For BASF, employee mental health is top of mind

In early 2020, Sean Cammaert, a member of the leadership team at BASF Canada Inc. and its new head of safety, began to witness how the COVID-19 lockdown was impacting employees. For the 163-year-old chemical company, safety was a core value, and Cammaert was concerned that occupational safety might suffer when employees couldn’t keep an eye on one another.

“It was then, the light bulb went on for me – we have to keep people mentally safe too, because they are alone and stressed out,” Cammaert says. “We did a mental fitness index survey that went out across the country from our Mississauga, Ont., headquarters to everyone from senior leadership to shop-floor employees. We quickly found a real call for more to be done around mental health and mental health awareness. Ever since, we have been going all-in to embed mental health awareness and psychological safety into our existing management systems.”

The first step was an effort to destigmatize mental health issues, according to occupational safety and industrial hygiene specialist Erika Harris, who has been involved in the company’s safety organization since joining BASF in 2016.

“In October 2021, Mental Health Awareness Month, we hosted two ‘grow and tell’ sessions, where employees who were comfortable could come forward to talk about their personal experience with mental health,” says Harris. In testimony that, in Cammaert’s words, “left no one with a dry eye,” attending employees heard from colleagues on everything from addiction to suicidal ideation and self-harm.

First, though, they heard from Harris. “During the pandemic, my family and I were struggling with our mental health and I didn’t feel I could communicate that to anyone because I was embarrassed and ashamed. But getting treatment through our Employee Family Assistance Program (EFAP) is what really got me through. It was very fresh in my life, and I talked about everything that my family had gone through because it was important that someone come forward, tell their story and show there were no work repercussions for it and, more importantly, that they are not alone.”

From top to bottom, the employee and management response to the mental health initiative has been overwhelmingly positive, and it continues to grow. What was a three-person Psychological Health and Safety Committee (Cammaert, Harris and BASF corporate nurse Theresa Umbenhower) in 2021 now has 24 members and the same budget as other company employee resource groups. The committee is in the midst of rolling out 13 training modules they created on workplace psychological factors.

There is robust financial support for mental health treatment from the EFAP for employees and their dependents. The psychological emphasis is now part of the company’s recruitment and retention strategies, referenced in the hiring process and job listings, where BASF assures prospective employees that it is committed to their physical and psychological safety.

For Cammaert, what really matters is that the committee’s work benefits both employees and company. “The more we dug into it, the more we saw that if we can protect employees psychologically and physically, the return to the organization is tenfold. Because they know you’re striving to keep them safe. And when people feel safe, they feel they can trust you, and when they feel they can trust you, they’re going to give back. Everything goes up from there.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top 100 Employers winners, published November 17, 2023 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

BASF’s digitalization is changing work and workforces

Ashwin Arakkal Koottapanakkal joined BASF Canada Inc. at its GTA headquarters in 2021 as part of the company’s strategy to drive digitalization and innovation and strengthen BASF’s competitiveness in the industry. AK, as the DevOps engineer in transportation management is known as, came for the cutting-edge and challenging work, using data and computing power to optimize BASF’s digital transformation.

“In transportation, we address questions like how we can track shipments in real time, how we can optimize multiple loads so they can be transported together in the same shipment, what planning tools we can utilize, and where we can generate additional revenue for the business,” says AK. “Delivering quality solutions to the business is our top priority.”

As is new ways of achieving them. “Working with teams from across the globe was an altogether new experience for me,” AK says, referring to his close collaboration with transportation teams throughout the 163-year-old chemical giant.

“I’d say that this has increased my productivity immensely,” he continues. “I start my work early in the morning to catch up with the global teams, and I get a lot done by noon, which also gives me more time with my family in the evening. We work with a lot of flexibility, moving into temporary, agile teams with the other hubs as the situation warrants. And being part of this just broadens your knowledge and perspective, letting you know what is happening in the other regions.”

There’s a similar benefit to working within BASF Canada’s GTA team, he says, “where we have people from 10 to 15 countries with their different perspectives and experience.”

Ensuring diversity in the workforce has been one of the key factors in making BASF Canada a driving force for digitalization, says Beatriz Gaytán Diaz, digital services manager. A 29-year company veteran who came from Mexico to BASF Canada in 2022, she lists the GTA’s advantages: “A hotspot for diverse tech talent, world-class universities, immigration policies for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) professionals – they’re all part of why Toronto is one of BASF’s new venues for collaboration,” says Gaytán.

“BASF Canada is fostering those venues, to jointly research, analyze and develop innovative solutions to pressing real-world challenges,” Gaytán says. Digitalization is one of BASF’s strategic pillars, and its business units are very focused on their digital transformation roadmaps - to better link the business units with IT and address customer needs.

As well, it’s focused “on continuing our journey to an inclusive culture at BASF,” adds Gaytán. “With talent coming from different cultures, we encourage them, via the employee resource groups, to link with employees of similar backgrounds and interests, to network within BASF.”

Along with solid benefits, including the $500 subsidy every five years for buying home-office furniture – because, says an appreciative AK, BASF “really cares about employees maintaining health and productivity at home” – the networking encouragement is part of the larger “footprint” BASF Canada wants to create, Gaytán says.

“We are currently working hard to position BASF as a brand in the marketplace to attract more tech talent. Talent is crucial for us, because we have to provide the right tools to smoothly transition BASF to a digital future.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Greater Toronto’s Top Employers winners, published December 5, 2023 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

Young hires bring more than expertise to BASF

When Wayne Barton began his career at BASF Canada Inc. over 25 years ago, he was focused on finding innovative solutions for farmers’ problems. But on his path to becoming a research and commercial development manager in the company’s agricultural solutions group, Barton says his horizons broadened.

