Check here for profiles of Social Purchasing Portal partner businesses.

• Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids Society - Choosing Good Goods
• EthniCity Catering - Diversity as an Ingredient
• KidScenes (JanPat Management) - Caring Culture
• Calgary Winter Club - Finding the Right Balance
• Grand & Toy - Retaining Fun
• Humphries Printing - A Life's Work in Print

Brown Bagging It

Choosing Good Goods
March 2008

This month we introduce profiles of social purchasers, in addition to the profiles of the socially responsible employers we've been featuring so far. Our first social purchaser profile is Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids Society. Answers are provided by Bob McInnis (Executive Director).

1. What does social purchasing mean to you?
Social purchasing is choosing goods based on more than immediate low cost. Consideration is given to environmental and social costs including labour conditions, materials and waste, and product lifecycle. It is also important that social purchasing be economic. We need a reasonable balance between increased financial costs and social impacts. Social purchasing is about making informed, thoughtful decisions.

2. What value does it have for your organization? Why do you do it?
As a nonprofit, we are constantly under pressure to reduce operating costs and stretch resources as far as possible. Usually this means that we attempt to negotiate the best deal based on price but recently we have been examining how those actions may be contributing to demand for our services. If an employee of one of our suppliers is not earning a living wage and is forced to access social services, we will likely be called to provide nutrition at some point. Since we are trying to build solutions not an empire, this seems counterproductive.

3. Does social purchasing have any financial benefit, or is it mostly a Ôgood thingÕ to do?
It is a good thing but we need to remember that shopping is not the solution to social injustice, neither is it the cause. Systemic injustice serves to make rich people richer and poor people poorer. If social purchasing serves to change our economic constructs and add balance to the distribution of resources then it would be a very good thing.

4. How could another organization start purchasing socially?
Start small. Don`t go looking for suppliers like you were catalogue shopping because that would likely foster poor decisions. Take your time. Use the existing research and services like SPP and ask lots of questions. Maybe begin with some stationary and supplies and evaluate the results from social, economic, and practical criteria.

5. Describe any other activities that your organization engages in, that would be considered socially responsible or sustainable.
BB4CK attempts to encourage community-based solutions to the issue of child hunger. "If your brother`s child was hungry, what would you do?". Durable solutions can come in small scale actions. We don't believe that the government has a place in solving the issue of child hunger other than to create an environment that supports individual and community engagement.

EthniCity Catering

Diversity as an Ingredient
February 2008

Asmiei has been working at EthniCity Catering for one and a half years now and is grateful she has found a place to work that welcomes her background and interests. Being born in Iraq and having worked in Iran, Asmiei found employers in Calgary to see her lack of English proficiency as a barrier that they rather not deal with. Fortunately for her, EthniCity Catering takes advantage in making each employees backgrounds their specialty. Working for EthniCity has not only given Asmiei a place to put her skills to use, but she gets to meet women and men from a number of other countries, learn how to cook food from those countries and help support her family financially. One of her goals when they moved to Canada 7 years ago was to own a home, which along with her husband, they were able to do just last year.

With one of her dreams taken care of, Asmiei is devoted to ensuring other dreams can happen too. She is an optimist, and as I chatted with her, I could see her eyes wandering as if dreaming aloud. She hopes her two young children can have a bright future here in Canada, and is proud she can support them as they grow up. She also wishes to someday go back home to visit, but understands that the current war makes it too dangerous to go home and visit her mother. Visibly torn that on one side, her children are safe and can lead a productive life in Canada, while on the other side, her mother is in Iraq where safety is a daily concern. Her work at EthniCity gives her something she can contribute towards, both for the customers who enjoy their food and for her family who is working at making life good.

"I feel happy when I work" she says as she recalls all the people who work with her. "I get to see different people, from Lebanon to Egypt." It's a diverse staff, but a cozy culture. As we wrap up the interview, Linh Bui, one of the program coordinators, hugs each of the staff as she enters. Working out of a basement kitchen underneath a church, I can see their food is prepared with a delicate touch. They prepare food each morning for their daily orders, between 3 and 4 times a week. Buying from EthniCity Catering would mean their staff would be able to fill their work week. Little else stands in their way.

KidScenes (JanPat Management)

Caring Culture
January 2008

Linda Prokopchuk has never worked for a company that cares about its clients and commits to its values as much as JanPat Management - who runs KidScenes. She started with JanPat as a part-time administrator and has now moved into a full-time position, doing both the books and program management. "There's a caring culture", says Linda "and we honour our values here". The warmth and sincerity is evident in this small business, as I was greeted by a friendly dog when I entered their office, and was offered tea or coffee as I saw their plaque of values posted at the front entrance. Fairness, honesty, respect, responsibility, caring and trust make up the values that help guide the contracted caregivers at JanPat when they work with kids.

"Children are a joy", extolls Linda as she describes what the working culture is like. "Anytime we make a decision, we base it on our values." They have strong policies and procedures, especially since they work with young children, which helps them go back to their principles if issues arise. "Other companies might bend their rules or are wishy-washy", when asked about why JanPat is able to stay committed to a values-based company, "and our owner is also our manager who insists on our committing to our guiding principles".

