REAP Be Local Awards Empowering Employees Leader Award Application

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1 REAP Be Local Awards Empowering Employees Leader Award Application At dogma, when you join the team, you become part of the family. This family is changing the lives of dogs. We are a team that believes we will accomplish more when we work together and understands that a group of passionate individuals can change the world. We are driven every day to ensure each individual dog in our care is being provided the best care and training possible, we aim to increase our knowledge through learning and continuing education, we support and work with the best team around and provide superior customer care to our clients. And we have fun while doing it! Living Wage: The increase to minimum wage had a great impact on dogma. Our entry level position was typically young people who had just graduated high school and were figuring out their career paths or waiting to go to University/College. We were always proud to pay a higher than minimum starting wage and a variety of exceptional employment perks. If team were interested in becoming dog trainers, we provided at 25%+ discount on our Dog Trainer Apprenticeship program and provided low monthly payment options to team. Our business is also based on a setting the standard for dog training and care, which requires us to have 30%+ more staff than at typical dog care facilities. The increase to minimum wage presented a variety of challenges, but was one that we supported, so we have worked hard to completely restructure our business and employee compensation to ensure we did not compromise our standards. Over the past three years, we have been able to provide a living wage and maintain our standards by elevating our day school training options for clients. We also made the decision that every team member at dogma who works hands on with the dogs will be a certified dog trainer. To do this, we are working hard to move our dogma Academy programs online to decrease the time to become certified, but still provide the same level of training and experience. We provide a free education to our team, improved our on-boarding process and completely revamped our compensation and advancement programs. On top of this, we invested in a custom software solution, which allows team to be more efficient, improves communication and relationships with our clients and minimizes tedious, but necessary, labour hours. This has not been an easy process, but we are proud of what we have accomplished. We have managed to increase our standards by being the only day school to have all team be certified dog trainers and provide full-time salaried work to dog trainers, and we have been able to improve our employee experience as well.

2 HR Practices: dogma takes a great deal of pride in the exceptional working environment we have created for all our team members and we are proud to offer the highest level of investment and perks for our team in our industry. Our team thrives on education and building on successes. We offer a variety of employment perks for all team members to show how much we value and appreciate all that they do for the dogs, our clients and their team. Life is too short to be stuck in a job that you hate. We provide an opportunity to work at a place who recognizes the value of each person s work, celebrates their successes, milestones, and supports their growth and rewards initiative and hard work. All while being able to be part of a movement that is improving the lives of dogs. We feel lucky to be able to do what we do and want to ensure we have fun doing it! Team Events These have always been a large part of how dogma rewards and celebrates with our team. We do multiple events each year to get everyone together and enjoy some time away from the busyness of the day to day operations at the facilities. We do things such as a yearly Team BBQ where we host the annual dogma Awards to recognize each team member. This event is also where the rock award get passed on. This was started by Megan Stanley and is a rock that represents someone who was strong support to dogma and the team that past year. It stays with that person for a year and they add an item to the rock before passing it on. Currently, we have a purple sparkly rock with googly eyes, a moustache and butterfly stickers. We also do Team Bowling which is a fun night where we go out to enjoy a drink and some fun games together (luckily no actual bowling skills are required). Every December we surprise the team with a new exciting activity for our company Christmas party and it s always a hoot for everyone who comes out! We encourage socializing and getting to know each other outside of work and continually look for team-building options throughout the year. Shout Outs Every day, week and month we see our amazing team members going above and beyond to ensure they do the best job possible on whatever task they may be working on. Too often in other companies, people go home and feel that no one noticed their hard work. dogma has several programs designed to ensure this never happens to our team members. We use our online Team Workplace to post about the great thing(s) the teams have accomplished so that everyone can share their appreciation and support for the person(s) involved. The power of positive reinforcement is truly amazing, and we firmly believe that its needed for everyone on all levels of the company. Initiative Program This is another way that dogma works hard to ensure team is always feeling inspired to, and appreciated for, going above and beyond expectations for a dog, a client or a team member. Team members earn WAGS from their peers, leadership team or clients for doing these great things and we track them each month. At the end of the month the WAGGER (person who earned the most wags) is given a shout out on dogma s public Facebook page and is given a surprise gift to show our gratitude and appreciation for all they have done for dogma. We also provide jackpot rewards throughout the month to acknowledge initiative and excellence in customer service or care for the dogs.

