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APRIL 2021 BCBUSINESS 29 W hen Ryan Tessier started at Vancouver-based workforce analytics firm Visier two years ago, he acknowledges, "we did a lot of what everyone else was doing" when it came to culture. That meant yoga classes, running groups and beer on tap, plus a slew of well- ness programs for people who were physi- cally in the office. Everything changed with the COVID-19 pandemic, which pushed the company to look at how it treated mental health for its 400 employees. "One of the things that got put into place quickly was support groups," says Tessier, who serves as Visier's director of marketing communications, adding that it started covering mental health needs and therapy in addition to regular wellness events and challenges, group yoga, meditation classes and book clubs that were delivered digitally. Visier has moved operations online Workplace Wellness W I N N E R Visier THEBUSINESSOF GO OD Then there's the company's allied work. AndHumanity is building a network of copywriters, designers and fellow creatives from the BIPOC and other marginalized communities–and making them available to clients. As Tsang explains, it's about "recruiting people from lived experience to work on the project so that we're not speak- ing on their behalf." R U N N E R - U P Mimik Technology Having escaped persecution in her native Iran at age 17–"Argo-style, but not as dramatic," she says–Fay Arjomandi lived in dozens of countries before moving to Canada. Life as a refugee changed her, explains the founder, president and CEO of soft- ware maker Mimik. "The experience humbles you, and the struggles build you up so that you can face any chal- lenges," Arjomandi says. "It turns you into a solution-oriented person." An electrical engineer, Arjomandi launched what is now called Mimik in 2009, after co-founding two other tech startups. Her Vancouver company's core product turns any computing device into a cloud server for use by app developers. Last year, Mimik signed Amazon Web Services and International Business Machines Corp. ( IBM) as channel partners. Of Mimik's 25 staff and five consultants, 90 percent are people of colour, as are four of its five board members, one of whom is a former refugee. Including the founder, three of five senior executives are women of colour, two of them ex-refugees. "It was natural for me to look for equal opportunity among men and women," explains Arjomandi, who compares her leadership style to that of a mother taking care of the household. "It's very family-oriented, but at the same time, we're mission- driven," she says of the Mimik team. "We have zero tolerance for politics." Arjomandi wants to see gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other individual traits become irrelevant in work and business. "It's about a com- mon culture, being motivated, being honest, having potential to grow." • indefinitely and, in the wake of COVID, given each staff member $1,000 to set up their home work environment by purchasing any- thing from a standing desk to an espresso machine. Employees' monthly internet and phone expenses are now covered, and everyone has an annual subscription to digi- tal mindfulness program Whil. With help from employee surveys and pulse checks, Tessier says, Visier has "man- aged to maintain health and wellness on par to what we were doing previously." The com- pany now does biweekly all-hands meetings (they used to be monthly) and has "more communication as a team," he adds. Though Visier is a startup that was founded in 2010, Tessier—who previously worked at local social media management firm Hootsuite—doesn't feel the company has that vibe. "It's funny; when you talk about a tech company, you think about a startup going from an early period of growth into a more foundational enterprise com- pany," he says of Visier, whose clients range from auto parts giant Bridges- tone to the City of Edmonton. "The thing I've noticed here is they started with that enter- prise mindset; they were always very foundationally aware of what they wanted to be as a com- pany. And from a change man- agement perspective, they've done a very good job of moving things along." R U N N E R - U P Platinum Pro-Claim Restoration Our Community Involvement champ (p.24), the restoration company also impressed the judges here. The winner of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce's 2019 award for Outstanding Workplace faced a challenge when, as for many others, COVID-19 came calling and slowed down business. "People staying home meant there were less claims," says Platinum WORLD VIEW Living as a refugee shaped Mimik CEO Fay Arjomandi COURTESY OF MIMIK TECHNOLOGY