YW Profile: Steam Whistle Brewing

An innovative company that rewards creativity and initiative

AUTHOR KAREN RICHARDSON

Steam Whistle Brewing is nearing a decade in business but still enjoys the same family atmosphere from its early days thanks to very deliberate decisions by brewery co-founders, Cam Heaps and Greg Taylor.

“The biggest success factor we have is an atmosphere that rewards creativity and initiative, so we have to always be open-minded to staff ideas, to include them in decisions and to readily communicate with them on all aspects of our business,” says Taylor, whose management style is what Harvard Business School coins “management by walking around”.

“It is a very simple organization that does things right, and focuses on making one style of beer,” says Professor Barry Cross, Lecturer, Operations Management and Technology at Queen’s University. “They’re doing something very simple and focusing on their process to make sure its effective, low-cost and lean, but still producing great tasting beer.”

Over the past year, this independent brewery, housed in Toronto’s historic John’s St. Roundhouse, has celebrated these milestones: Heaps and Taylor were named Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst & Young, Deloitte & CIBC selected the brewery as one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies, sales revenue topped $20 million, and the brewery expanded further west into B.C. The brewery’s unique human resource policies, which include surf vacations, staff beer, profit sharing and theatre-sport auditions, have been largely responsible for this success.

"We’ve worked diligently to create an atmosphere that attracts people who are good beer folks—people who want to work hard, are concerned about quality, and are also good people,” explains Taylor. “When people visit our brewery, they are expecting to see people enjoying their work and to feel welcomed, because after all we are a social product. Our tour guides and event staff are put through a theatre-style audition first thing to help us choose friendly, outgoing and entertaining staff, and then we follow up with more conventional interviews for final selection.”

The moniker, “The Good Beer Folks”, is “as much about quality beer as it is about being a good corporate citizen—being a good employer and member of the community,” says Sybil Taylor, Director of Marketing.

In 2008, Steam Whistle Brewing was awarded the Immigrant Success Award, recognizing the diversity of their workforce, particularly their management team. “New Canadians are like entrepreneurs: willing to take calculated risks, be resourceful and creative, and are looking for a new family to become a part of. There has been a great marriage between Steam Whistle and these new hires,” says Greg Taylor.

Since 2006, the Brewery has donated beer to the Troops, shipping Steam Whistle Pilsner to Afghanistan. This began when two staff, whose parents worked in the military, offered to donate their staff beer to soldiers for Christmas. They encouraged their coworkers to do the same and then Heaps and Taylor matched staff beer with a company donation. A new tradition was born with annual Holiday and Canada Day shipments. The brewery supports hundreds of charitable, cultural and community events annually, through financial and in-kind donations.

Retro, Scoobie-Doo inspired Steam Machine
Steam Whistle conducts its own creative marketing through its eye-catching distribution system: a vintage vehicle fleet. The fleet includes a 1967 Ford, retro, Scoobie-Doo-inspired Steam Machine that delivers kegs to customers right onto beer festival grounds. There are taps built into the side panel to pour cold Pilsner beer directly from the van. The fleet drives employee enthusiasm, as the company lets employees use the fleet for special events.

“Our vintage vehicles are certainly a great example of how creativity has worked for the company,” says Taylor.

Green initiatives
Steam Whistle encourages its staff to participate in the brewery’s environmental stewardship. In 2007 the company formed an environmental committee asking for volunteers from each department. The group quickly grew to 12 staff with all functional areas represented, and has been responsible for introducing energy-saving and waste diversion programs which helped the brewery win an Environmental Award of Excellence at this year’s Green Toronto Awards.

The company’s green initiatives include all-natural ingredients, more glass in their bottles to increase the number of times a bottle can be recycled (about twice as many as the industry standard), biodegradable cups, a Bulldog-powered brewery, a truck fleet supplied with biofuel containing soya fuel and recycled restaurant grease, using geothermal cooling rather than air conditioning, using steam (the most efficient form of heat) for heating, energy-efficient equipment and lighting and waste diversion.

The company claims their painted logo not only saves trees from becoming label paper, but also eliminates glue and dyes from contaminating the water drained from our bottle washer. Every element of their packaging line is recycled: cardboard cartons, broken glass, old bottle caps and even shrink wrap are compacted in the bottle shop to be recycled into new packaging materials. They also have the “spent grain” from the brewhouse shipped to farmers to be used for animal feed.

The brewery has an active health and safety committee with representation from all areas of their operations. Due to their public daily tours, seven days a week every half hour, the brewery must be extra vigilant so their premises are safe for all staff and visitors. “Being a premium beverage producer, we are proud of the level of cleanliness, health and safety that you’ll find in our production facilities,” says Taylor.

On all levels, this company wins our YW approval for an organization of worthy mention. One real indicator is its staff who participate in the annual holiday talent show, which has replaced a hired band or DJ at the company Christmas party. “We’ve enjoyed everything from traditional Greek dancing, a Steam Whistle rap song, staff movies and even a choreographed dance troupe performance. When our employees are willing to share something personal and put themselves on the spot for our company’s entertainment, we know we are doing something right,” says Cameron.

Article first published in Your Workplace magazine issue 11-5