3 Continuing Education & Personal Growth dogma was built on the foundation of education and it is the core of everything we do as a business. Our team is made up of motivated individuals who are constantly looking to grow and expand their knowledge and further their skills. dogma is proud to offer many options for continuing education for all our team members. The longer a team member has been with the company the more we are able to do for them, but no one is ever left out. The education is often dog related but it by no means stops there. We offer leadership training, management training, one-on-one mentoring, life coaching and much more for our valued team members. Whatever they need to be more successful with their work, we will help with. This has included things such as language classes for a team member who was new to Canada and English was her second language. We offer quarterly BEST meetings where we sit down and set goals with team to help them be more successful in their job and follow the path they desire. Training Your Dog Another fantastic perk of working with the dogma team is that that team can take advantage of all of dogma s many day school and training programs for their own dog(s). This includes any seminars we host or any educational opportunities that may arise that you can take part in with your dog. We work hard to ensure our team dogs are treated like family and that they get all the care and training that they need. This helps their dogs to behave better, be happier, and teaches team even more about training them and dog behavior. It s a win-win situation. Open Communication and Support dogma is a company that is built on continual improvement and always striving to become better. We know that we accomplish this through a team effort in which everyone is not only responsible for maintaining our Standards of Excellence, but also in recognizing weaknesses and communicating how we can improve. We have a variety of ways for team to share their ideas on ways we can improve. We always want to hear this and will never take things personally or ignore their input. If an idea is not implemented, we promise that we will identify the reasons why or share when the idea will be reviewed for implementation. We never want team to feel frustrated or that they do not have the ability to improve something. We believe in open communication. This includes when it may be a conflict situation; we do not believe that conflict has to be a negative. Some of the ways team can share their ideas/feedback are through our weekly team meetings, online Team Workplace, anonymous suggestion box, through their BESTs, with their direct report or the ability to contact the owner, Megan Stanley, at any time. Open Door Policy We want our team to be happy and successful, to love being a part of something big and like they are changing the lives of dogs. To do this and ensure we listen to their feedback, we have created a variety of ways to ensure they have a clear direction within the company, feel supported, and have multiple ways to share feedback and feel valued. Some of the ways we do this are through yearly stay surveys where the team lets us know what we do well and what we can improve on. We also do yearly motivation surveys which enables them to share with us what keeps them happy, motivated and wanting to work at dogma. To ensure we are providing the best employee experience, they complete a twice-yearly manager feedback survey which provides them a way to share with us how their manager has helped to support them or ways that they can improve to help them even more. Our doors are always open, and we ensure we have ways for you to communicate and feel supported. Even More You don t have to earn your time off at dogma. We work as a team that supports each other and time off can be taken as long as it works with your team. There are no limits, as long as their time away does not add unnecessary stress to team or put the dogs at risk. We also know that your pets are part of the family. We offer a 20%+ discount for pet products to help minimize the cost of pet ownership for our team. At dogma, if a pet is in need, we will do whatever it takes to give team the time and assistance to help. We also offer paid bereavement for the loss of a pet. And to top it all off, we love to celebrate their milestones! We recognize birthdays and any meaningful personal events, and we celebrate each anniversary and reward the big ones such as a paid weekend in Banff to recognize 5 years.

4 Empowering Employees: Life is too short to not have fun every day. And why are we doing all of this if we are not having fun? There will be challenges, times of stress and hardships, but together we ensure we keep things positive and enjoyable for all. We have a big mission to accomplish, and cannot do so without our strong team, so we do everything we can to support and empower them. We want to drive change and make a difference, while loving every minute of it. We are proud to have a team of primarily females and have curated an employee experience that fosters growth, support and empowerment. We do this through a variety of ways and continually expand our offerings to our team. Personal Growth: On top of providing formal continuing education offerings, we have a full library that is free to our team. This library contains industry specific learning, but also books on personal growth and self-care. We help team to be the best they can be at work and in their personal lives. We have a strong focus on self-care and creating positive habits and provide continual resources to keep this in focus for all team. We do this through a weekly Monday Motivational post that is shared by Megan Stanley weekly for team. We have honest conversations on mental health, self-care, motivation and discipline. Megan also provides monthly updates via video to all team to ensure everyone is feeling a part of our bigger mission and goals and is a part of all that dogma does. Dogma has also become a founding member of ACE Class. This is a women s group that provides a variety of events and resources to help strengthen the connections and growth of women. It s about women empowering women. This membership allows all dogma team to participate in this incredible community. Leadership Training: On-the-job training at dogma goes far beyond just technical skills. We are creating the leaders of tomorrow and have developed a Top Dog LEAD (Leadership Exploration and Development) program for team interested in driving further change and seeking additional personal and professional growth. This group provides resources, mentorship and more to help develop team interesting in developing their leadership skills. This team also helps create the strategy and set the goals for dogma s growth. Additional Benefits: dogma provides individual spending account to all employees. This allows 100% coverage on health care needs, but also wellness programs. Everything from massage, to employee assistance to dental work is fully covered through this program. We have also set up a Group Financial Benefits with ATB where we had 90% enrolment by team. This program provides them with paid time to meet with a financial advisor and receive discounted banking services designed to provide the foundation of financial success through customized options and financial literacy education. This is an excellent option for our team as many are young and new to the world of personal finances. We advance and compensate team based on performance, commitment and hard work, not on duration or automatic raises. This helps foster an environment of disciplined and motivated individuals who know that working together to improve dogma and uphold our standards benefits all.

5 New Initiatives: Over the past 12 months, we introduced the free education to our team which equates to over $6000 dollars of certification. This is our commitment to provide the best education for our team to help launch their career as a professional dog trainer. We also recently joined the ACE Class and set up the Group Financial Services with ATB. Currently, we are looking at other spending account options so that we can include an allowance for pet care such as veterinarian costs or pet insurance. This past year, we implemented a comprehensive and clear team improvement process. We believe in the development of our team through coaching and do not want a work environment based on punitive measures. We follow the same philosophies that we do in our dog training and focus on positive reinforcement and empowerment. We encourage mistakes while learning and help team grow through their lessons and challenges. The team improvement process is designed to help team flourish and improve. Instead of the traditional process of being written up and put on final notices, we identify areas of growth and help team achieve those goals. There may be limited times that this process does not result in improvement, and the final step is paid decision-making leave. If employment at dogma is not a good fit, we want it to be a mutual and positive decision for both parties. This year we have seen an increase in team pregnancies. We recognize that this will be an on-going part of our team as the majority of them are young females. We provide whatever support we can to these individuals and are currently exploring options to further support our expecting and new mothers. We are brainstorming creative ways to help them in this exciting stage of their lives and provide them with a variety of career options to match the goals they have for their family.