Talking Points for James Cherry, President & CEO Aéroports de Montréal
Employer Branding Panel Discussion
ACI World HR Forum
Calgary, September 9, 2012
“How to become an Employer of Choice”
Introduction
 This panel comes at an appropriate time as I believe many
airports want to become an Employer of Choice.
 Aéroports de Montréal, the airport authority for MontréalTrudeau and Montréal-Mirabel airports, has about 650
employees and is committed to becoming an Employer of
Choice.
 Being an Employer of Choice has many advantages, not the
least of which is increasing your chances of attracting and
retaining the best talent.
 It enhances your competitiveness and, simply speaking,
makes great business sense.
Page 1 sur 12
 Becoming an Employer of Choice is more critical than ever
in view of today’s workforce issues that are affecting all
employers. These include:
- An aging population
- Pending retirement of “baby boomers”
- Skills shortages and scarcity of labour
- Youth mobility
- New social values (vs. work, family, personal
development, etc.)
 As employers, we can’t do much about these broad
economic or labour market trends.
 But we can do something about the way we respond to
these issues.
 We can adapt our HR practices to better attract, retain and
motivate our employees.
Page 2 sur 12
 In other words, take action to become an “Employer of
Choice.”
What makes an Employer of Choice?
 There are several definitions of “Employer of Choice”.
Let me mention a few defining characteristics:
- An inspiring senior management
- Empowered employees
- A distinctive corporate culture
- A focus on talent development
- Consistency of management practices
 But, at the end of the day, in becoming an employer of
choice, the No. 1 objective is to engage employees... or to
improve their engagement level.
Page 3 sur 12
 Engaged employees adopt the three following behaviours:
- SAY: They talk about the organization in positive terms.
- STAY: They demonstrate a strong desire to remain in the
organization.
- SURPASS: They are willing to go the extra mile to
achieve the objectives of the organization.
4 steps to become an Employer of Choice
 That being said, how does one become an Employer of
Choice? Generally speaking, there are four main steps
organizations traditionally take on their journey:
Page 4 sur 12
1. Define the desired, “to be” situation.
2. Obtain a clear picture of the current situation, most often
via a survey.
3. Develop an action plan to address gaps between the “to be”
situation and the current situation.
4. Maintain the momentum.
Case Study – Aéroports de Montréal
 At Aéroports de Montréal, we have taken, or are in the
process of taking, a number of measures to achieve this
objective.
 The first step was to set the corporate objective of
becoming an Employer of Choice and obtain formal
approval by our Board of Directors.
Page 5 sur 12
 We then establish an employee steering committee
composed of 14 employees and HR staff and representing
all sectors and levels of the organization. Because it is the
employees themselves who say whether you are an
Employer of Choice or not, I want to stress the importance
of the Steering Committee. Its mandate is to:
- Be involved throughout the process and propose
strategies to ensure achievement of the objective.
- Ensure continued progress.
- Contribute to the development of the action plan.
- Participate in identifying priorities for action
 With the help of the Steering Committee, we then adopted
a “vision” of what we want to achieve together. The exact
wording is:
Page 6 sur 12
Aéroports de Montréal aspires to...
“Be an employer open to the world that leverages the
talents of its employees, promotes their autonomy and
recognizes their contribution while communicating in an
authentic way.”
 This vision was approved by our Executive Committee.
Employee Survey
 The next step was to conduct an initial employee survey
with a representative sample of employees. We believe in
the theory of small steps…We intend to eventually hold a
second survey among all our employees.
 The EOC survey was conducted by our consulting firm
Aon Hewitt among 180 employees (out of 650).
 Participation was on a voluntary and confidential basis.
Page 7 sur 12
 It consisted of a standard questionnaire asking employees
what they feel constitutes an Employer of Choice. This
included:
- 6 general statements related to engagement
- 21 general statements related to engagement elements
such as salary, benefits, recognition, work environment,
work-life balance, career opportunities, reputation of the
employer, etc.
- 1 to 15 secondary statements per engagement element
The survey results were then presented to all employees during
small group meetings. We were rather pleased by these initial
results as they showed we were not that far away from being an
Employer of Choice.
Page 8 sur 12
Action plan
 We prepared an action plan based on the employee
feedback and aligned with our goal of becoming an
Employer of Choice. The plan aims to:
- IMPROVE: Actions linked with engagement elements
that had a low score compared with those of the average
organizations benchmarked.
- STRENGTHEN: Actions linked to the engagement
elements that had a high score compared to those of the
average reference organizations.
 This requires being open to change and being able to
modify or abandon some existing practices in order to
adopt others.
 Communication is again very important at this stage.
Before implementing the plan, we made the action plan
public….
Page 9 sur 12
Branding
 An original branding was also developed for all
communications surrounding our Employer of Choice
initiative. This branding (only in French) links the
organization’s success to the employees’ contribution.
 Success is the over-riding goal of this initiative and it is in
the mutual interests of both the employer and employees.
 The talents of employees represent their contributions to
the organization and the organization wants to recognize
them as a key to success.
Conclusion
 In my view, there are a number critical elements required to
ensure a successful journey to becoming an Employer of
Choice. These include:
Page 10 sur 12
- Strong commitment from senior management to ensure
the organization becomes an Employer of Choice.
- Active employee involvement in the process.
- Frank and open communication between management
and employees at all times.
- Careful prioritization of actions to produce fast results
(quick wins)
- Good support from an experienced consulting firm
expert in this field.
 As an important player in the aviation industry, Aéroports
de Montréal is proud to be aiming high when it comes to
employee relations and working environment.
 We recognize the importance of becoming an Employer of
Choice and are actively working to achieve our goal.
Page 11 sur 12
 We believe that looking after your employees well is a winwin situation because they will, in turn, respect you and be
loyal to the company.
 The bottom line is better productivity among the staff and
better organizational results, plus a happier working
environment for all.
 Thank you.
Page 12 sur 12