Workplace inclusiveness nets award for Northwestel

Carmen Kootoo, who has worked for Northwestel for 17 years, said she has always found the company to be inclusive and supportive. Kootoo started out in the company’s call centre and now works as an account manager in Iqaluit. (DEAN MORRISON)

For the second year in a row, Northwestel, Nunavut’s primary telecommunications provider, has been named one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers for 2012, winning a competition, called “Canada’s Top 100 Employers.”

Northwestel received that recognition for attracting a diverse range of people into its workforce and encouraging inclusiveness.

“My supervisors and the other leaders within the company have really engaged and encouraged me to take opportunities and grow as an employee,” said Carmen Kootoo, a sales account manager, who started working for Northwestel in its Iqaluit call centre 17 years ago.

“I don’t feel that I have been treated any differently from a non-aboriginal or anyone who works for the company.”

Kootoo said she’s proud of the efforts that the company takes to recruit Inuit and aboriginal employees.

“Northwestel feels like a family and I have never felt unwelcome or uncomfortable working here,” she said.

Aboriginal people currently make up 11 per cent of the company’s workforce.

But, that’s not enough.

Lee Vincent, assistant vice-president of human resources at Northwestel, said the company wants to see even more positions filled by aboriginal people.

Northwestel wants to improve its communication with its Inuit customers in Inuktitut, she said: corporate advertising, direct communications and the Nunavut telephone directory are already available in English and Inuktitut.

“We are always looking at ways we can be more effective in communicating with our customers and our partners,” Vincent said.

Winning the competition wasn’t easy: the Canada’s Top 100 Employers competition is overseen by an academic advisory board whose members are drawn from universities across Canada and have each written or edited a major human resources textbook in Canada.

The panel members evaluate applications from across Canada, identifying companies which lead their industries by offering “exceptional” workplaces for their employees.

“It has been an evolutionary process and we have learned what works and what we need to change and do differently,” Vincent said. “The company is striving to be more reflective of the communities they serve and this means employing more aboriginal people from the communities they operate in.”