BCBusiness

8 BCBusiness december 2015 Portrait: adam blasberg British Columbians have a complicated relationship with their province. The list of complaints usually leads with the cost of liv- ing and the corollary impact of below-average incomes and limited job prospects. Some of us don't really care for the grey blanket that descends on the Left Coast for six months of the year, while others lament the lack of high culture or winning sports teams. The list of things we love, however… well, that could go on for a few pages. The glorious summers. The world-beating sushi. The moun- tains, ocean, clean air and verdant forests. The bounty of outdoorsy activities and that elusive work/life balance. And so, while we grumble about how nobody can a•ord to live here, and Vancouver isn't as cool as New York, and the rain (the rain, the rain…)—here we are, year after year, in ever-increasing numbers. We pay a premium to live in this great prov- ince, and it's one of the de†ning aspects of the B.C. workforce. We know this anecdotally but also from a survey we conducted with Ipsos this fall ("The B.C. Advantage," p.35). The survey of 874 Canadians, including 302 British Columbians, shows that B.C. residents are more likely to oppose relocation for employ- ment opportunities—and signi†cantly more likely than other Canadians to report: "I would never move away from my province no matter what I might get paid elsewhere." Grey skies and million-dollar crack shacks be damned: we just won't pull up roots. This poses a problem for HR profes- sionals, as Jessica Barrett explains in her accompanying feature "Human Nature" (p.27). Across Canada, the old carrot of pay and bene†ts isn't the draw it was—and in B.C., it's signi†cantly less important, as people here seem quite happy to stay put. So how does one attract and retain an engaged workforce? That's the question every progressive company—from blue-collar employers like Vernon's Kal Tire to tech darlings like Vancouver's Unbounce—is trying to address, in surprisingly similar ways. A †nal note: a lot of the assumptions about the so-called "B.C. Advantage" are based on the behaviours of the dominant Boomer generation and Generation X. According to Rock Lefebvre of the Human Resources Man- agement Association, the desire to stay put may not hold for B.C.'s increasingly in¢uen- tial Millennials. "If you're in your 50s, you're anchored. You've got a home that you prob- ably got for a very good price." Most Millenni- als, by contrast, don't have real estate and are starting families later; they're not anchored, and are much more open to testing the global market. "They're nimble, they're more career- savvy than the cohort before them—and I think that creates a perfect storm." C O N T R I B U T O R S Matt O'Grady, Editor-in-Chief mogrady@canadawide.com / @bCbusiness Victoria-based writer Joe Wiebe had his aha moment on a 2008 tour of Napa: the wine writers said, "You need to do what we do, only about beer." This month, the author of Craft Beer Revolution: The Insider's Guide to B.C. Breweries and co-founder of Victoria Beer Week interviews craft brewery founder Matt Phillips ("Captain Phillips, " p.14). In the malting facility, one room was 72 degrees Celsius. "We lasted about 30 seconds in there." Thirsty work indeed. After a stint in Toronto, illustrator Kenny Park is happy to be back in B.C. and working on his first cover story ("The Future of Work, " p.27). It will likely not be his last–he just recently added illustration to his career as a storyboard artist yet has landed a full page in the Washington Post. Illustration "stretches me as an artist, " he says. He likes exploring ideas he would never get the chance to in animation–like surfing in Tofino. A Price on Paradise editor's desk IN JANUARY Back by popular demand, we rank the best cities in B.C. for work. Who's on top this year?

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