helping people, and this translates into a unique sense of purpose for its employees and a feeling of being supported in their work and development.

“I feel like the work that we do is an area that is really critical and valuable, and I like being involved in that kind of work,” says Allder. “We are an HR services provider, so we get to be involved in helping other organizations do things well, and I really enjoy that.” Geiger-Wolf agrees: “My engagement with the organization is very high. Ceridian does so many things to show that they value not just me but the things that I value as well.”

Ceridian uses its HR know-how to encourage its own staff on the job and in their future careers. “I think the organization as a whole really aims to retain top talent,” Allder maintains. “The opportunities to work from home if I need to, the support that I get from my manager to go off and pursue my own career development, the fitness subsidies, the profit share, the pension plan, all of those HR programming pieces really do give you this overall lens that this organization is aiming to try to keep me here. It’s an organization where people want to stay.”

Engagement and education are key components of the Ceridian campaign to encourage workers to grow with the company and provide it the feedback needed to stand out in today’s competitive marketplace. “In order to really support your employees, you have to weight transferable competencies and skills equally as well as experience,” says Geiger-Wolf. “Both the job postings and the hiring process acknowledge those transferable skills. So, in that way, they really support their internal employees to advance their careers and move throughout the organization. I think that’s just phenomenal and it’s really something that I believe sets this organization above many others.”

Paul Vallée, Director of Solutions Management, says that the reason he stays at Ceridian is “the people, the atmosphere, and feeling like I make a difference. Over the 20 years [I’ve been at Ceridian], I’ve always felt like what I’m doing is important—important for our customers and for the business, and that’s kept me here. If you feel like you’re accomplishing something, why would you leave?”