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At Stantec the employees are a virtual United Nations. Little wonder people come from all over the world to work there. It’s ranked as one of the top five design and consulting firms in North America. But, at the end of the day, it’s still business as usual.
“We respect the cultural differences but we don’t try to elevate them either,” explains Don Belliveau, vice president for Atlantic Canada. “At some point these folks need to be able to come and work within the culture that they’re basically immersed into, in relating with the clients, relating with other teams. They need to get onto the program.”
 So the company goes “the extra mile” in an effort to get its diverse team members “onto the program” by enlisting mentors, phonetics coaches, and ergonomics consultants.
In Nova Scotia, for example, thanks to the Metropolitan Immigrant Settlement Association and its New Beginnings Program, several engineers have taken on mentorship roles to work with new immigrant staff, introducing them to the office environment and assisting them with their career goals. In New Brunswick, through the Work Ability program offered by the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, the organization has been able to help employees who have suffered a disability ease their way back into the workforce.
Belliveau is the first to admit that working at Stantec is 10% design, 90% communication. So language training is key. Not so much because of the clients but because of the teamwork involved.
“You have to understand the goals, which direction the team is going,” he says, explaining that to help foreign-trained employees improve their language skills the company provides a phonetics coach, as well as access to the Toastmasters and Dale Carnegie Training.
Stantec Consulting is an Alberta success story. Founded in 1954 by Don Stanley, a civil engineer, today it has 125 locations across North America stretching from Edmonton in the north to Port Charlotte, Florida in the south, employing close to 10,000, and busily acquiring other engineering firms left and right. Most recently it’s been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers, primarily for its recruitment and retention of aboriginals and persons with disabilities.
Belliveau is quick to point out that there’s a labour shortage in the white male-dominated engineering field and it was time to look everywhere to fill in the gaps.
“It’s not that we’ve targeted aboriginals, per say, it’s…where can we find good resources?” he explains. “So we’re looking overseas, we’re looking within our own borders. What are the groups we might be able to bring in that are typically not joining into either the engineering or technical careers? So aboriginals are one of them, right?”
In the case of internationally-trained and –educated professionals, there is always the issue of cultural differences, but in most cases all it takes, Belliveau believes, is a little understanding.
“Our responsibility here…should be to help facilitate the transition for the folks that are coming in. So we should be cognizant that there are differences,” he says. “We need to be sympathetic, to be able to put ourselves in their shoes, in terms of how they’re trying to deal with those issues.” But, he adds, “They’re professional…and they can bridge that gap.”
Even though Stantec is still in the early stages of its diversity journey, Belliveau realizes this is one issue that is not going away anytime soon.
“We have a vested interest in this. We’re not just nice people. We want to retain our employees too,” he says. “This is something we think is important.” |
