Canada’s best small business employer

Tevaarticle
I recently wrote a profile of Teva Neuroscience Canada, a pharmaceutical company located in Montreal that was named the best small company to work for, according to a survey conducted by Queen's Centre for Business Venturing and Hewitt Associates. The story is on The Globe And Mail's website here, and the text is below.

How one firm saw the light on hiring

Teva Neuroscience nurtures a happy and productive work force by sticking to the HR basics and making sure employees strike a chord with its culture, writes CRAIG SILVERMAN

Special to The Globe and Mail

MONTREAL
-- The offices of Teva Neuroscience Canada are almost more remarkable
for what they don't have: You won't find slick furniture, a gourmet
kitchen or foosball table -- the bells and whistles that some companies
have come to believe are essential to employee satisfaction and
productivity.

Rather, people like to work there because they believe they belong
there -- and they're rewarded for their loyalty and commitment.

"Five years ago, I was reading Fast Company [magazine], and they
talked about having chefs to make lunch and playing basketball during
the day," Teva Canada general manager Jon Congleton says in an
interview at the pharmaceutical company's Montreal office. "That's the
fluff -- not the substance that can feed people long-term and sustain a
career."

"We focus on three clarities," he continues. "Clarity of structure:
Where do I fit in with this company? Clarity of direction: Where am I
going? And clarity of measurement: How do I know I did a good job?

"Maybe it's not as sexy as a lot of other things, but it is sustaining and it feels more real, and I think people value that."

Largely because of this fundamental approach to human resources, and
the way the company implements it, Teva has been selected as this
year's best small company to work for, based on a survey conducted by
Queen's Centre for Business Venturing and Hewitt Associates. It beat
out about 120 small companies for the honour.

The 62-employee company borders on obsessive when it comes to living
its values. It strives to hire the right people, keep staff
well-informed, gather feedback from them and ensure that employees know
how they fit in with the organization, Mr. Congleton says.

Teva stands out because it creates the activities, programs and
environment that make those goals a reality for all employees. And it
acknowledges their contributions with 18 different awards and other
forms of recognition, such as reward trips for meeting corporate
objectives, trophies and cash bonuses.

Read more

February 4, 2007 | Filed Under Feature articles, Newspaper articles, The Globe And Mail | Comments Off