With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1351663
COURTESY OF UNBOUNCE APRIL 2021 BCBUSINESS 31 Pro-Claim founder and CEO Tony Scott. "We do a lot of work downtown in apartment buildings, and these days those people are all home, noticing floods right away and taking more and more care of these things." Platinum didn't lay off staff or cut their pay, even though it estimates that the local restoration industry saw monthly revenue plunge 20 percent on average. "We recognized that the team was going to worry about jobs—there were lot of people getting laid off, everyone knew business was slower," Scott maintains. "The first thing was to make sure everybody felt secure in that they would get the same amount of money at the same time." Platinum has also continued its usual slate of programs–like in-house yoga and CrossFit, 25-percent match- ing of retirement savings and unlimited free mental health counselling–the best it can during the pandemic, with some employees still coming into the office and others working from home. "We take care of our team and their health," Scott says. R U N N E R - U P Very Polite Agency Vancouver communications firm Very Polite was launched in 2017 by four former employees of clothier Kit + Ace, with the understanding that the quartet would play key roles in each project. "No matter how large the team gets, we're here to work along- side them," says co-founder Andrea Mestrovic. "It was a huge factor in us starting it, and it's very exciting for us." It also means that the founders get involved in the day-to-day life of the company, which has six other staff–and that those employees are front-of-mind. "Our values are pretty simple," Mestrovic says. "No compro- mises, creative output and creating a culture that enables our people to do their best work." That might mean excursions to the Vancouver Art Gallery, book and wine club meetings or, you know, a trip to Japan. "We do these themes for every year, and with that comes a field trip," C losing its ow n gender pay gap was just t he star t for Unbounce. The Vancouver- based tech company is also challeng- ing other businesses to pay women as much as men—and helping them make that a reality. It all began three years ago, when Unbounce—a landing page platform that marketers use to convert leads on l i ne —a n a ly zed compen s at ion across the business. "We unfortu- nately did find a couple of instances of a pay gap where some women were not being paid the same as men," says Leslie Collin, vice-president of people and culture. Unbounce was far from alone. On average in this country, women still earn 92 cents for every dollar a man makes, Statis- tics Canada reports. For female members of racialized groups, those with disabilities and others who face discrimination, the disparity is much bigger. The pandemic has made things even worse, given that women are more likely to work in service industries and to be primary caregivers. After fixing its wage inequity, Unbounce realized that many companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, might lack the resources to follow suit. Collin came up with a plan to change that. "We wanted to make it easier for them to say yes," she Mestrovic explains. "The last one, in 2019, was emoji, so we took team to Tokyo, the birthplace of the emoji. It immersed the team in a very different culture, explored stuff from art to architecture. Everyone had a certain brand case study to complete." Last year was supposed to bring a journey to Rome around the theme of etiquette. For obvious reasons, that didn't happen, but the folks at Very Polite, whose local clients include toothbrush startup Brüush and real estate developer Westbank Corp., hope that 2021 and subse- quent years will be more travel-friendly. "It's just one way we encourage and ensure our team is exposed to arts and culture and continually gets inspired," Mestrovic says. H O N O U R A B L E M E N T I O N S East Side Games The Vancouver video game developer, winner of our Indigenous Prosperity award in 2020, has strongly emphasized mental and physical health while growing from a 12- person startup to 130 or so staff. That includes home office, internet and phone benefits, extended health and dental coverage, and high- intensity interval training (if wanted, of course). East Side Games also offers biannual parties, paid career days (plus a $1,000 career develop- ment budget) and industry-leading parental leave. Thunderbird Entertainment With more than 1,000 employees in Canada and the U.S., Vancouver- based content studio Thunderbird– also our Diversity and Inclusion winner (p.27)–has its work cut out to take care of so many team members. COVID only amplified that pressure. So when the virus hit, CEO Jennifer Twiner McCarron launched extra efforts to ensure the overall well-being of all staff, including mental health services for them and their families. The producer of animated shows, scripted TV series and documentaries also quickly adapted its internal mentoring program to support employees at every level. It began hosting regular town halls, too, giving staff transparent updates and letting them share their passion projects. In some cases, Thunderbird championed those endeavours inside the business and beyond. • Thought Leadership W I N N E R Unbounce THEBUSINESSOF GO OD EQUAL SHOT Unbounce VP Leslie Collin envisioned Pay Up for Progress