Canada's Top Employers for Young People (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 16
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KEYERA
CANADA’S TOP EMPLOYERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (2026)
p Calgary-based Keyera Corp. runs Gen Z workshops for summer students, co-op and new grad hires to help new recruits adjust to working life, which include a session
titled “Working in a Corporate Office 101.”
The Softer Side
Employers are helping their Gen Z hires get accustomed to organizational life
A
s a member of Generation Z,
Erica Ruud has lived a pretty
virtual life for a long time.
But things got really virtual
in 2020 when COVID-19
arrived and her schooling and relationships all went online. “The pandemic
accelerated things to such a greater
extent,” she says, “and I think it really
changed our habits and ways of thinking
in a way that’s different than any of the
generations before us. Because of that, we
did miss out on a lot of the traditional
opportunities for soft-skills building. I
think it led us to come into the workforce a
bit unprepared for working
intergenerationally.”
Ruud, who works as a health and
wellness analyst at Keyera Corp., an
energy midstream company in Calgary,
and as a co-lead for Keyera’s Young
Professionals employee resource group,
has seen first-hand the impact of providing soft-skills training and career support
for Gen Z. For its summer students, co-ops
and new grad hires, Keyera runs workshops that help these recruits adjust to life
in a new and often very unfamiliar
environment, including a session titled
“Working in a Corporate Office 101.”
Other winners of Canada’s Top Employers
for Young People (2026), such as ArcelorMittal Dofasco and PSB BOISJOLI, have
programs along similar lines. “Employers
are taking the time to facilitate formal
sessions that focus specifically on soft
skills to address gaps that linger from early
development in virtual environments,”
says Cypress Weston, assistant editor at
Mediacorp Canada. “And the benefit for
young people in this situation is that those
are skills that they can carry with them for
the rest of their life – it strengthens their
employability.”
Amanda Ross, general manager of
human resources at Keyera, agrees. She
says that in instituting early talent
programs after the pandemic, especially
once the company moved to a four-day
in-office mode, “we received feedback that
early talent needed more support in
onboarding to really get them up to speed
and confident in their roles.”
In the workshops, she says, “there was a
focus on professionalism, self-awareness
and building confidence in those office
interactions, how to show up with a
positive attitude, and how to develop
strong communication skills. They’re
getting communicated 10 different ways to
Sunday nowadays – you’ve got Teams,
e-mails, text messages, meetings, virtual,
in-person, phone calls -- so ensuring that
Gen Z can understand what is being asked
and how to respond is essential to their
success.” Dealing with feedback was
another area, though she notes that many
young people embrace feedback.
Ruud says that both formal and
informal soft-skills sessions have been
well-attended at Keyera. “I think it goes to
show that people are reaching out for
support, and they do really appreciate it
when it’s there.”
– Berton Woodward
