Looking at Top Canadian Employer brands – it’s pretty tough to beat Westjet. Now CEO Gregg Saretsky can add the Top New CEO of the Year to his list of awards.
Westjet employees are owners.
Westjet employees have the option of participating in an Employee Share Purchase Plan – up to 20% of their salary – which the company will match. Every employee has the potential to be an owner – but actions speak louder than words. The company doesn’t just call their employees owners – the company treats them like owners. When Gregg Saretsky was thinking of branching out into a new area of business – he put the business plan to a vote of the company’s 9,000 employees. “This is a low-margin, capital-intense, tough business. And only an employee-ownership structure can truly provide the kind of service-oriented culture that can compete and win.” He explained to Canadian Business.
Everyone wants to work there!
For three years in a row, Westjet has taken home the Randstad Award, identifying them as Canada’s top employer. This award is determined by polling thousands of Canadians, to find out which companies are attractive to job seekers. With incredible perks like unlimited standby travel at a 50% discount for friends and family and ongoing employee development, who wouldn’t want to work there? Clearly, as a company, Westjet’s focus on ownership, service – and fun – is in touch with what today’s job seekers look for in an employer.
Giving Back makes for Great Viral Videos
Westjet plays on its reputation for fun with their social media presence and entertaining YouTube videos. The videos that go really viral, though, are about the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life. At Christmas – many Westjetters got to play real-life Santa Claus, shopping and wrapping presents for unsuspecting travellers. For Father’s Day, Westjet partnered with Ronald McDonald house and Saskatoon transit to reunite a father with his family. Examples like these are in line with the corporate culture of accountability, with everyone pitching in to help. It particularly speaks to the millennial job-seeker who wants to work for a company that gives back to their community.
Great Leadership
A genuine employer brand has to be fostered from the top down. It has to be based on the authentic culture of an organization and Gregg Saretsky gets it. Canadian Business Week has dubbed Gregg Saretsky “The Man who surpassed all expectations” His company’s stock has doubled in value since he took over the CEO position – a fact which should make all his employee-owners happy! He clearly understands that when you want people to be accountable every day for the customers, then the leadership team needs to be accountable to the employees.
When challenged with a new service platform, it meant that salary and benefits were going to have to be modified for tenured employees. Rather than hide it or roll it out without consultation, the leadership decided to involve those people in what they called a “Framework for Fairness”. They said “The way we do it here, we do things with you, not to you. So why don’t we pull together a group of employees from the affected stations, and you draft the policies and procedures that will impact people that are affected by this change.” In Greg’s words, “…employees stayed engaged, and they stayed positive, we have had a very successful transition where our competitors have faced a rather different outcome.”
Westjet serves as a great case study for what happens when the Employer Brand is represented through the organization and the company invests in their culture. The “why” for investing in corporate culture is the bottom line impact of an engaged workforce.