“My team runs several small farms across the country to develop new technologies,” says Barton, “and we hire about 15 summer interns a year. I started to realize we were learning a lot and doing more, precisely because of the people joining the team, starting with those interns. It’s pretty rewarding to see them develop, learn and eventually start doing things you haven’t been able to do or wouldn’t have thought of doing.”

Nor is he alone among BASF managers in thinking that way, Barton adds. “We now have a whole team of people, young hires who have helped the organization become more people-focused. We realized we were getting a lot more than work from young people and developing young talent just became part of us – it’s a development culture now, right across BASF.”

Some of the summer interns eventually become part of BASF’s two-year professional development program (PDP) for recent graduates, which takes on two to four newcomers every year. There are two streams, technical and commercial, both of which rotate them through numerous work assignments in two distinct 12-month postings.

After the program is completed, the PDP graduates are placed in a permanent role in the organization to kick off the next step of their careers. It aims to prepare young talent for future leadership roles while familiarizing them with the company’s wide-ranging operations.

It certainly does that, says Calgary-based technical services specialist Rongrong Xiang, now in her second year as a regular BASF employee after two years as a PDP.

“I have licence plates from all three Prairie provinces,” she says, laughing. “I was living in Alberta when I was accepted and they sent me to Winkler, Manitoba, first and then Saskatoon the second year. Looking back, it was really good experience, because I got to see and learn a lot first-hand, like launching a product and having customer-facing moments.

“The PDP was amazing,” adds Xiang, whose master’s degree is in plant science. ”It was so good to learn how the business works. I think it’s pretty unique for BASF to have a role like that for fresh graduates.”

As for a workplace culture dedicated to development, that, too, was part of the experience for Xiang. “Managers here don’t care just about your work, but about your whole well-being,” she says. “It’s as much a mentorship as a development program. When I was on the technical side, my manager reached out to ask if I was interested in learning more about other functions, like the customer solutions team, and offered to connect me with their manager.”

Becoming a company focused on talent development is one part of a virtuous circle, Barton believes. “The more young people we hire, the more their values influence ours,” he says. “We have a growing diversity and inclusion culture and a focus on employee wellness. We are talking a lot internally about Indigenous reconciliation and what our role should be as a large Canadian employer.”

It’s an evolving alignment of values that benefits everyone, says Barton. “We see it pay off almost immediately. People are more apt to join, they’re more engaged, they provide more value, and we do better as an organization and can continue to build a better company culture that welcomes them.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada's Top Employers for Young People winners, published January 23, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.

At BASF, DEI is both a moral and a business imperative

When Marian Van Hoek, BASF Canada Inc. general counsel and chief compliance officer, recalls the events led by the Women in BASF employee resource group (ERG) while fundraising for breast cancer research, eating “15 or so desserts at 10 a.m.” is hard to forget.

However, it wasn’t the specifics of the baking competition, which she judged as part of CIBC’s annual Run for the Cure, that Van Hoek wanted to stress, but how deeply embedded ERGs are in BASF’s workplace culture.

“Our ERGs help achieve our diversity, equity and inclusion objectives,” says Van Hoek, executive sponsor for Women in BASF Canada, “but they also help create a wonderful company culture of engagement and belonging.”

Robustly supported by the 163-year-old, globe-spanning chemical company, the number of ERGs at BASF Canada now stands at 11, alongside two employee development groups (Toastmasters and Regional Marketing Council). The country-wide, employee-led ERGs have formed around a broad spectrum of identities, and many BASF employees are involved with more than one.

With a distinctive set of chosen names – such as ALLchemie: LGBTQ2+ and Allies at BASF or Emerging Professionals and Friends – all ERGs welcome allies. “The goal for us is inclusion, after all,” Van Hoek points out. “So, there is strong encouragement for all employees to participate in whichever groups they are passionate about.”

Anne Shore, a multi-business unit controlling liaison and 14-year BASF Canada employee, is a member of three ERGs: Women in BASF (where she is co-chair); ALLchemie; and AVID (Awareness of Visible and Invisible Disabilities), the newest group. “AVID is really important to me because I have a son who was diagnosed with an invisible disability,” Shore says. “Knowing the challenges that he went through and our family went through to overcome stigmas associated with that has motivated me to support my colleagues who may have a disability or who have family members with one.”

What matters as much as or more than the personal element to Shore is the way ERGs help her give back to the community. “At AVID I was asked if I could help do a site assessment for two colleagues joining from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital who were both in wheelchairs,” Shore says. “We thought our site, which was fairly new, was fully accessible.

“However, we found out there were some changes we needed to make to accommodate wheelchair users, like physically lowering the visitor registration podium and having an emergency evacuation chair available for each wheelchair user. This was an eye-opening experience and has allowed us to ensure we are inclusive and welcoming for any employee, guest or customer.”

Van Hoek agrees. “In 2023, when we had the Holland Bloorview Ready to Work Program participants as summer interns, it was a tremendous partnership for BASF as a company,” she says. “They provided very valuable insights into how we could continue improving both our workspaces and our culture to be even more inclusive and accessible.”

Shore has seen the same sort of positive results through all her ERG work, from organizing Run for the Cure events alongside all the Women in BASF chapters and leaders across Canada to collecting supplies for women’s shelters to mark National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on Dec. 6. “The ERGs offer those network and growth opportunities, and they also provide opportunities to give back to the community, which is something I really love.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Canada’s Best Diversity Employers winners, published March 5, 2024 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.