SATAU, A FAMILY-OWNED DISTRIBUTION COMPANY FOSTERING A HAPPY AND PRODUCTIVE ENVIRONMENT!
The shortage of labor has pressured many companies to find creative ways to retain their employees and to attract new ones to their employer brand.
When we visited Satau last month, we learned a lot about some of the momentous changes they implemented to have a better and more attractive environment for their employees, and we were so excited when they agreed to write this blog post with us!
A little about Satau:
Founded in 1981, Satau is a family-owned distribution company based out of Montreal that focuses on the independent health food sector. The organization is made up of 50 employees with the staff split between the warehouse and administration. Primarily focused on the Quebec market, the company is currently working on their growth and expansion strategy into Ontario.
Culture is a primary focus for leadership:
Founded by an immigrant, Renato Perpignani, is as passionate about people as he is about the products that they sell.
The leadership team works tirelessly to continue to foster a workplace culture where the company’s core values of respect, integrity, generosity, unity, and engagement, are all integrated into every action that they take.
Proud of its diversity:
Many companies are working on embodying diversity and inclusion in their environment and Satau has found many ways to celebrate their employees' backgrounds and cultures:
Recognizing differences through regular events and potlucks, encouraging employees to share their cultural customs and foods.
Leadership also takes personal interest in people's backgrounds to learn more about their people! The HR director, Sarah Weanus, tries to do that by learning a few words in each person’s mother tongue to greet them. For example, they have quite a few Ski Lankans and South Indians who speak Tamil. She now knows how to say, “thank you” and “hello” in Tamil and the employees love it!
The leadership at Satau always ensures everyone feels welcome and included and is supportive of and open to the LGBTQIA2+ community. Having leaders who are openly a part of this community has truly helped foster that openness.
Employee feedback as a driving force:
Satau administers an employee survey at least twice a year to gather feedback and progress on initiatives.
Satau also ensures to have a strong, tracked and monitored onboarding and integration plan which ensures to follow-up with the new hires 90 days following their start date, allowing them to adjust as needed.
Investments in people and culture activities, initiatives, and programs:
Through observations and metrics, many changes needed to be brought to the environment to help foster a culture that embodies the companies' values and employee satisfaction:
A new employee recognition program, and gala to recognize the top employees who embody the company’s core values,
Putting a social committee into place that runs ongoing initiatives and activities, bringing team building and fun to the environment!
From a total rewards perspective:
Adjusting the salary structures within their warehousing environment, and introducing a performance-based incentive program, (more below!)
Finding ways to save our employees money, such as implementing a discount platform named Perkopolis.
Implementing an employee evaluation system that is directly tied to each individual remuneration.
Changing the group benefits provider and adding optional dental insurance coverage,
Leadership training: encouraging leaders to foster a positive high-performing culture where feedback is regularly given and received. All are united to work towards higher employee satisfaction.
A productivity-based incentive program for the hourly workforce!
Like many other organizations, Satau offers the traditional bonuses and commissions to their sales teams as well as other bonuses tied to the financial performance of the organization on a yearly basis.
Furthermore, they have recently implemented a productivity-based incentive program for their hourly workforce where the primary goal is to enable individuals to strive towards hitting their productivity objectives through positive reinforcement! Two important things to note about this program:
It is easy to calculate the bonus the individual should receive
It is paid on a bi-weekly basis!
It is evident that all the efforts the Satau leadership has put into their people and culture initiatives are all fostering a healthy, productive, and happy workforce! Employees feel like they are heard and cared for, having a sense of purpose, and belonging to the workplace family they have created.
The leadership team will continue to evolve the initiatives and programs they have implemented by continuing to do what they have done so far: listening to their employees!
For more information on Satau: Click here.
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