Alberta's Top Employers (2025) Magazine - Flipbook - Page 68
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ALBERTA’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2025)
Strathcona County really listens to its employees
“I
’ve loved all the
places where I’ve
worked, but there
are some really special things about the
culture here,” says Darrell Reid,
chief commissioner of Strathcona
County, the mixed urban/rural
municipality of 103,000 just east
of Edmonton. “Our organization
is very welcoming and friendly.
Strathcona County is a place
where our corporate values of
integrity, respect, safety, fairness
and co-operation drive the work
our staff is doing.”
Those values have made the
municipality, which provides
everything from road maintenance
and waste management to emergency services, very attuned to the
voices of its over 2,000 employees,
Reid notes. That has resulted in
the creation of – among other
things – its People Plan.
“The People Plan Stewardship
Committee is a group of
employees representing all our
diverse departments and from all
different levels on the org chart,”
he explains, “and they are doing
a great job of bringing back ideas
from front-line staff of what the
organization could do to make
ours an ideal workplace.”
One event that emerged from
the People Plan was an internal
career day last fall in which all of
the county’s departments and its
leadership team provided information on the careers and paths
available across the organization.
“Hundreds of our staff attended
that event,” says Reid, “and it’s
certainly something we would
look at doing again in the future.”
For Reid, the People Plan is one
of the reasons for the high levels
of staff engagement at Strathcona
County. “When I arrived here four
and a half years ago, our scores
were really high compared to most
municipal organizations across
this country and North America.
But here, really high wasn’t good
enough. We’ve actually increased
our staff engagement by doubledigit numbers over the past
couple of years.” Since the People
Plan launched, overall employee
engagement has increased by 12
per cent.
Last June, the People Plan was
recognized by the Canadian
Association of Municipal
Administrators (CAMA), which
gave Strathcona County its
Municipal Inspiring Workplace
Award in the over 100,000 population category (the county also
won the CAMA’s Environmental
Leadership and Sustainability
Award for its reuse program, the
HodgePodge Lodge).
Reid also cites the county’s
“robust professional development,” which includes in-house
programs that employees can take
during their work schedules, as
well as studies towards college
and leadership certificates or
university degrees.
Our organization is very
welcoming and friendly.
Strathcona County is a
place where our corporate
values of integrity, respect,
safety, fairness and cooperation drive the work
our staff is doing.
— Darrell Reid
Chief Commissioner
Strathcona County supports the mental health and well-being of its employees through workshops, fitness
classes and peer support programs.
Matthew Chaffee, Strathcona’s
division chief of planning and
training in the county’s integrated
fire department (each firefighter
is also trained as a paramedic),
has benefited from such training
during his more than 16 years with
the municipality. He started out as
a probationary firefighter, moving
up to training lieutenant and to
his current role in 2023.
“The county has all these
incredible educational supports
for staff to start working on professional development, and a lot
of people like me have been able
to take advantage of that so they’re
ready to move into managerial
roles, even in other departments,
or executive roles,” he says.
Chaffee has studied for various