"This is the first time in my lifetime where the guiding principles are actually maintained." A smaller staff of excellent people are key ingredients in ensuring those values and ethics are honoured. As being in the business of caring for children, having a caring culture at work makes their job easy.

Calgary Winter Club

Finding the Right Balance
December 2007

Chantelle Pinder, Human Resources manager, believes the employees at the Calgary Winter Club value the fact that the Club tries to support a work/life balance. Rachel Bauer, a Member Services Shift Supervisor, can atest. She has found working, exercising and socializing a perfect fit at the Club, while balancing that with her school studies at the University of Lethbridge - Calgary campus. Work is much like a second home for Rachel, she uses the facilities to workout and play squash and converses with familiar faces on a daily basis as they come and go. "There's lots of interaction with members... It's a really relaxed atmosphere," says Rachel.

While there are over 400 employees at the Club, and with an attitude of "let's work to live", Chantelle focuses on making work better so they can live better. There's an employee website and newsletter to give people information about a variety of issues related to work and a Low-Down section for Life Outside of Work. Smaller things that make a difference include making available a directory of scholarship opportunities for many of the students who work at the Club, as well as recognizing employee 5-year interval milestones, which they regularly have 20-30 employees celebrating that achievement each year.

The Calgary Winter Club also supports Chantelle in her interests in advocating for better HR practices, as she chairs a Professional Development group of HR professionals in the city and is actively involved in a number of other initiatives including Vibrant Communities Calgary.

Grand & Toy

Retaining Fun
November 2007

Miranda Shilson has worked for Grand & Toy for 7 years, started as an order filler, worked her way through the warehouse and now is a manager's assistant working on various key accounts including the City of Calgary. Through all this time, one of the main reasons she has continued to work at Grand & Toy is the comfortable and fun environment of her office. "You can joke around while working... the management team join in the fun too, they're very laidback." In fact, a friendly environment has been found to be one of the leading reasons why employees choose to stay instead of leave. 37% of employees who say their relationship with management is poor are actively seeking work elsewhere.*

With around 200 employees in the Calgary region, communication between employees is important. "Supervisors are always around and are easy to go to," says Miranda. Her office observations were also reflected from head office in Ontario, where Rhonda Paris who recruits and trains staff in Grand & Toy listed flexible, approachable and caring management with fun and laughter in the office place as key strategies for employee retention. In Calgary, with a hot job market, excelling in these intangibles are invaluable for workplace culture and ultimately employee retention.

Miranda's attraction to working here isn't isolated. Her mother has worked for Grand & Toy for 26 years, and Miranda's husband starts work in the IT department soon as well.

Grand & Toy's efforts to branch out and recruit from a more diverse population base aren't only attracting family members. They have recently begun an Employment Equity Committee, focused on recruiting those with a disability or who come from minority groups. With a growing gap between the rich and working poor in Calgary, efforts like this Committee are commendable and highly needed in order to ensure all Calgarians have sustainable employment opportunities.

*"Why Employees Walk: 2005 Retention Initiatives Report", Network World, 2005.

Humphries Printing

A Life's Work in Print
October 2007

When Tim Epton started working at Humphries Printing 50 years ago, he was 17 and was casually told to check out this print shop that had an opening. Little did he know, 5 decades later, his fingerprints are all over this family-business. "You're not just a number in a small shop. Go to a big shop, if they're busy and you don't work overtime, they'll replace you." Not so at Humphries. In fact, Tim is so valued, that even the press machine that he has worked on over the years will have to retire when he retires. "No one else is allowed to work that machine. They've got one of those at Heritage Park," says Mike Humphries, the current owner. Tim has done it all at Humphries, worked up front in sales, and built many of the shelves that hold the inventory now in the back. His lifetime's worth of work is something that is rare in today's labour market, but given the right workplace conditions and a progressively minded business practice, this is an example of how it can happen.

Humphries Printing ensures they provide a flexible schedule catered to the lives of its employees. In fact, it was the employees who asked to come to work earlier in the day in order to get Friday afternoons off. They can also decide to leave early if their work was done for the day, only to make up for it at another time when they got busier. This type of flexibility is welcome in a fast-paced environment where machines are constantly catching up with client needs.

Thankfully, you won't feel the frenetic nature of the printing business here, as a tour through their warehouse reminds me of a quaint neighbourhood where at any stop, there's a cheerful face greeting you and offering to shake your hand. The environment is relaxed and upbeat. You can sense the productivity but are not concerned that your presence there is infringing on their ability to work well. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You realize that the people in this warehouse are proud of what they do and welcome the opportunity to chat with you.

The standards of the working environment at Humphries are commendable. Standards are set with the needs of the employees in mind and are done so in way that even the management offered to have their employees join a union. This type of environment inspires one to think that if only more businesses followed suit, we would have more people willing and wanting to work a lifetime in one place.