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BASF finds formula for family-friendly workplace
hen Judy Finlayson returned from a maternity leave to her job as a senior law clerk at BASF Canada, her elder daughter was just starting school. “I was able to make sure she adjusted well to kindergarten as I adjusted to working full time,” she says. It’s one of the perks of working for a family-friendly company and one of the things Finlayson especially values about her job.
For BASF Canada, helping employees to obtain that coveted work life balance is part of its strategy to attract top talent and create working conditions that allow staff to perform at their best. Flexible hours and allowing telecommuting two days a week, when feasible, are an important part of that policy.
“We really try to encourage both managers and employees to have a good, open discussion to see if we can make telecommuting work.” – Francois Paroyan, Director of HR & General Counsel
Finlayson works from home every Tuesday and, from time to time, on other occasions. “I get up at 5:30, sit down at my computer and get a lot of work done. I don’t have the distractions of the office.” Having sorted through the email and crossed items off her to-do list, she can then take time, as she did last Halloween, to help her daughters into their costumes, and drop them at school and daycare, along with their special holiday cupcakes. “We really try to encourage both
managers and employees to have a good, open discussion to see if we can make telecommuting work,” says Francois Paroyan, director of human resources and general counsel, as well as Finlayson’s boss. Since the policy was first instituted in 2008, he says the results have been very positive.
While Paroyan doesn’t have a fixed day to work from home, he regularly takes advantage of the policy’s flexibility, attending his sons’ hockey games and meetings at their schools. “He’s an extremely busy man, pulled in a million directions so that’s nice to see,” says Finlayson. Paroyan’s daughter took part in one of the company’s most unique benefits, the BASF Global Family Program, an international exchange where a child can stay with the family of a BASF employee in another country and vice-versa. BASF even covers the flight and insurance. Paroyan said his daughter had a fantastic time in Belgium and his family thoroughly enjoyed returning the favour. As the head of human resources, one of Paroyan’s current tasks is overseeing the company’s new diversity and inclusion efforts. Launched in 2013, the program aims to foster an open and inclusive environment where all employees can perform at their best. It also ensures that BASF Canada includes everyone in its quest to employ the best people in the market and meet the demographic challenge of retiring baby boomers. By encouraging senior level employees to get global experience (the current president of BASF Canada worked in Spain and Turkey before coming to Canada) and understand different cultures, the company has something of a head start. But it felt it needed
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to do more to attract people with different backgrounds, skill sets and experience. “If we can really harness that diversity, we feel we’ll come up with better solutions for our customers,” says Paroyan. In its initial phases, the diversity initiative has involved developing a road map, surveying employees to discover the make-up of the company, and setting up a diversity and inclusion council composed
of employees from different groups. Educating the Canadian leadership team and hiring managers is next on the agenda. In her role in the BASF compliance department, Finlayson deals regularly with a wide range of topics including diversity, ethics and the company code of conduct. “It’s nice to be part of a company that emphasizes important values rather than just sales figures,” she says.