Case study: How Stantec promotes employee development
Stantec is a leading international professional services company in the design and consulting industry, providing professional consulting, construction and construction management services. By fortifying its talent pool, Stantec gains an advantage over its competition, helps employees grow, develop, and reach their full potential, reduces voluntary turnover and increases employee engagement.
This case study is based on the 2017 Sustainability Report by Stantec published on the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Disclosure Database that can be found at this link. Through all case studies we aim to demonstrate what CSR/ ESG/ sustainability reporting done responsibly means. Essentially, it means: a) identifying a company’s most important impacts on the environment, economy and society, and b) measuring, managing and changing.
Abstract
Investing in its teams so as to provide fulfilling careers for its people, helping them set and then surpass their individual goals, is a top priority for Stantec. Tweet This! In order to promote employee development Stantec took action to:
- offer learning opportunities
- provide mentoring
- encourage employee participation in professional associations
- provide performance feedback
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With this case study you will see:
- Which are the most important impacts (material issues) Stantec has identified;
- How Stantec proceeded with stakeholder engagement, and
- What actions were taken by Stantec to promote employee development
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What are the material issues the company has identified?
In its 2017 Sustainability Report Stantec identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, energy use, environmental compliance, occupational health and safety, non-discrimination, anti-corruption, customer privacy. Among these, promoting employee development stands out as a key material issue for Stantec.
Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:
Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.
Key stakeholder groups Stantec engages with:
| Stakeholder Group | Method of engagement |
| Employees
| · Employee engagement surveys · Focus groups · One-on-one meetings · Integrity Hotline (third party) · Post-acquisition surveys · Diversity and Inclusion councils · Career Development Performance Reviews · Employee Resource Groups |
| Clients
| · Regular meetings with account managers · Ad-hoc meetings and calls with account and project managers and senior leaders · Brown-bag get-togethers to share lessons learned and best practices · Client surveys, questionnaires, and requests for proposals · Debriefs and bidder conferences for proposed projects · Informal discussions at industry and professional association events · Joint participation on technical committees |
| Investors
| · Annual General Meetings · Earnings conference calls · Investor conference presentations · Ad-hoc meetings and calls with Investor Relations and Finance teams · Investor disclosure requests · Industry research and publications · Informal discussions at industry and professional association events |
| Communities | · Stantec in the Community Week (across the Company) · Locally driven engagement initiatives (varies by region and locale) |
| Subcontractors and business partners | · Subcontractor prequalifications · Joint project work · Ad-hoc meetings with project managers and senior leaders |
| Vendors | · Contract negotiations · Quarterly business reviews · Ad-hoc meetings with Procurement team |
| Regulators | · Interactions during project work · Informal discussions at industry and professional association events · Joint participation on technical committees |
| Industry
| · Informal discussions at industry and professional association events · Joint participation on technical committees |
How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues
To identify and prioritise material topics Stantec used various tools and processes to engage with key stakeholders, asking them to identify the sustainability topics that mattered most to them.
What actions were taken by Stantec to promote employee development?
In its 2017 Sustainability Report Stantec reports that it took the following actions for promoting employee development:
- Offering learning opportunities
- Stantec provides both internal (e.g. leadership development, project management, commercial acumen) and external training (e.g. job-specific skills, technical skills development, graduate programmes, conferences), also providing opportunities for employees to be coached or mentored. Additionally, Stantec offers knowledge communities and experiential learning like new initiatives, challenging work, and stretch assignments. Virtual learning options give employees flexibility when scheduling learning opportunities and minimise Stantec’s carbon footprint, by reducing business travel. Stantec’s Learning and Development team designs courses and workshops and delivers them to its global workforce. Accredited as an IACET (International Association for Continuing Education and Training) provider, Stantec offers high-quality instructor-led learning opportunities that follow industry-recognised instructional design principles. Content is measurable and based on learning outcomes and objectives, enabling Stantec to provide professional development hours or CEUs (continuing education units) to support employees’ professional licensing requirements. In 2017, Stantec provided integration-focused learning opportunities for nearly 1,400 Canada and US employees from recently acquired companies as well as leadership, technical, and business skills learning programmes in its Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America geographies.
- Providing mentoring
- Stantec believes in learning through exposure and has a mentor-protégé framework that connects mentors with employees at various stages in their development. The mentor-protégé relationship is designed to meet the protégé’s personal and professional needs, with the framework providing best practices, advice, and hands-on worksheets for the mentor and protégé to build a relationship that meets their individual goals.
- Encouraging employee participation in professional associations
- Stantec encourages employee participation in professional and technical associations and societies. Employees are encouraged to obtain their professional registrations, as soon as they are eligible. Financial assistance is often provided by Stantec for memberships and required exams and in many geographies, employees seeking degrees in relevant fields of study can get their tuition reimbursed.
- Providing performance feedback
- Stantec’s annual multidimensional performance appraisals help employees evaluate successes of the previous year and set clearly defined goals and objectives for the coming year. Through assessments, reviews, and coaching from supervisors, employees measure achievements, review their contributions, identify career development and training opportunities, and establish strategic performance objectives.
Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?
The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:
1) Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs
Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs corresponds to:
- Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
- Business theme: Employee training and education
Disclosure 404-3 Percentage of employees receiving regular performance and career development reviews corresponds to:
- Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Business theme: Gender equality
- Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
- Business theme: Employee training and education
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References:
1) This case study is based on published information by Stantec, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:
http://database.globalreporting.org/
2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/
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